Time Magazine, which had the presidential race a dead heat a week ago, now says that George Bush is pulling away from John Kerry with a 5-point lead:

President Bush has opened a 5 point lead against Senator John Kerry, according the latest TIME poll. If the 2004 election for President were held today, 51% of likely voters surveyed would vote for President George W. Bush, 46% would vote for Senator John Kerry, and 2% would vote for Ralph Nader, according to the TIME poll conducted by telephone from Oct. 19 – 21. Among all registered voters surveyed, Bush leads Kerry 50% to 43%.

Last week’s TIME poll found 48% of likely voters would vote for Bush, 47% would vote for Kerry, and 3% would vote for Nader. That poll was conducted Oct. 14-15 and included 865 likely voters.

The internals on this poll look just as bad. Kerry lost ground on most of the issues as well as the overall number, going backward on the economy (-3, Bush up 46-45), health care (-5, Kerry up 46-42), and terrorism (-3, Bush up 56-37). Bush now ties Kerry among women, where Kerry had an eight-point lead in last week's poll, which I thought was inaccurate at the time.

As I wrote earlier, make sure you check the sample and the methodology. Time's sample looks solid; they've evenly polled Democrats and Republicans at 35%, about the correct demographic for likely voters. Among registered voters, Time actually polls more Democrats but comes up with a wider gap for Bush at 7%.

The momentum continues ...

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This is the fourteenth in a series focusing on our continuing exclusive feature, Tony Bauco's analysis of all the state polls. No change to the electoral college calculation today. As usual, we'll start with Tony's comments: Another flurry of polls f... [Read More]

Tracked on October 23, 2004 1:17 PM