Emory University News Release

Release date: Sept. 7, 2004

National Poll Analysis Raises Questions About Bush Lead

Contact:
Elaine Justice, 404-727-0643, elaine.justice@emory.edu
Deb Hammacher, 404-727-0644, deb.hammacher@emory.edu

Although the latest Gallup Poll shows President George W. Bush ahead of Sen. John Kerry, an analysis of the poll by Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz, based on the results of other recent national surveys, indicates that Kerry may actually be ahead.

The Gallup results -- released Monday and the first national poll since the Republican National Convention ended -- shows Bush ahead of Kerry by 52 to 45 percent among likely voters, but by only 49 to 48 percent among registered voters. Based on the numbers of registered and likely voters in the poll sample, Gallup is projecting that 89 percent of Bush supporters will vote but only 79 percent of Kerry supporters will vote, Abramowitz says.

"That seems unrealistic. It is way out of line with data from the American National Election Studies on turnout among registered Democrats and Republicans in recent elections," he says. For the past three presidential elections, the turnout gap between Republicans and Democrats has averaged 3 percentage points and was never larger than 4 percentage points. The smallest gap was in 1992 (one point) -- the election with the highest overall turnout. "Assuming that 2004 will be another relatively high turnout election, we should probably expect a relatively small turnout gap, similar to 1992."

Among registered voters, Gallup shows Bush leading by one point overall, with Kerry leading 90 to 7 percent among Democrats, Bush leading 90 to 7 percent among Republicans, and Kerry leading 49-46 percent among independents.

"This means that Gallup's sample of registered voters includes more Republican identifiers than Democratic identifiers. But in 2000, according to the Voter News Service national exit poll -- which hits the overall percentages for Bush and Gore right on the nose -- Democrats made up 40.3 percent of the electorate while Republicans made up only 36.5 percent of the electorate," Abramowtiz says. "If you apply Gallup's trial heat results among Democrats, independents and Republicans to the VNS 2000 electorate, Kerry comes out with a four point lead: 50.3 percent to Bush's 46.4 percent."

Abramowitz is the Alben Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory and an expert on national elections. Contact him at 404-727-0108 or alan.abramowitz@emory.edu.

For more political news, visit Emory's election news page.