New LA Times Poll

The LA Times has a new poll tonight and, overall, it's pretty bad news for Bush. He's trailing Kerry 51-44, the first time I've seen Kerry over 50 percent since just after he captured the Democratic nomination. Even with Nader in the race, Kerry leads by 6 points, 48-42. Both results are outside of the margin of error (+/- 3)

Kerry is also starting to catch up to Bush on questions like whether he'd be a strong leader and nearly 60 percent in the poll thought the country was on the wrong track, the highest ever since Bush become president.

The poll was conducted from Saturday to Tuesday, a time that should have been pretty good for Bush--he was visiting Normandy, the Iraq transition was going well, and the country was awash in Reagan nostalgia.

The only silver linings for Bush are that his overall approval rating is 50 percent and he's running well against Kerry in the swing states of Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, the LA Times didn't include a detailed breakdown of the questions.