Zogby Interactive: Presidential Election a Dead Heat

National average tells another story

Much ado this morning about the latest Zogby poll:

The race for President of the United States continued to tighten during the last two weeks, as President Bush continued his long, hard slog back toward parity with Democratic challenger John Kerry, throwing the race into a virtual dead heat, the latest package of polls by Zogby interactive shows.

Now this may offer courage to some (I personally put a lot of stock in Zogby polling and methodology), but let’s take a look at the national composite.

Real Clear Politics offers a very damning conclusion for Kerry hopefuls. National averages show Bush with a 6% lead over Kerry. What’s more interesting is if you check out the previous poll numbers. Just last week, Pew Research was offering Bush a 16% lead over Kerry; magically that number has dropped to a 1% lead this week. Ironically, CBS News polling has shown a consistent lead of 7-9 points.

So who do we believe? I’d go with the 6%, but trending towards Zogby. After the presidential debates, I think we will see a new John Kerry, and attention spans in America only being two weeks long, it won’t take long for the Dems to reinvigorate themselves. . . if and only if the infighting in the Kerry campaign stops and brings the Clinton operatives to the forefront. We shall see.