THE OSCILLATING RACE
Bush 47.17% - 256 | Kerry 48.66% - 282
Last week, Kerry lead the composite poll by 1.54% and this week, he leads by 1.49%, but the electoral vote picture has switched from last week's Bush lead of 281-257 to a Kerry lead of 282-256. While the state by state picture continues to oscillate between the candidates, there's been a clear trend in Kerry's favor in the national composite results, but that trend has slowed and for the last month, there hasn't been much change.

This week's composite poll includes the suspicious LA Times poll, showing a Kerry lead of 6 points. I discussed why it is suspicious here.Without that poll's results, the composite poll would show a dead even race.

This week's analysis includes 9 new state polls for Illinois (Kerry +13), Kentucky (Bush +13), Michigan (Kerry +2), Missouri (Bush +11), New Hampshire (Tied), Ohio (Kerry +3), Pennsylvania (Kerry +1), West Virginia (Kerry +6) and Wisconsin (Bush +2).

This Week’s Polls
Fox News/Opinion Dynamics (Bush 42 | Kerry 42)
Investor's Business Daily / CSM / TIPP (Bush 43 | Kerry 40)
AP/Ipsos (Bush 46 | Kerry 45)
LA Times (Bush 42 | Kerry 48)
Rasmussen Week Average (Bush 45.9 | Kerry 45.1)
Iowa Electronic Market (Bush 50.1 | Kerry 47.3)

Last Week’s Polls
Gallup (Bush 43 | Kerry 49)
Zogby (Bush 42 | Kerry 44)
American Research Group (Bush 45 | Kerry 46)
Investor's Business Daily (Bush 43 | Kerry 41)
Rasmussen Week Average (Bush 44.9 | Kerry 44.7)
Iowa Electronic Market (Bush 51.9 | 47.1)

Bush State Gains
None

Kerry State Gains
Ohio

West Virginia

Toss Ups (slight lead of less than 2%)
Florida (Bush)
New Hampshire (Kerry)*NEW*
New Mexico (Kerry)
Ohio (Kerry)
Oregon (Bush)
Pennsylvania (Kerry)
West Virginia (Kerry) *NEW*

For details, maps and graphs, see the Composite Poll page.