Let's look at some past polls when an incumbent was running

[bluestateguy]

These are all polls from July of the presidential election year when an incumbent president was running.

The trend here is pretty clear. If an incumbent has not opened up a solid lead by July he is in bad shape for re-election (or in Johnson or Ford's case, election in their own right). Many voters still don't know much about Kerry, but have serious doubts about Bush. Kerry needs to close the deal with them, and many of them are not yet tuning in to the campaign. Still, this trend is contradicted by the polls of the FDR and Truman elections of the 1930's and 1940's. Polls back then were of questionable accuracy, and 1944's poll (Dewey 47%-FDR 45%)is particularly suspect since a huge chunk of young men (mostly New Deal Democrats) were off at war and presumably unreachable by Gallup. In any event, this trend is certainly not foolproof.

http://www.gallup.com/content/?ci=1210

1956

Eisenhower 61%
Stevenson 37%

1964

Johnson 59%
Goldwater 31%

1972

Nixon 57%
McGovern 31%

1976

Carter 54%
Ford 32%

1980

Reagan 37%
Carter 34%
Anderson 21%

1984

Reagan 54%
Mondale 38%

1992

Clinton 56%
Bush 36%

1996

Clinton 50%
Dole 39%
Perot 7%

2004

(most recent)

Kerry 50%
Bush 46%

[cthrumatrix]

1. hence you have "terra warnings" pulled off the shelf for the election

see how nice that works for the crime family

[southernleftylady]

2. Thank you for this info... I asked about it a couple days ago! thanks :)