john zogby, president and ceo of zogby international, remains by all accounts the hottest pollster in the united states today.
“”all hail zogby, the maverick predictor who beat us all,”” proclaimed the washington post in november 1996 after zogby alone called that presidential election with pinpoint accuracy. in the recent razor-thin 2000 elections, daily national tracking polls conducted by zogby international in the last few weeks foretold a tightening of the race for president while nearly all other polling firms projected an easy victory for gov. george w. bush. zogby international instead was the first to observe the gap closing significantly between bush and vice-president al gore in the waning hours of the election. in his post election 2000 review, the acclaimed godfrey sperling, columnist for the christian science monitor called john zogby “”champion pollster.””
“”in 1996, john zogby came within one tenth of 1 percent of the presidential result – the best performance turned in by any of the pollsters. this year mr. zogby was the first pollster i heard being cited on tv as finding that gore was pulling out slightly, by 2 percent, ahead of mr. bush. but when i talked to zogby a few days ago, he was elated with how close he had come this year to predicting the final outcome – and rightly so.””
since 1996, zogby has polled for reuters news agency, the largest news agency in the world, and in 2000 polled for nbc news, the network news watched by most americans. his clients also include msnbc, the new york post, fox news, gannett news service, the albany times union, the buffalo news, the st. louis post-dispatch, the cincinnati post, the cleveland plain dealer, the toledo blade, the pittsburgh post gazette, the rochester democrat and chronicle, the syracuse herald, and nearly every daily newspaper in new york state, as well as television stations throughout the u.s.
by john zogby
zogby international
i have made a career of taking bungee jumps in my election calls. sometimes i haven’t had a helmet and i have gotten a little scratched. but here is my jump for 2004: john kerry will win the election.
have you recovered from the shock? is this guy nuts? kerry’s performance of late has hardly been inspiring and polls show that most americans have no sense of where he really stands on the key issues that matter most to them. regardless, i still think that he will win. and if he doesn’t, it will be because he blew it. there are four major reasons for my assertion:
first, my most recent poll (april 12-15) shows bad re election numbers for an incumbent president. senator kerry is leading 47% to 44% in a two-way race, and the candidates are tied at 45% in the three-way race with ralph nader. significantly, only 44% feel that the country is headed in the right direction and only 43% believe that president bush deserves to be re-elected – compared with 51% who say it is time for someone new.
in that same poll, kerry leads by 17 points in the blue states that voted for al gore in 2000, while bush leads by only 10 points in the red states that he won four years ago.
second, there are very few undecided voters for this early in a campaign. historically, the majority of undecideds break to the challenger against an incumbent. the reasons are not hard to understand: voters have probably made a judgment about the better-known incumbent and are looking for an alternative.
third, the economy is still the top issue for voters – 30% cite it. while the war in iraq had been only noted by 11% as the top issue in march, it jumped to 20% in our april poll as a result of bad war news dominating the news agenda. the third issue is the war on terrorism. among those who cited the economy, kerry leads the president 54% to 35%. among those citing the war in iraq, kerry’s lead is 57% to 36%. this, of course, is balanced by the 64% to 30% margin that the president holds over kerry on fighting the war on terrorism. these top issues are not likely to go away. and arguably, ther