Myth about the 2004 election

There is a myth about the 2004 election: John Kerry was ahead in the polls throughout the 2004 campaign and still lost the election. I'm glad someone finally debunked the myth that Kerry was ahead in Oct 2004 going into election day. Some of us know that is not true. Kerry was never consistently ahead the way Obama has been this election year.

Take a look at this graph provided by RCP. It shows that Bush was ahead in the popularity polls consistently from September until election day in 2004.




Now compare that to this year (graph provided by pollster):

As you can see from the graph above, Obama has been consistently ahead since September (and since the beginning of the primaries in January) just as Bush was ahead from September till election day in 2004.

Now, if that's not enough to convince you, let's look at the electoral polls:

2004:



2008:

Both graphs provided by Electoral Vote.

As you can see in the 2004 graph, Bush lead Kerry consistently from September till election day and ultimately won the election. The 2008 graph shows that Obama has lead McCain consistently as far back as April. Kerry never had the leads that Obama has had in this election. If you want to look at this election from a 2004 perspective, Obama = Bush, McCain = Kerry, although Obama has had the upper hand in this race from the beginning.

Now if anyone claims that the polls showed Kerry leading Bush in all polls in 2004, direct them here.