Bush is Up 2% (3 way) or 1% (Head to Head) says new TIPP/IBD National Poll

[Smash255]

The media frenzy just reflects their enthusiasm for a good story.. the actual shift in the polls has been about 4% or so.  Bush was up 2% or so, he is now down 2% or so.

The fundementals of the race have not changed.

PREDICTION - Bush will be up 2 or 3 in the next round of National polls.

Just Released TIPP/IBD Poll

3 way Race

Bush 43 / Kerry 41 / Nader 7 (That would be Bush up 2 or 3? )

2 way Race

Bush 45 / Kerry 44

Most, but not all, interviews were conducted before the Death of President Reagan.

UPDATED:

CORRECTION !

I made a mistake when I "eyeballed" one of the internals.  The Dem/Rep/Ind split in this poll is about 33/35/32 which is darn close to dead on. (I should never have doubted these guys!)

Bush up by 4% among independants. (statistically insignifigant given small sample) But if true very good news.  The GOP typically holds it's base a bit better than the Dems do, so Kerry needs to win independants by about 6% to win the election.

Bush job approval is 45.7%

Kerry leads by 1% in "Battlegrounds" (statistically insignifigant given the small sample)

This poll has been added to Dave's polling section.

Dems 33 Reps 35???  How is that almost dead on.  Everything I have seen on voter registartion nationwide the Dems have a 3-4% advantage

[Smash255]

The media frenzy just reflects their enthusiasm for a good story.. the actual shift in the polls has been about 4% or so.  Bush was up 2% or so, he is now down 2% or so.

The fundementals of the race have not changed.

PREDICTION - Bush will be up 2 or 3 in the next round of National polls.

Just Released TIPP/IBD Poll

3 way Race

Bush 43 / Kerry 41 / Nader 7 (That would be Bush up 2 or 3? )

2 way Race

Bush 45 / Kerry 44

Most, but not all, interviews were conducted before the Death of President Reagan.

UPDATED:

CORRECTION !

I made a mistake when I "eyeballed" one of the internals.  The Dem/Rep/Ind split in this poll is about 33/35/32 which is darn close to dead on. (I should never have doubted these guys!)

Bush up by 4% among independants. (statistically insignifigant given small sample) But if true very good news.  The GOP typically holds it's base a bit better than the Dems do, so Kerry needs to win independants by about 6% to win the election.

Bush job approval is 45.7%

Kerry leads by 1% in "Battlegrounds" (statistically insignifigant given the small sample)

This poll has been added to Dave's polling section.

Dems 33 Reps 35???  How is that almost dead on.  Everything I have seen on voter registartion nationwide the Dems have a 3-4% advantage

A very common confusion.

You are mixing up "voter registration" with "party identification"

Some background:

There is no "official" national data on party ID.  It does not exist.  Some states, the largest of which is Texas (16,000,000 voters or so) do not even have people register by party ID. - hence there is no "official" ratio of Democrats to Republicans for national polls.

In addition, much of the data at the state level is "wrong" in the sense that it does not reflect how people think of them selves.

For example, in the South, "officially" the democrats still have a rather large voter registration advantage.  A lot of folks who registered as Democrats in 1976 and voted for Reagan twice, Bushes twice and a Dole in between, are still "officially" Democrats....

To use a famous example, John Kerry's wife was still registered as a Republican untill just last year.

If you do a survey and ask people what party the belong to, the result are not even close to the "official" state data.

To get around this problem, pollsters ask a softer fuzzier question.

I may have the wording very slightly wrong, but Gallup for example asks:

"Regardless of what party you may be registered to, do you generally think of yourself more of a [rotate] Democrat or more of a [rotate] Republican?"

Based on more than 40,000 interviews Gallup did in the past year, this question essentially produced a tie (I think the GOP "won" by 0.3% if I recall)

PEW, again over more than 20,000 interviews asked a similar question (with "independant as one of the options) and again got, within fractions of a %, a tie result.

When you see a GOP/DEM/IND breakdown in a poll it is NOT how they may in fact be actually registered, but rather what party they self identify with.  These are slightly different things.

Many voters are also a bit confused about this question when polled.  The guy in Alabama who is on the books as a Democrat but has voted GOP for 20 years gets asked what party does he belong to... he could give you either answer...

Because of this, there is a great deal of debate about if you should weight a poll using party ID or not.

Zogby, Battleground, CBS News, and Rasmussen are the only four that do a hard weight by party ID (all using different ratios I might add) The rest collect the data as a validity check, but do NOT actually adjust their quoted result based upon the party ID breakdown they collect.

It is this difference between actual hard "party registration" and "party identification" that often cause confusiion.

The best "guess" as to actual registration data is that the Dems indeed have about a 4% advantage, but in "party identification" it is essentially even.

Because of confusion in how people answer the question (ie defacto Republicans in the South who are "officially" democrats) most if the time a good survey will show a result about in the middle with the dems having a 2% advantage, or so..

Saying registration was probably a bad example, However Dems do have a slgitht advantage in voter identeity, but this poll Republicans have a slight advantage in Voter Identity, so how does that equate to this poll being very close in getting the voter Identity right??

[Smash255]

Aah ok then my mistake