Good news on that seemingly disappointing ABC/WP poll

[troublemaker]

The same ABC/WP poll that has Bush at 48% and Kerry at 46% has a bizarre set of results buried in it. Check this out...

ABC News/Washington Post Poll. July 22-25, 2004. N=909 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3. Fieldwork by TNS Intersearch.

"Regardless of how you might vote, please tell me if you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Laura Bush, or perhaps you don't know enough to say."

Favorable 66
Unfavorable 12
No Opinion 22


"Regardless of how you might vote, please tell me if you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Teresa Heinz Kerry, or perhaps you don't know enough to say."

Favorable 27
Unfavorable 26
No Opinion 47

This is an absolutely impossible result. Americans simply do not tee off on a politician's wife without a reason. For example, look at Laura Bush's numbers. 12% unfavorable. We know for a flat fact that 30% of the populace genuinely HATES George W. Bush, but only 40% of Bush haters are willing to down his wife. That's just how we are, as a people.

Is it really plausible that Teresa, a woman half of people haven't even really heard of, has a 26% unfavorable? I had never considered the question of Teresa, but when I read the question I expected to see something like 35% favorable, 15% unfavorable and 50% Don't Know.

And I was right, dammit! Here are the other two recent Teresa polls:
Time Poll July 20-22 (favorable-21 un-12 don't know-68)
CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. July 19-21 (31 19 50)

Even if the entire ABC/WP poll was conducted at the height of "shove-it" mania (which it wasn't) the ABC/WP number would still lead one to suspect they had simply botched the sample. The 909 people polled includes an overly large sample of Kerry haters; not just Republicans, but real haters.

And it's the same sample of 909 people that provided all the results for the WP "Kerry is fading" article." The two point Bush lead, the opinions on the war on terror... all of it.

http://www.pollingreport.com

[DemMother]

1. Donkey Rising also has doubts

about the WP poll.

See his latest...

http://emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/index.php

I can't recommend this site often enough. He's great.

[troublemaker]

3. I agree. I love his commentary

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/

[sandnsea]

2. They polled Houston

The day I heard a pollster say "all we do is choose zip codes", I knew polls were fixed. But look at it this way, if Kerry's down now, we'll get a bigger boost after the convention.