Ferrablog

The book on Kerry is that he's a good "closer", and recent trends in the polls and elsewhere show that this may truly be the case.

Although Bush started opening up small leads in the national polls in the aftermath of the third debate about 10 days ago, those leads have pretty much evaporated.

Exhibit A: Newsweek/MSNBC has the race narrowing from 50-44 Bush among likely voters to 48-46. And they're tied 46-46 among registered voters.

Exhibit B: ABC/Washington Post's tracking poll has the race now at 49-48 Bush from 51-46 earlier in the week.

Exhibit C: Bush is now only ahead of Kerry 47.6-47.2, in the latest Rasmussen tracking poll. And Rasmussen has a history of skewing Republican.

It should be interesting to see what CNN/Gallup comes in with later today; last week, they appeared to be a real outlier with a 52-44 Bush lead among likely voters.

Of course, the election isn't won by the popular vote, as Al Gore would readily tell you; it's the electoral college that really matters. And there's even more good news for Kerry from the two big states which will likely decide the election: Ohio and Florida.

In Ohio, a new Scripps poll shows Kerry up 50-46 among likely voters, and 49-43 among registered voters. As I pointed out in an earlier post, Ohio is pretty much in the Kerry column at this point, but it's nice to see Kerry hitting the 50 percent mark.

That leaves Florida, a true must-win state for Bush. But the trends are against him here as well. A brand new St. Pete Times/Miami Herald poll has the state tied 46-46 among likely voters. Even more significant than the tie is the fact Bush is only pulling 46%. Consequently, The Sunshine State can be said to be leaning Kerry at this point. And it didn't hurt that the Republican-leaning Orlando Sentinel endorsed Kerry in the today's edition, marking the first time that the Sentinel has endorsed a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. If Kerry wins Florida and Ohio, none of the other swing states (IA, WI, NM, etc.) matter.

And the Bush campaign is quite cognizant of this as well. There's a very interesting and revealing story in today's Washington Post that shows the near-panic that has set in over there. Despite the non-descript headline, these remarks from a campaign insider are quite telling:

GOP officials who talked to Bush-Cheney campaign leaders said the leaders have grown more worried about Ohio, Florida and other key states where Bush lacks a lead with just 10 days until the election. A poll by Ohio University's Scripps Survey Research Center, completed Thursday night, found Kerry leading 49 percent to 43 percent among registered voters, with a margin of error of five percentage points.

...

One Republican official described the mood at the top of the campaign as apprehensive. " 'Grim' is too strong," the official said. "If we feel this way a week from now, that will be grim."
...

The Republican official said polling for Bush showed him in a weaker position than some published polls have indicated, both nationally and in battlegrounds. In many of the key states, the official said, Bush is below 50 percent, and he is ahead or behind within the margin of sampling error -- a statistical tie.

"There's just no place where they're polling outside the margin of error so they can say, 'We have this state,' " the official said. "And they know that an incumbent needs to be outside the margin of error."

And according to ABC's The Note, Bush is going to end up begging for his job in ads this coming week:

..(The Bush campaign has) this about the final Bush ad, unconfirmed by ABC News at this writing: "The president plans to conclude his campaign with an advertisement in which Mr. Bush, recounting the trauma of the nation these past three years, makes a personal appeal to be returned to office."

Looks like reality is setting in for a change in Bushworld.