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Kerry stumbles in key states as Bush widens lead in polls Julian Borger in Washington Tuesday September 14 2004 The Guardian
John Kerry has fallen behind in the three biggest swing states - Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio - which pollsters from both parties believe will be the key to the US presidential election, it emerged yesterday.
Polling figures suggest that George Bush's surge in support after the Republican convention has settled into a significant lead, confronting John Kerry with difficult tactical choices as he battles to regain the initiative.
A poll by Time magazine showed the president on 52%, with the Democratic challenger on 41%. This is as wide a lead as Mr Bush enjoyed in the immediate aftermath of the New York convention. Newsweek magazine, however, found the Bush margin had diminished to six percentage points in the past week.
To some extent, the varying results reflect differing polling methods. Time based its results on likely voters, identified by a number of questions on their voting background and intentions. The Newsweek survey looked at all registered voters.
But the common theme is that the president's advantage has outlasted the hoopla of the Republican rally. The trend is also moving against Mr Kerry in the most closely-contested swing states.
The conventional wisdom among pollsters in both camps has been that whoever wins two out of the three biggest swing states - Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio - will win the election. Mr Kerry is currently behind in all three: Ohio by eight percentage points, Florida by four points, and Pennsylvania by one point.
"It's clear this is more than a 'bounce'," said Andrew Kohut, the head of the Pew Research Centre, an independent polling organisation in Washington.
"Kerry has clearly underperformed. He's lost the first round, but the question becomes, how stable is the Bush lead - and we don't know that yet. There are still a lot of variables, like what happens in Iraq and the candidates' performance in the debates, so there are still opportunities for Kerry."
However, over the past two weeks, there has been a shift in voters' perceptions of both candidates. More than half of the US electorate now has a favourable opinion of Mr Bush, according to the Newsweek survey. Meanwhile, Mr Kerry's favourable ratings, at 48%, have yet to recover from the battering he suffered from Republican speakers at the convention.
The polling results have also shown that the Republican convention "reset" the election agenda, at least for now. Terrorism has become the top issue for voters, displacing concerns about the economy and healthcare, which took precedence until August.
The nationwide shift in public opinion has been reflected in the roughly 20 swing states where the daily battle is being fought.
States like Virginia, Arizona and Missouri, where Mr Kerry believed he had a serious chance a month ago, now appear to be solidly behind the president, potentially gaining Mr Bush crucial votes in the 538-seat electoral college that formally picks the president after the election.
In the light of all the latest state polls, the bloc of states backing the president accounted for 168 electoral college votes, and the states solidly behind Mr Kerry carried 146, with 224 votes up for grabs - from states that were either tied or where the margin between the candidates was less than the margin of error. A total of 270 votes is required to win.
The Kerry campaign is focusing its advertising expenditure on a smaller and smaller group of states, and has committed itself to regaining the initiative in Ohio, where it believes high unemployment should make it open to Mr Kerry's job creation ideas and other social spending programmes.
However, that takes money away from the defence of traditionally Democratic states such as Wisconsin, Iowa, Washington and Oregon, where the president is making a serious challenge, and which are too close to call.
The Kerry camp insists that the battle is far from over. Much bigger leads have been overturned in the last 50 days of a campaign, and the debates can be decisive in a tight race. The Kerry campaign has agreed to all three presidential debates suggested by a public commission, starting at the end of this month. The Bush negotiating team is arguing for just two.
For Democrats, the persistently hopeful sign to emerge from all the polling data is that America remains a disgruntled country. In the Newsweek survey, 53% of voters said they were dissatisfied with "the way things are going" in the US. Only 39% said they were satisfied.
Faced with that widespread discontent, both candidates are marketing themselves as agents of change - a normal strategy for a challenger, but a harder task for an incumbent with four years in office behind him. Nevertheless, Mr Bush is attempting the gambit, repeatedly describing his agenda as a response to "changing times" - and his opponent's platform as "more of the same".
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