New poll... no big deal...

[millwx]

A "new" national poll was just released... "new" because it's one of these polls that takes a week+ to be released.  It's not that new (June 6th-10th), and the results are not at all surprising.

It is somewhat reliable, though, as it was conducted by two pretty good firms... Public Opinion Strategies and Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research.  The results (and they pushed the leaners, thus the very low undecided total) were:  Bush 49%, Kerry 48%, Undecided/Other 2%.

This could easily be spun as good news for either side.  For the pro-Bush side... Bush is ahead, he is almost cracking the 50% threshold, and Nader was not included in the questioning - likely boosting Kerry's numbers.  For the pro-Kerry side... This was conducted during the Reaganathon where all the polls showed Bush getting a bump, but all the other polls - except Harris - have enough Nader respondents and undecideds so that the end result could work out to this 49/48 poll result... not bad at all for Reagan week.

FYI, my apologies if this is an old poll which has already been posted out here.  But, it has just been posted at one of the sites I visit (PollingReport), which is updated in a reasonably timely fashion, and I've not seen it posted out here before.  So, I presume it was just slow in being released.

[The Vorlon]

Never apologize.. It's ALWAYS ok to post a poll

The .pdf looks like it was ONLY done by Greeenburg, Quinlan, Rosner(D) - But thats ok, still a good firm.

Link to Greeenburg, Quinlan, Rosner / NPR Poll

Bush support still a bit firmer than Kerry's, but Kerry's support a good bit firmer in this survey than in others. - Good news for Kerry.

Terrorism helps Bush, Healthcare helps Kerry.

[millwx]

The .pdf looks like it was ONLY done by Greeenburg, Quinlan, Rosner(D) - But thats ok, still a good firm.

Thanks for the link, Vorlon!

It's quite academic and somewat pointless at this juncture (4+ months from the election), but I'm just curious on your opinion...  Which poll do you think is right, this one or Harris... or neither?  They were taken around the same time with reasonably similar samples, but rather starkly different results (Harris has a healthy 10% lead for Bush, GQR has a dead heat).

My own speculation is that, with Harris showing 6% Nader and GQR leaving him out... most of that would otherwise go to Kerry.  So, bumping Nader out of Harris might leave that poll at something like Bush 51%, Kerry 47%.  With that, the two polls are rather close.

The real problem is, is a poll with Nader or without Nader more accurate?  On the one hand, Nader is certain to sap some support from Kerry.  On the other hand, Nader won't be on the ballot everywhere... so in those states, head-to-head might be more accurate.  Makes for an extremely difficult analysis... head-to-head it looks like darned near a dead heat; but Bush is clearly ahead (and maybe by a fair margin!) in a three-way race.

[millwx]

Bush support still a bit firmer than Kerry's, but Kerry's support a good bit firmer in this survey than in others. - Good news for Kerry.

Actually, it looked to me like Kerry's support was stronger (albeit barely).  Maybe I read the PDF wrong.  But they asked the non-supporters of a candidate what the chances were that they would support that candidate... The numbers were almost identical except that 2% more Bush supporters indicated a "fair chance" they'd support Kerry than Kerry supports indicating a "fair chance" they'd support Bush.  Perhaps you're basing your comment on the "leaners"... which also makes sense...  2% "lean" Kerry, but only 1% "lean" Bush.  In that sense, yes, Bush's support is stronger.

An interesting thing I noticed... while the D/R/I breakdown looked reasonable, the sample voted 48-40 for Bush over Gore in 2000.  That should be encouraging to Kerry supporters as well... possibly indicating a modest pro-Bush sample skew.  Though perhaps not... the rest of their sampling questions looked like they had reasonable results, at least to my untrained eye.