New Battleground Poll (Goeas & Lake)

[Hegemon]

The latest Battleground poll done by Ed Goeas and Celinda Lake has been released, showing Kerry leading Bush 44%-43 in the "unaided" question  (no candidate names given by the pollster;  the respondent must volunteer the name of the candidate they support).  

Kerry leads Bush 49%-47% in the traditional "aided" question (candidiate names read by the pollster).

The poll was conducted August 15-17, so it may not reflect the effects of the swift boat controversy.  The 1000 likely voter sample was evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, each with 43%.  

Summary with charts:

http://www.tarrance.com/battleground/082604/Battleground_Charts.pdf

Internals:

http://www.tarrance.com/battleground/082604/Battleground.pdf

[The Vorlon]

August 15-17.

Funny how fast this campaign is moving... poll is already "old"

As always, this is a poll worth reading in detail.

[CARLHAYDEN]

The poll seems to be generally sound, but has a couple of jarring inconsistencies which I am at this time unable to explain.

First, in questions 31 (leadership), 34 (honesty), 35 (says what he believes), 36 (consistency) and 37 (has a plan), Kerry does FAR better in this poll that in ANY I have seen to date.

Second, although 60% of respondents in the poll label themselves as conservatives, Kerry pulls a plurality of the vote?!?  Again, never seen this in ANY other poll.