President Bush has moved past Sen. John Kerry in three of the most hotly contested Midwestern battleground states despite continued doubts about the country’s direction and the president’s policies, new Los Angeles Times polls have found.
According to the surveys, Bush has opened leads within or close to the margin of error in Ohio, Wisconsin and Missouri–states at the top of both campaigns’ priority lists.
In Missouri, Bush leads among registered voters 46 percent to 44 percent; in Wisconsin he leads 48 percent to 44 percent; and in Ohio, the president holds a 49 percent to 44 percent advantage, the surveys found.
The Massachusetts senator trails Bush even though a majority of voters in all three states said the country is not better off because of Bush’s policies and “needs to move in a new direction.”
But while Bush is drawing support from virtually all the voters who back his policy direction, Kerry is attracting only about four-fifths or fewer of the voters in the three states who said they want a new course.
The Times Poll, supervised by director Susan Pinkus, contacted 507 registered voters in Ohio, 580 in Missouri and 512 in Wisconsin from Aug. 21-24. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for each state.
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In 2000, Al Gore carried Wisconsin by fewer than 6,000 votes; Bush won Missouri by almost 80,000 votes and Ohio by almost 167,000 votes.
All three states have attracted enormous spending on television ads.
Times polls in June showed Kerry and Bush tied in Wisconsin, Kerry holding a statistically insignificant 1-point advantage in Ohio and the president leading 48 percent to 42 percent in Missouri.
Wisconsin and Ohio are among three states where a group of anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans has run ads accusing him of lying to win his medals in Vietnam. The ads did not air in Missouri. Fully 56 percent of voters in Wisconsin and 58 percent in Ohio say they have seen the ads from Swift Boats Veterans for Truth, compared with 48 percent nationally.
A majority of the voters surveyed in each state rejected the allegations that Kerry had misrepresented his service record. Those charges have been forcefully challenged over the past week by a succession of eyewitness accounts and official documents mostly confirming Kerry’s version of events. But many voters remain uncertain.
In Wisconsin, 55 percent of voters said they thought Kerry had earned his medals, while 16 percent believed he had misrepresented his service; the rest were either unsure or unaware of the controversy. In Missouri, 54 percent said they accepted Kerry’s version, 17 percent sided with the critics. In Ohio, the balance didn’t tilt quite as strongly for Kerry, but even there 51 percent said they accepted his version while 20 percent did not.
Nationwide, Bush led Kerry in the presidential race for the first time this year in a Los Angeles Times survey. Bush drew 49 percent among registered voters, compared with 46 percent for the Democrat. In a Times Poll just before the Democratic convention last month, Kerry held a 2 percentage point advantage over Bush. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The survey also was done Aug. 21-24.
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Bush gains in polls
Los Angeles Times polls released this week show President Bush slightly ahead of John Kerry in three states and nationwide.
MISSOURI
Bush 46%
Kerry 44%
Other/don’t know 10%
OHIO
Bush 49%
Kerry 44%
Other/don’t know 7%
WISCONSIN
Bush 48%
Kerry 44%
Other/don’t know 8%
NATIONWIDE
Bush 49%
Kerry 46%
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Other/don’t know 5%
Source: Results from a Los Angeles Times poll of 1,352 registered voters nationwide, and 580 in Missouri, 507 in Ohio and 512 in Wisconsin, conducted Aug. 21-24.
The margin of error is +/-3 percentage points nationwide
and +/-4 percentage points for each state.
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