Gallup shows Bush is a historically polarizing president: Six in 10 Republicans strongly approve; 6 in 10 Democrats strongly disapprove of his performance.
A CBS News poll shows Kerry is ahead of Bush among registered voters, 49 to 41 percent. CBS also surveyed veterans and says they favor Bush 54 to 40 percent, but the sample is so small -- 170 veterans -- the margin of error would be much higher for the subset than for the entire sample of 1,000-plus voters, which has a sampling error of +/- 3 percent. Unfortunately, the CBS poll explanation doesn't say how much higher. [Update: Of course, War Room's readers are not as statistically challenged as I. A few have written to point out how really quite easy it is to calculate a margin of error (If my statistics professor from grad school is reading this, forgive me.) One reader explains: "Assuming that the sample was chosen randomly, there will always be an uncertainty that is n^(-1/2) [in other words, one over the square root of n], where "n" is the number of samples taken. ... Since there were 170 veteran respondents in this case, the square root is around 13. The reciprocal of that is about 0.077, which is 7.7%. So the margin of error for the veteran subsample is 1 7.7%." Thanks everyone. Now, moving on.]
Polls show the U.S. Catholic vote split between born-again George W. Bush and the first Catholic presidential candidate on a major party ticket since JFK, John F. Kerry.
Rasmussen Reports' latest state polls, from Political Wire:
Oregon: Bush 46% Kerry 45%
Missouri: Bush 44% Kerry 43%
Georgia: Bush 51% Kerry 39%
Illinois: Kerry 54% Bush 38%
Ohio: Bush 46% Kerry 44%
California: Kerry 49% Bush 41%
Texas: Bush 55% Kerry 38%
New York: Kerry 57% Bush 34%
Also gathered by Political Wire: In Michigan, a new Survey USA poll shows Kerry leading Bush 47% to 43%.
In Connecticut, Kerry tops Bush 46% to 36%, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released today. Ralph Nader gets 8%.
In North Carolina, the latest Rasmussen Reports survey finds Bush with 48% and Kerry with 44%.
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