Battlegrounds States Poll - August 2, 2004

Overview

John Kerry saw slightly stronger support among likely voters in 16
battleground states during the Democratic National Convention, according
to the latest Zogby Interactive poll. Mr. Kerry now leads in 13 states,
up from the 12 states he held a week ago, while President Bush leads in
three states.

The latest poll, conducted July 26-30, was conducted simultaneously with
the convention, though some voters were polled before Mr. Kerry's
acceptance speech. Mr. Kerry's slight post-convention boost is what
pollster John Zogby said he expected. Only a slim margin of voters is
undecided, he says, so the conventions aren't likely to cause major
swings of support. "The president will get a small bump but -- like
Kerry -- not a big one. There is just not enough give this year," Mr.
Zogby says.

The leads Messrs. Bush and Kerry hold in 11 of the 16 states are within
the margin of error, which varies between +/- 2.5 and +/- 4.4 percentage
points. Of the 13 states in which Mr. Kerry is in the lead, all but five
are within the margin of error. Mr. Bush's top spots, in three states
(Arkansas, Nevada and Ohio), are all within the margin of error. For
analysis of how this could play out in the Electoral College,
info-battleground04-an0726.html click here.

Presuming that all the states go to the current leading candidates and
that the other 34 states go as they did in the 2000 election, Mr. Bush
would get 220 votes in the Electoral College and Mr. Kerry would get
318. Excluding the 32 total electoral votes from four states considered
too close to call, Mr. Bush would get 215 votes and Mr. Kerry, 291.

Ralph Nader, who is fighting to get on state ballots as an independent
candidate, struggled in the latest poll. His best showing was 2.3% of
voters polled in New Hampshire, while the results from eight of the
remaining 15 states showed him at less than 1%. In July, he snagged 5.9%
of the voters polled in Nevada, and 4.4% in Arkansas. Over the weekend,
Mr. Nader made it onto his second state ballot, New Jersey (earlier,
he'd only qualified for Nevada), but he is having trouble in other key
states.

The polls were conducted by Zogby Interactive, a division of Zogby
International, which is conducting online polls twice a month through
Election Day in states selected with The Wall Street Journal Online.
Demographic information submitted by participants in the polls is
spot-checked to help prevent fraud, and the results are weighted to make
them representative of each state's overall voting population.

The margin of error varies from state to state depending on the number
of participants in each state. It ranges between +/- 2.5 and +/- 4.4
percentage points. Number of survey respondents: Arkansas, 503; Florida,
1,587; Iowa, 497; Michigan, 1,022; Minnesota, 652; Missouri, 949;
Nevada, 505; New Hampshire, 552; New Mexico, 494; Ohio, 1,571; Oregon,
644; Pennsylvania, 932; Tennessee, 821; Washington, 1,162; West
Virginia, 517; Wisconsin, 634.
--
"There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in
Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me -
you can't get fooled again." -George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept.
17, 2002