I just looked at the regional breakdowns of the WaPo polls for August 3 and September 9 (the most recent). The August poll had Kerry up 50-44 and the September had Bush up by the same 50-44 margin. That's a 12 point swing in the race (Bush +6, Kerry -6). That doesn't seem out of line with my thoughts on the current state of the campaign. But looking at the regional breakdown gave some really funky results. Here they are (Bush-Kerry) along with the swing for Kerry:
East:
August: 34-59
September: 43-47
Swing: -21
Midwest:
August: 48-46
September: 53-42
Swing: -9
South:
August: 47-47
September: 56-37
Swing: -19
West:
August: 42-52
September: 39-57
Swing: +8
Two things (each of which may call the other into question). First, Bush's bounce seems concentrated in the South, where many of those votes will be lost in states that he was going to win anyway. Second, I find it hard to believe that while Kerry was losing votes relative to Bush in every other part of the country, he was actually moving further ahead in the West. I know that CA makes up a big chunk of the voters in this region, but I've seen no evidence of this kind of swing to Kerry.
Friday, September 10, 2004
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1 comment:
Re-check your #s and calculations in the post. If you are calculating the swing for Kerry as negative change for Kerry + positive change for Bush, your swing numbers don't add up on either the East or West.
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