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Presidential race tightening
17/09/2004 10:21 - (SA)
Washington - Fresh polls released on Thursday showed the bitter and volatile presidential race between George W Bush and John Kerry back to a dead heat as the two candidates stepped up their war of words over Iraq.
Surveys by the Pew Research Centre and Harris Interactive had Kerry wiping out a solid lead Bush forged with a month of attacks on his Democratic rival capped by the Republican national convention.
The Pew data showed the Massachusetts senator clawing his way back from a 12-point deficit among registered voters interviewed between September 8 and 10 to a 46-46% tie four days later.
A Harris poll of likely voters published in the Wall Street Journal had Kerry up 48-47%.
But although Bush's post-convention "bounce" appeared to be subsiding less than seven weeks before the November 2 election, the latest numbers still had some worrying news for Kerry.
Bush held a double-digit lead on his capacity to manage the Iraq crisis and led nearly two-to-one on combating terrorism, Pew said. If Kerry regained a six-point lead on the economy, it was still down from a 15-point margin in August.
The Pew poll also confirmed Kerry's backing was soft. Sixty-one percent of those backing the Democrat said they were more anti-Bush than pro-Kerry, while 78% of the president's supporters were positively pro-Bush.
Sixty percent of voters expected Bush to win a second four-year term, up from 44% in August. Even Democrats were pessimistic about Kerry's chances: the number predicting victory for him dropped from 66 to 43%.
Pew said the pool of uncertain voters had increased from 21 to 25% since June and suggested the presidential debates expected to begin in two weeks could be crucial with 61% of voters planning to tune in.
- AFP
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