The overnight polls taken last Tuesday (see my July 7 post) suggested Kerry's selection of Edwards as his running mate gave the Democratic ticket a bit of a bounce. But right after that, a couple of polls were released that cast doubt on that supposition, since neither poll showed Kerry doing particularly well compared to their earlier surveys (though these earlier surveys were about a month before in each case, so not exactly ideal for measuring a before-and-after bounce).

The Ipsos-AP poll (July 5-7) actually showed Bush ahead by 4 points, whether against Kerry or teamed with Cheney against Kerry-Edwards. On the other hand, the Ipsos-AP poll has the dubious distinction of never having shown Kerry ahead, despite fairly frequent polling.

The Zogby poll (July 6-7) showed Kerry ahead by 2 points, whether against Bush or teamed with Edwards against Bush-Cheney--exactly the margin Kerry had a month before. But then again, despite fairly frequent polling, Kerry has been ahead of Bush by a remarkably stable 2-3 points in all Zogby polls this year, with just one exception (early May).

So who knows what the results of those two polls really mean about the Edwards bounce. Besides, we now have two more recent polls that underscore the basic idea that, bounce or not, the Kerry-Edwards ticket is getting a pretty warm reception.

In the Time magazine poll (July 6-8), Kerry leads Bush among RVs by 5 points (48-43). Bush's low support in that horse race question is re-inforced by his identically low support (43 percent) in the related re-elect question (does Bush "deserve to be re-elected?").

Consistent with previous polls, those who say Edwards' selection will make them more likely to vote for the Kerry ticket (24 percent) far outnumber those who say his selection will make them less likely (6 percent). That's in contrast to Cheney, where 23 percent of voters say his position on the ticket makes it less likely they will vote GOP, compared to just 11 percent who say it will make them more likely.

Other contrasts with Cheney in this poll: Edwards' favorability rating is 39 percent favorable/12 percent unfavorable; Cheney's is 41 percent/40 percent. By about 2:1, the public feels positively about Kerry's choice of Edwards (52/27); but more feel negatively (50 percent) than positively (45 percent) about Bush's choice of Cheney. Over half of the public (51 percent) feels less favorable about Cheney because he is the ex-CEO of Halliburton; but, by more than 2:1 (55/26), the public feels Edwards' background means he will fight for the average person, rather than contribute to frivolous lawsuits.

And perhaps most important, when asked who would make a better president, 47 percent of the public chooses Edwards and just 38 percent pick Cheney.

The new Newsweek poll (July 8-9) has a number of similar and, in some cases, stronger findings. Kerry-Edwards leads Bush-Cheney among RVs by 6 points, 51-45 (annoyingly, the clear lead for Kerry-Edwards in this poll is portrayed as a "tie" in the Newsweek online headlines; guess that's the party line at the magazine these days).

The horse race results also show Kerry-Edwards leading Bush-Cheney by 19 points (!) among independents (even with Nader in the mix), a catastrophic number for the Bush campaign if anything close to this lead holds up for the Democrats. Other bad signs for the Bush campaign (all results with Nader in the mix; no analabous data were provided on the 2-way matchup): Bush-Cheney only have a 3 point lead among men; Kerry-Edwards leads by 13 among 18-29 year olds and even by 6 among 30-49 year olds; and Kerry-Edwards actually has a 2 point lead among whites outside the south.

Note that Bush's re-elect in this poll is identical with his poor showing in the Time poll: a mere 43 percent say they would like to see Bush re-elected.

In terms of whether Edwards is qualified to be president, 51 percent in the poll say yes and 30 percent say no--and that rises to 62/23 among independents. Also, when asked who they would vote for if they could vote separately for vice-president 52 percent of voters choose Edwards, compared to 41 percent for Cheney (59/33 among independents.

Based on these data, I'd have to say Kerry's selection of Edwards looks like it's playing very well indeed. And the contrast with Cheney very much looks like it's in the Democratic ticket's favor.