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Wednesday, May 12, 2004

# Posted 10:30 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

WHY ISN'T KERRY SURGING? Pew's Andrew Kohut makes an interesting argument in a NYT op-ed. Like the current president, Jimmy Carter and George Bush Sr. also watched their approval ratings plummet in the first months of their re-election years. Yet both Carter and Bush I continued to lead their challengers in the polls until well into the summer. That's when it hit the fan.

Lesson: Voters don't immediately shift their support to the challenger when dissatisfied with the incumbent. But if their opinion of the incumbent doesn't change, switch they will. So is Kerry going to win in the fall? I don't know. Carter and Bush I couldn't do anything to fix the economy. But this time the election is about national security.
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