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Final Harris Internet Poll Suggests a Kerry Victory
"ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- It may be John Kerry by a nose as he makes modest gains at the very end of the campaign in an election that is still too close to call using telephone methods of polling, according to the final Harris Poll released earlier today. The Internet-based poll suggests that Kerry will win the White House today in a narrow victory.Harris Interactive's final online survey shows a three-point lead for Kerry. The final telephone survey, however, shows a one-point lead for President George W. Bush. Both surveys are based on interviews conducted between Oct. 29 and Nov. 1. The telephone survey is consistent with most of the other telephone polls, which show the race virtually tied.Both surveys suggest that Kerry has been making some gains over the course of the past few days. If this trend is real, then Kerry may actually do better than these numbers suggest. In the past, presidential challengers tend to do better against an incumbent President among the undecided voters during the last three days of the elections, and that appears to be the case here. The reason: undecided voters are more often voters who dislike the President but do not know the challenger well enough to make a decision. When they decide, they frequently split 2:1 to 4:1 for the challenger, Harris officials said.About one percentage point of the current difference probably reflects the inclusion in the online sample of people with cell phones but no landline (and who are therefore not included in the telephone survey) who favor Kerry by a wide margin, according to a Harris poll released yesterday. The surveys both suggest an increase of a few percentage points above the 51.3% turnout (of all adults) in 2000, but not as big an increase as some reports have suggested.Another piece of evidence pointing to a likely Kerry victory is that online Harris Polls in the large, key states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida -- which may well determine the Electoral College result -- all show modest Kerry leads. However, all these leads are within the possible sampling error for these surveys. Assuming the forecast is correct, Kerry is likely to win all three large states, and almost certainly the White House along with it."