Bush And Kerry Are Deadlocked Again Heading Into First
Debate On Thursday
IBD Staff
Investor's Business Daily - September 29, 2004
The race for the White
House once again appears to be a dead heat, with Americans evenly split
between those who would re-elect President Bush and those who want Sen.
John Kerry.
The latest IBD/TIPP poll,
conducted Sept. 22 to 27, shows Bush and Kerry each with 45% in a three-way
race among likely voters. Independent Ralph Nader gets just 2%.
Removing Nader from the
mix, Kerry leads 46%-45%. Among registered voters, both get 44%.
An earlier IBD/TIPP poll,
conducted Sept. 14-18, showed Bush with a 3-point lead over Kerry in
a three-way race or head to head.
That seemed to coincide
with the scandal at CBS News. The news organization was forced to apologize
for a critical report on Bush's National Guard service after it was
revealed the report was based on forged documents.
Several other polls still
show Bush with a lead. Real Clear Politics' average Bush lead is now
5.6 points in a three-way race, down only slightly from a week earlier.
Troubles
In Iraq
Bush encountered problems
from Iraq. First, two American civil engineers, Jack Hensley and Eugene
Armstrong, were decapitated by terrorists in Iraq.
Then U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan called the war "illegal." Terrorists followed by
ratcheting up the violence in Iraq.
The latest poll shows Kerry
closing last week's gap and also making gains among independent voters
(+8), in battleground states (+6) and with investors (+4).
"What we are seeing
is a seesaw effect, where Bush's gains one week are wiped away the next
by events that are at times beyond his control," said Raghavan
Mayur, president of TIPP, a unit of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence,
which conducts the poll.
Despite Iraqi Prime Minister
Ayad Allawi's recent visit to the White House, where both he and the
president talked about the progress made in Iraq, many Americans remain
worried.
"Allawi was pretty
optimistic on the situation in Iraq," said Mayur. "But many
in the media talked down his assessment, leaving Americans confused."
Bush's
Intense Support
Bush has one big strength:
His supporters strongly back him.
Among those who say they'll
vote for Kerry, 65% say they support him "strongly." For Bush,
the number is 79%.
"This gives Bush an
intrinsic advantage," Mayur said.
During this campaign, Bush
has repeatedly opened sizable leads over his Democratic foe. But those
leads haven't lasted.
Kerry and his supporters
have criticized Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq amid increasing car
bombings and kidnappings.
They've also questioned
the U.S. war in Afghanistan as that nation nears elections Oct. 9.
The rhetoric has become
heated.
Last week, Kerry accused
Bush of "outsourcing" the capture of Osama bin Laden to "Afghan
warlords, who let bin Laden slip away. That was the wrong choice."
Bush likely wasn't helped
when his secretary of state, Colin Powell, told ABC News the Iraq insurgency
seems to be "getting worse" in the run-up to January elections.
Nor have soaring oil prices
and Federal Reserve interest rate hikes helped, Mayur noted.
Crude topped $50 a barrel
as violence in oil-rich Iraq and Nigeria flared and U.S. offshore oil
facilities got hit by a series of devastating hurricanes. That's made
Americans feel less secure.
Presidential
Qualities
With the first of three
debates slated for Thursday, IBD/TIPP asked a special question of respondents
in this poll: What single characteristic is the most important for the
next president to have?
More than a quarter (26%)
said they want a "strong leader." One in five want a president
who has "good judgment in a crisis." Another 19% say "honesty"
and "trustworthiness" are key.
Just 13% prefer someone
who "understands complex issues." Ten percent say they want
"someone who cares about people like me," and 4% are focused
on "experience." Only 1% say the president needs to be "likeable."
Bush and Kerry tie in terms
of honesty and trustworthiness.
Republicans tend to focus
on "leadership" and "good judgment" as key presidential
attributes. Democrats put "honesty," "trustworthiness"
and "cares about people like me" on top of their wish list.
What about that key swing
bloc, independents?
"In terms of candidate
qualities, independents are nearly in step with Republicans," said
Mayur.
With an estimated 27% of
the electorate calling itself independent, this election may drive home
the growing power of that bloc of voters, Mayur said.
When IBD/TIPP asked Americans
who they thought would win, about half (49%) said Bush, while only 15%
said Kerry. Just 29% think it is still too close to call.
IBD/TIPP surveyed 1,000
adults nationwide. Of those, 907 were registered voters and 649 were
classified as likely voters. The margin of error for likely voters is
+/-4 percentage points and +/-3.3 for registered voters.
