Rasmussen Poll: 49% Would Consider Voting for Kerry
This poll is very interesting.
For some time everyone's been wondering: Since Bush's poll numbers have slipped so dramatically (and, for him, so dangerously), why isn't Kerry ahead in the polls?
Maybe this answers that question:
June 1, 2004--Fifty-four percent (54%) of American voters say that they would consider voting for George W. Bush under certain circumstances. A Rasmussen Reports survey of 2,000 Likely Voters finds that 39% will not vote for the President under any circumstances.
As for Senator Kerry, 49% say they would consider voting for him while 39% definitely would not.
These results come at a time when the candidates have been locked in a dead heat for months. Ninety-one percent (91%) of those who would consider voting for Kerry already plan to vote for him. Just 3% of those who would consider Kerry are currently planning to vote for Bush.
However, just 81% of those who would consider voting for Bush are planning to vote for him at this time. Another 10% of these potential supporters are currently planning to vote for Kerry.
In other words, the more people who would consider voting for Kerry are already planning on voting for him.
Which is actually good news for Bush. He's got more upside. Kerry's getting 91% of those inclined to vote for him, while Bush is only getting 81% of those inclined to vote for him. Kerry can add another 9% of those inclined to vote for him, Bush double that. And a bigger absolute number of folks could possibly vote for Bush, too.
Plus, there's the obvious: If only 49% say they'd even consider voting for John Kerry, his ceiling can't be much higher than 49%. Yes, things could change, of course; but he'd need them to change. He can't easily win an election when, on his best possible day, he can only garner a minority of the votes. He could win, of course; but it's tricky.
Now here's a real shock that not only throws conventional wisdom out the window, it then jumps out the window as well in order to shout homophobic obsenities at conventional wisdom as it plunges to the street:
However, among those who are currently undecided, 64% would consider voting for Bush and 48% would consider voting for Kerry. These figures challenge the conventional wisdom that undecideds will break for the challenger.
For some time I've thought that Bush's low approval ratings might be indicative of voters' current sentiments -- "You're kinda screwing things up, George" -- but not actually indicative of their voting inclinations. I thought that because Kerry couldn't seem to gain on Bush even at the worst bad-news cycle of his Presidency. These findings would seem to be additional evidence for that.