And Zogby Makes It A Trifecta
When even the Zogby Poll, long criticized as being loaded toward Democrats (and thus inaccurate), says things are looking up for Republicans, well, it truly is a good Friday for the Grand Ol’ Party:
Following an aggressive media blitz, the latest Zogby America poll finds the standing of President Bush and congressional Republicans climbing as the November elections rapidly approach.
The telephone survey was conducted Sept. 12-14, 2006, included 1,034 respondents, and carries a margin of error of +/– 3.1 percentage points.
The poll contains good news for congressional Republicans battling a strong Democratic push to retake the House and Senate. While Republican congressional candidates trailed their Democratic counterparts in the “generic ballot” question by a 39% to 31% margin a month ago, today they have whittled the Democrats’ lead to just three points, 37% to 34%.
Coming on the heels of a series of policy speeches culminating in a Sept. 11 address to the nation outlining the President’s vision for domestic anti-terror programs and the War in Iraq, the Zogby survey shows President Bush’s standing has increased five points since mid-August, when just 34% of voters rated him positively. Bush had previously risen to 37% in a Sept. 5 Zogby America poll.
Clearly, we’ve got a bit of momentum going; we’ve got to keep hitting hard. If Ken Mehlman pulls this one out, he’ll truly have a spot in the political Hall of Fame…
Related: A change in the polls.
Actually, the Zogby poll would have been dead on if they had simply reported the raw data (Bush 49, Kerry 46, therefore Bush up by 3). Instead Zogby arbitrarily re-assigned all undecideds into the Kerry camp and re-adjusted the poll to give us the infamous prediction of Kerry, 51-49.
There’s only one poll I care about. The day Kos decides to pull out of his expectations-game funk and start saying things are looking good for the Democrats is the day I’ll be sure the Republicans will hold on to both chambers.