The LA Times reports that Bush has pulled ahead in its poll for the first time all year, yet other fairly current predictors do not confirm this recent revelation.

As an example, on the web site electoral-vote.com, an electoral vote map is shown that is updated daily based on state-derived polls. Here, Kerry maintains an electoral vote lead by a 280-238 margin. "Which to believe?" is my main question.

In addition, note that in the map graphic, 142 votes are deemed "Strong" for Bush as compared to Kerry's 109 in that category. That makes sense given the well-documented lock Bush has on his base. However, for those votes categorized as "Weak" or "Barely," when summing those two together, Kerry leads by a 171-96 count. What makes that interesting is that it tends to confirm a fairly well understood fact that during elections, undecided ("swing") voters tend to eventually vote non-incumbent. Nonpartisan political analyst Charlie Cook (of The Cook Political Report) has reported that over the last 30 years, over 60% of the undecided vote went to the challenger on Election Day.

Let's hope 2004 is not the exception to this rule.