The latest Gallup poll has Kerry leading Bush by 6 points among RVs (50-44), up from dead-even 5 days before. (47-47). (Oddly, Gallup's LV match-up has Kerry slipping to 47-48 from a 49-48 lead 5 days ago. But, as I have repeatedly argued, it is the RV match-ups, not the LV match-ups, that best reflect the state of the race this early in the campaign. This absurd result from Gallup is one more reason to ignore the silly LV data whereever possible.)

That should make a lot horse race obsessives out there happy. But other findings from the poll are probably more important. Like this one: Bush's approval rating is down to 46 percent with 51 percent disapproval. That's a net negative rating of -5. At the beginning of the year, Bush's rating in the Gallup poll was 59/38, for a net positive rating of +21. Quite a shift.

Bush's approval rating on the economy is unchanged at an abysmal 41/56, while his rating on terrorism actually went up slightly to 54/43 from 52/45. But his rating on handling the situation in Iraq has continued its downward trajectory, sinking to 41/58 from 42/55.

The poll also shows Kerry doing much better in comparisons with Bush on handling three key issues: the economy, the situation in Iraq and terrorism. On terrorism, while Kerry remains solidly behind Bush by 17 points (55-38), that's a significant contraction from Bush's 60-33, 27 point lead two months ago. On the economy, Kerry has widened his 50-42 lead two months ago to a 54-40 edge today. And on Iraq--very significant in my view--Kerry has mostly eliminated Bush's 15 point lead from March to a mere 3 points today (48-45).

As for whether "it was worth going to war in Iraq or not", the public now says it wasn't worth it by 54-44. Note that this is the first time Gallup has received a negative response to this question. Indeed, just five days ago, it was still 50-47 in favor of the war being worth it.

In addition, there is now close to an even split on whether the US should withdraw at least some troops from Iraq. A total of 47 percent says we should either withdraw all troops (29 percent) or some troops (18 percent), compared to 49 percent who want to either send more troops (25 percent) or keep troop levels as they are (24 percent). And close to half (45 percent) now say they'd be upset if Bush sent more troops to Iraq, up from 38 percent two months ago.

Bush is running out of options. And, as Bush is sinking, Kerry is cranking up his campaign. Stay tuned.