Don't dismiss Newsweek

The post-debate Newsweek poll has found that President Bush's 11-point post-convention lead has evaporated and he now trails Senator Kerry by 2 points.

Conservatives are quick to note a striking difference between the two Newsweek polls, namely the number of Republicans and Democrats surveyed.

In the 9/1-9/2 poll, Newsweek surveyed

374 Republicans
303 Democrats
300 Independents

In the most recent poll, News week surveyed

345 Republicans
364 Democrats
270 Independents

No wonder the drop for Bush!

But unfortunately, that's not the whole story. When looking more closely at the data, it appears that Republican support eroded for Bush, Democratic support for Kerry inclined, and Independent voters moved away from Bush significantly.

To conserve some blog space, I put my analysis at http://betterbanter.com/articles/newsweek_poll.htm

The bottom line is that poll changes are significant, though less so than the networks would have you believe.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Predictions (Part II)

Hanson on the "nuisance"

"Their success is our failure."