Ryan Lizza looks at the weird dynamics of the electorate this year. Undecided voters, when you look further, are very anti-Bush and almost certain to vote for Kerry, if they vote at all. But there’s naother kind of voter out there:
Why is it that in many polls, Bush’s job approval rating is higher than the percentage who say they will vote for him? Fabrizio calls this difference the “approval gap.” In his 19-state poll the percentage of people who approve of the job Bush is doing but say they will vote for Kerry is 8.6 percent.
Approval-gap voters seem to be the great anomaly of American politics. Kerry voters tend to intensely dislike Bush, and Bush voters seem to intensely dislike Kerry. Undecided voters often get tagged as wishy-washy, but secretly they seem to be just as polarized as everyone else about Bush and Kerry. Approval-gap voters, by contrast, are the true equivocators. They are both pro-Bush and pro-Kerry. They just happen to be a little more pro-Kerry. They have a net favorable opinion of Bush (48 percent favorable to 30 percent unfavorable), but an even higher net favorable opinion of Kerry (54 percent favorable to 15 percent unfavorable).
An interesting wrinkle. I have a feeling many Dish readers are “approval gap voters.”
The Dish 