A new Washington Post/ABC News poll out today indicates that young voters have become lopsidedly pro-Kerry over the last several months. Taken just after the Democratic National Convention, the poll shows registered voters aged 18 to 29 choosing Kerry over Bush by a 2 to 1 margin. This is especially bad news for the president, who split the youth vote almost evenly with Al Gore in 2000. The Post reports that a pre-convention Newsweek poll gave Kerry a 51 to 32 percent edge in the same age group, and a post-convention CBS/New York Times poll was almost identical with 50 percent for Kerry and 31 percent for Bush.
The Associated Press reports that a local state poll in Michigan shows Kerry leading Bush in a two-way match up, 49 percent to 42 percent. Gore won the battleground in 2000 with a heavy union-backed push in the days before the election. But wait to see if the Kerry lead shows up in other polls before putting Michigan firmly in the Blue column.
Fresh Gallup data on American perceptions of the nation's economic health indicate that residents of Red states are more likely to feel optimistic about the economy than their Blue-state counterparts. And what about swing states? They're in the middle, of course. The gap between Red and Blue state views on the economy is also the widest it has been this year, according to Gallup's analysis.
The Economist's latest horserace poll shows Kerry with a slim lead over Bush, 48 to 44 percent. The margin of error is 2 percent. The results are statistically indistinguishable from the Economist's first post-convention poll; Kerry maintains a small, 3-point post-convention bounce.
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