Outside the Beltway

Battleground States Polls

James Joyner · Wednesday, October 6, 2004 · 1 comment

TRACKING THE BATTLEGROUND STATES (Ron Gunzberger, Politics1)

MISSOURI (KSDK-TV/SurveyUSA): Bush-49%, Kerry-47%. Kerry has considerably narrowed the gap here.

NEW HAMPSHIRE (Univ of NH): Bush-50%, Kerry-45%. Bush retakes see-sawing lead.

NORTH CAROLINA (WBTV-TV/SurveyUSA): Bush-52%, Kerry-45%. Despite “favorite son” Edwards as the VP candidate, Bush still holds a decent lead.

OHIO (WKYC-TV/SurveyUSA): Kerry-49%, Bush-48%. Kerry has trailed in most recent Ohio polls.

WASHINGTON (KING-TV/SurveyUSA): Kerry-54%, Bush-43%. Kerry continues to hold a comfortable edge.

I think it’s safe to say that Washington isn’t really a “swing state” and never really was. I’m dubious of the Missouri numbers here as well, as they seem to be an outlier. RealClear Politics still shows Bush with a 6.7% lead, although his three polls are older. More revealing, the Kerry camp seems to think so, too:

The Kerry campaign announced Wednesday it was canceling television ads scheduled to start running on Oct. 5 in Arizona, Missouri, Louisiana and Arkansas after campaign advisers concluded he wasn’t doing well enough in those states to justify the cost.

My guess is that, of the above states in contention, Kerry will concentrate his efforts in Ohio and New Hampshire. Indeed, it’s hard to conceive of him winning the election without Ohio.