CNN's poll shows that Kerry and Edwards lead Bush

[Nym90]

Well, you forgot about a couple major events--the GOP convention, which will help Bush, and the debates, which are anyone's guess, though Kerry did an excellent job by all accounts debating Bill Weld in 1996. And I don't see any particular reason to believe that the campaign will necessarily help Bush, what is your reasoning for this?

[Nym90]

It's not true that Bush hasn't been heard from lately. There was a little thing called the State of the Union address 2 weeks ago, and Bush got zero bounce out of that. That had the potential for a lot more impact nationally than Bush would have gotten by campaigning.

Gustaf--The convention of the incumbent party does usually provide a bounce, yes. Maybe not nearly as much as the convention of the party out of power since the challenger is not as well known beforehand and thus gets a boost in name ID as well, but the incumbents have historically gotten a decent boost from their conventions too.

[Nym90]

Remember these polls on Bush losing mean nothing. Polls said in 1984 that Mondale was ahead of Reagan. Reagan won almost all 50 states.

Mondale never lead Reagan in the calendar year of 1984 in Gallup polls.

Not only that, but if Bush does beat Kerry, it would mark the first time since 1948 that an incumbent president came from behind to win reelection after having trailed in ANY Gallup poll at any point over the course of the election year.

Not only Reagan in 1984, but also Clinton in 1996, Nixon in 1972, Johnson in 1964, and Eisenhower in 1956 all led their eventual November opponent in every single Gallup poll for the entire year of the election.

That's not necessarily all that relevant, but it's still something to ponder.

[Nym90]

Indeed, I would agree with that. What I meant was that it doesn't mean that Bush is guaranteed to lose or anything, since every race is unique, but it's still a clear cause of concern for Bush.

[Nym90]

I remember seeing it on Gallup's website once, but I can't remember how to get to them now. I'll poke around a little later and see if I can find the link.

[Nym90]

http://www.gallup.com/content/default.asp?ci=1210

That shows the "trend lines" for each election back to 1936 on the links over on the left. Also interesting to check out the link showing how accurate their final polls have been throughout the years.

I remember seeing somewhere on the site the actual numbers for each of the tracking polls for 1996 and 2000...the graphs are helpful, but don't give the actual numbers. I'll look for those too.

[Nym90]

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh2gen1.htm

There's every poll that was taken in the 2000 race, including all of Gallup's.

[Nym90]

The poll showing Dole ahead polled registered voters, not likely voters. That is the likely cause for the discrepancy. I should have qualified it then by saying that Clinton never trailed Dole in in 1996 in a Gallup poll of likely voters.