The Los Angeles Times (LAT) has released a major new national poll that includes oversamples in three battleground states, Ohio, Missouri and Wisconsin. And it provides little evidence that the GOP's fervently-desired "Reagan death bounce" is materializing; in fact, Kerry's 7 point lead among RVs in this poll (51-44), conducted entirely since Reagan's death, is actually larger than Kerry's lead in a recent Gallup poll that only partially overlapped the period since Reagan's death.

The breakdown of the horse race data provides some interesting results. Bush's current advantage among men is almost non-existent (49-48), while he is behind by 13 points (40-53) among women. Kerry is ahead by 10 points among 18-29 year olds, consistent with the lead he has had among young voters in most polls. And he has a 2:1 advantage among moderates (60-32), though, interestingly, and in contrast to other recent polls I've seen, he runs slightly behind among independents (46-49; note, however, that among moderate independents, Kerry has a huge 63-31 lead). In terms of the three battleground states where LAT oversampled, Kerry is losing 42-48 in MO, dead-even in WI (44-44) and ahead 46-45 in OH).

And here's a startling result from their generic congressional ballot question: Democrats are favored over Republicans by an amazing 54-35 margin, including 3:1 among moderates (60-20) and even 51-38 among male voters.

In terms of direction of the country, the classic right direction/wrong track question is heavily negative (34 right direction/58 wrong track). And a related question, "...do you think the country is better off because of George W. Bush's policies and should proceed in the direction he set out, or do you think the country is not better off and needs to move in a new direction?", also returns a resoundingly negative 39/56 verdict, including 26/61 among moderates and 35/58 in Ohio.

Bush does get an approval rating that is high by his recent standards (51 percent). He is, however, net negative among independents (48/50) and moderates (44/52) and only 48/48 in Ohio. His other approval ratings are unimpressive, if a tad higher than in other recent public polls: 54/42 on the war on terrorism; 44/55 on Iraq; and 43/54 on the economy (as LAT notes, essentially unchanged since their last poll in late March, despite the last several months of pretty good job growth).

In the poll, almost half the country (49 percent) now says they have an unfavorable impression of Bush, compared to exactly half who say they are favorable, for a razor-thin +1 net rating. Kerry, in contrast, is only viewed unfavorably by 32 percent, compared to 51 percent who view him favorably, for a +19 net rating. Note that that relationship is replicated in Ohio, where Bush is +1 on favorability and Kerry is +16.

I'll cover the Bush-Kerry comparisons on specific traits and issues tomorrow.