US President George W. Bush's continued edge over Democrat John Kerry on leadership skills and battling terrorism are keeping the presidential race close despite widespread concerns about Iraq, a bipartisan poll suggests.
The Battleground Poll, sponsored by George Washington University, found Bush and Kerry running even, with 48 percent each in a two-way matchup. It also found signs the public is growing slightly more optimistic about the economy.
Kerry has the advantage with voters on issues ranging from Social Security and prescription drugs to jobs and federal spending. Bush leads on handling terrorism and has a slight edge on Iraq and -- in this poll -- on taxes.
Just over half in the Battle ground Poll, 51 percent, said it's time to give a new person a chance to be president. Yet Bush continually matches up evenly against Kerry in many polls.
The reasons for that may be personal.
"The qualities of leadership are driving the vote," said Celinda Lake, the Democratic pollster who helped produce the poll. "The only issue driving the vote is Iraq. The other things determining the vote are personal qualities."
Bush continues to hold the lead he has had for months on strong leadership, on saying what he believes and on being steady and consistent.
Kerry still has problems with voters on "flip-flopping and steady leadership," Lake said. Bush's re-election campaign spent more than US$80 million on campaign ads through the spring intended to raise doubts on those fronts.
Republican pollster Ed Goeas, who helped produce the poll, said Kerry is stronger than Bush only on one of the qualities tested in the survey -- that he cares about people.
And Bush is now tied on which candidate would do a better job of keeping America prosperous, after Kerry led in late March in that area. And optimism is growing about the future of the economy six months from now.
When the US economy was weakest, Bush was seen as stronger on the war in Iraq and fighting terror. Now that his support for the war is sinking, his standing on the economy is improving.
The longer the two main issues of the election -- the Iraq war and the economy -- continue to offset one another in public perception, the more important character issues will become, said Goeas.
The poll of 1,000 likely voters was taken June 20 to June 23 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion