The last two Republican presidents to have been re-elected, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, both rose sharply in the polls in the month of June. Nixon, who was leading by only 48 to 41 percent in a May 1972 poll, was far ahead by July 1. June 1972 was full of good news for Nixon: Consumer confidence rose sharply in June, Leonid Brezhnev appeared at a summit conference with Nixon despite heavy U.S. bombing of North Vietnam in May, George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey roughed each other up in their race for the Democratic nomination. (Ironically, the Watergate burglary, planned when Nixon didn't seem a sure thing, went ahead June 16, just as he was cinching the election.) June 1984 was a similarly good month for Ronald Reagan. He delivered his famous D-Day speech in Normandy while Democratic putative nominee Walter Mondale was dealing with the demands of Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson. Looking back on the poll numbers, neither Nixon nor Reagan looked unbeatable June 1. Both looked unbeatable June 30.
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We can't say the same for George W. Bush, at least not yet. But June was a good news month for him: the Reagan funeral and remembrances, the G-8 summit in Georgia, the EU meeting in Ireland, and the NATO meeting in Istanbul, the selection of an interim Iraqi government and the turnover of power to it, two days early, on June 28. And Bush's poll numbers have improved in June. But they do not put him in the commanding positions Nixon and Reagan held on July 1.
Let's look at the numbers in late June and in previous polls, with Bush's percentage first and then John Kerry's, in two-candidate pairings, which tend to be a little less favorable to Bush than three-way pairings with Ralph Nader included. These polls were all taken after Reagan's death June 5 (except for two out of 11 days of Pew Research's interviewing).
NBC/Wall Street Journal
June 25-28
May 1-5
difference
47
47
48
45
-1
+2
CBS/New York Times
June 23-27
May 20-23
difference
44
45
41
49
+3
-4
Fox News
June 22-23
June 8-9
difference
48
42
43
45
+5
-3
CNN/Gallup/USA Today
June 21-23
June 3-6
difference
49
48
44
50
+5
-2
Battleground
June 20-23
March 28-31
difference
48
48
48
49
-
-1
Washington Post/ABC
June 17-20
May 20-23
difference
45
53
47
49
-2
+4
Investor's Business Daily/TIPP
June 14-19
June 1-6
difference
44
44
45
44
-
-1
Pew Research
June 3-13
May 3-9
difference
48
46
45
50
+3
-4
NPR/GQR
June 6-10
49
48
These results are quite consistent. The only outlier is the Washington Post/ABC poll, which puts Kerry at 53 percent, significantly above his percentage in any of the other polls. Polling theory tells us that 1 out of 20 polls is wrong, and this one appears to be it. The race remains exceedingly close, and movement, if any, seems to be in Bush's direction. On the key underlying issues, Pew, Battleground and Gallup all saw movement in Bush's direction. Voters' assessment of the economy has been getting more positive as is their assessment of the situation in Iraq.
