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From the NewsMax.com Staff
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For the story behind the story...
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Sunday, July 18, 2004 11:47 a.m. EDT
N.Y. Times Poll: Edwards Has Helped Ticket ... Slightly
Picking John Edwards to be his running mate has given John Kerry a small bounce in the polls, but the race for the White House is still too close to call, according to a new New York Times/CBS poll.
Picking Edwards, however, failed to win over any substantial number of voters for the Democratic ticket, and the poll showed that the Bush-Kerry race remains statistically deadlocked, with the Kerry-Edwards ticket supported by 49 percent of registered voters and a Bush-Cheney ticket by 44 percent.
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In a three-way race, Mr. Kerry was at 45 percent, Mr. Bush at 42 percent and Ralph Nader at 5 percent. The results were within the margin of error.
Other poll findings:
Fifty-one percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, up from 46 percent in April, May and June. Forty-five percent said taking military action in Iraq was the right thing to do, down slightly from the past several months.
Sixty-two percent said the war was not worth the loss of American lives and other costs, a figure that has risen steadily over the past few months.
Forty-five percent said the Democrats were more likely to make the right decisions about the war and 41 percent said the Republicans were.
Forty-one percent said they strongly favored Mr. Kerry, up 10 percentage points from last month, but the percentage of people who said they were backing Kerry because they disliked the other candidates fell to 27 percent from 37 percent. Among the Bush's backers, However, 60 percent said they strongly favored him, up from 56 percent last month. Eight percent said they supported him because they disliked the other candidates, down from 11 percent last month.
Although 39 percent of respondents said they had not heard enough about Mr. Edwards to have an opinion and 13 percent said they were undecided about him, 35 percent said they had a favorable opinion and 13 percent an unfavorable opinion, while Vice President Cheney was viewed favorably by 28 percent and unfavorably by 37 percent: a figure up 9 percentage points since last month.
Forty-five percent approved of the job Mr. Bush is doing, up slightly from a May poll by CBS News, when it stood at 41 percent, while 48 percent disapproved of the job he is doing. His approval rating on foreign policy stood at 39 percent, about where it has been for the last three months. Fifty-five percent of respondents disapproved of the way he is handling foreign policy.
On Bush's handling of Iraq, 37 percent approved and 58 percent disapproved, figures that were little changed from polls in May and June, before the Iraqis were granted self-governance on June 28.
Fifty-one percent approved of the president's handling of the war on terror, while the number of people who said things were going badly in Iraq appears to have leveled off, with 56 percent saying things are going somewhat or very badly, down from 60 percent this spring.
Forty-two percent approved of the president's handling of the economy, and 51 percent disapproved.
Thirty-six percent of registered voters polled gave Kerry a favorable rating, up 7 percentage points since last month, still about where he was when he was wrapping up the Democratic nomination in February. Thirty-three percent said not favorable, and 29 percent said they were undecided or did not know enough about him.
The nationwide telephone poll surveyed 955 adults, including 823 registered voters. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Editor's note:
Get the 2004 Bush vs. Kerry Poll Numbers before the White House! Click Here
Find out about the $2 billion media war against President Bush – Click Here
The REAL Story on John Kerry: A Special Investigation – Click Here
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