Snapshot Pre-D-Convention

Over the last couple weeks, I have been looking through the details in nine polls (the ones I don't mention are not willing to share their demographics and such) which took their information between July 8 and July 22, a nice two-week window into Pre-Convention Campaign 2004.

I took data from the July 19 Marist Poll, the July 21 Pew Poll, the July 22 Fox News Poll, the July 22 LA Times Poll, the July 17 New York Times/CBS News Poll, the July 24 Quinnipiac Poll, the July 28 USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, the July 21 NPR Poll, and the July 22 Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll.

Here are the results from those nine polls, the detailed kind people like me find absorbing:

89.2% of Republicans say they will vote for President Bush, while 85.4% of Democrats say they will vote for Kerry, a 3.8% advantage for Bush if the turnout is even between the parties.

8.8% of Democrats say they will vote for President Bush, while 5.8% of Republicans say they will vote for Kerry, a 3.0% advantage for Bush if the turnout is even between the parties.

Men prefer Bush over Kerry, 47.0% to 43.5%.
Women prefer Kerry over Bush, 47.0% to 40.5%.

77.3% of Bush Supporters say their support is "strong". 70.5% of Kerry Supporters say their support is "strong".

Respondents liked Bush as a person better than Kerry, 45.3% to 40.7%.

77.3% of Bush Supporters expect Bush to win. 67.3% of Kerry supporters expect Kerry to win.
10.3% of Bush Supporters expect Kerry to win. 18.7% of Kerry Supporters expect Bush to win.

This explains the message and tone of Kerry's nomination acceptance speech to me. Kerry still needed to build up his base, to energize his support. To do this, Kerry basically had to abandon the swing voters on this one, hoping he'll get another chance later.

It will be very interesting to see the August polls from these sources, and compare the changes in these areas.