---
title: "Polls Apart"
description: "by Andrew Kohut in the New York Times"
date: "2004-10-21"
authors:
  - name: "Pew Research Center"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2004/10/21/polls-apart/"
categories:
  - "Election 2004"
  - "Politics & Policy"
  - "U.S. Elections & Voters"
---

# Polls Apart

The round of national surveys taken after the third presidential debate indicates that the polls are not going to give us a clear picture of who will win the election until the final days of the campaign, if then. This is not because polling no longer works -- it's because voter opinion is highly unstable. While many Americans are strongly committed to re-electing President Bush or getting rid of him, there remains a relatively large bloc of swing voters who are critical of the president but who still cannot comfortably back Senator John Kerry.

[Read the full op-ed](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/opinion/21kohut.html?_r=4&)