If you’ve been paying attention to presidential election polls recently, you know they’ve been rather confusing. Not only has there been a wide disparity in the findings of different polls, but there’s also been big fluctuations in the findings of the same polling organizations from week to week.
What accounts for these large swings in the polls? According to The Hotline editor Chuck Todd, it’s women:
WOODRUFF: So, you’ve looked at a lot of numbers, how do you see the women’s vote shaping up this year with Bush and Kerry?
TODD: Well, it’s interesting. When you see John Kerry’s numbers they move when he does well in national polls, it’s because he’s doing really well among women voters. When President Bush has taken the lead it’s because he’s improved his numbers among women. This new Pew poll that’s out today shows exactly the same movement where President Bush before his convention was only getting 42 percent of women. After his convention he got it up to 48 percent.
Now as John Kerry has made some improvements there, Bush’s number is back down to about 43 percent. It’s the number that fluctuates. The CNN/Gallup poll right after the convention had President Bush getting 48 percent of the women’s vote. There is no way John Kerry can win this election if George Bush is even getting 45 percent of the vote. We did a study in the states. And if you look at the states there’s not a single state that George Bush carried of the showdown states where he got less than 45 percent of the vote.
Let’s hope voting women wise up by November 2.