Poll: Bush Surging, Kerry Stumbling in Race for White House
By Jimmy Moore
Talon News
March 17, 2004

A new poll released on Tuesday reveals the Bush reelection campaign is strengthening despite months of negative attacks by the Democratic Party.

The CBS News/New York Times poll has several positive findings for Bush as he seeks to win a second term in November.

Bush's job approval rating was at 51 percent while only 42 percent said they disapprove.

This was a 6-point improvement over the numbers in the previous poll taken in late February where Bush's approval rating was 47 percent and his disapproval rating was 44 percent.

Among registered voters in the United States, Bush is ahead of Kerry 46 percent to 43 percent.

This represented a 4-point difference over a mid-February poll that found Kerry leading the president by one percentage point at that time.

A hypothetical matchup between Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards showed the Bush ticket ahead of the Kerry ticket 46 percent to 44 percent.

Incredibly, this is a 10-point swing from the late February poll when Kerry-Edwards led Bush-Cheney by 8 points.

The poll shows that support for Bush is stronger among Republicans than Kerry's support among Democrats.

More than three out of four Republicans (76 percent) say they will definitely be voting for Bush while just 70 percent of Democrats have already decided to vote for Kerry.

Bush is viewed more favorably by Americans than Kerry.

The poll found that 43 percent of Americans view Bush favorably, a 3-point rise since mid-February, compared with 28 percent favorable for Kerry.

For Kerry, this was a devastating 10-point drop in his favorable rating from the previous poll.

Seventeen percent of poll respondents had no discernable opinion of Bush. At the same time, 41 percent of Americans either have never heard of Kerry or have no opinion of him.

According to the poll, most Americans believe Bush says what he means while Kerry only says what people want to hear.

An astonishing 57 percent of Americans say the likely Democratic nominee for president does not believe what he says while only one-third believe Kerry does say what he believes.

Conversely, more than half (51 percent) view Bush as a man who says what he truly believes in his heart.

The poll of 1,286 adults, which also included 984 registered voters, was conducted March 10-14 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.