Newsweek National Poll Puts Kerry Over Bush

Sun January 25, 2004 02:59 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new national poll by Newsweek magazine showed on
Sunday the surging Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts topping
President Bush in an election matchup.

The poll, conducted Jan. 22-23, showed Kerry commanding 30 percent of
support from registered Democrats, up from 11 percent two weeks ago.

*And for first time in the poll's history a Democrat enjoyed a marginal
advantage over Bush, with Kerry garnering a 3-point lead over the
president, Newsweek said.*

Forty-nine percent of registered voters chose Kerry, compared to 46
percent favoring Bush.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the Democratic front-runner until his
dismal third-place showing in last week's Iowa caucuses, saw his support
among registered and likely Democratic voters cut in half, to 12 percent.

That put Dean in a three-way tie for second place in Tuesday's New
Hampshire primary with retired Gen. Wesley Clark, 12 percent, and U.S.
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, with 13 percent.

Bush saw his approval rating drop among registered voters to 50 percent
versus 44 percent who disapprove, despite his having delivered a State
of the Union address last Tuesday.

And more people said they were dissatisfied, 52 percent, than satisfied,
43 percent, with the way things were going in the United States, the
poll said.

The Princeton Survey Research Associates poll interviewed 1,006 adults
by telephone. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.


Early polls don't mean much, of course, but this one is at least fun.
And it is a predictor of Bush Behavior over the next 10 months.

The question is, of course, when will Karl Rove fly Osama from the Bush
Ranch in Texas, where he's been vacationing, to Afghanistan, where he
can be discovered, along with a huge caches of WMD now being assembled
in Colorado?