Yesterday, our tour of the political landscape on the eve the convention included results from national polls and from polls of Hispanics. Today, I'll take a look at a recently-released poll of black voters and another one of college students.

The Hispanic polls discussed yesterday indicate that the Kerry-Edwards ticket is running strong among Hispanic voters and appears poised to do better than the Gore-Lieberman ticket did in 2000. The other big component of the minority vote, of course, is black voters and a new poll by BET/CBS News suggests that Democrats will replicate their traditional strong performance among these voters in this election.

The trial heat question in this poll gives Bush only 10 percent support among black voters, compared to 79 percent for Kerry. That 10 percent support is the average GOP presidential support in the last three elections and is unlikely to grow much, if at all, before election day since, based on historical patterns, pretty much all the undecided voters in this group should be allocated to the Democratic candidate.

And you can see why given the incredibly negative views of black voters on Bush and his administration. They give Bush an 11 percent approval rating, with 85 percent disapproval (!) Only 6 percent of blacks think the country is going in the right direction, compared to 92 percent who feel things are off on the wrong track. Just 9 percent think Bush has the same priorities for the country as they do, while 84 percent think he doesn't. And, by 90 percent to 8 percent, black voters don't think the result of the war with Iraq was worth the associated loss of life and other costs.

That 10 percent sounds more and more like a ceiling on Bush's support among black voters.

The new Harvard University/Institute of Politics poll of college students shows Bush in deep trouble among this group as well. Since March, Kerry's already-wide lead over Bush among students has increased by 8 points, from 53-40 to 58-37. Bush's approval rating among this group has sunk to 40 percent, while support for the US having gone to war in Iraq has fallen to 42 percent, with 56 percent opposition. And, at this point, by 50-31, college students feel the Kerry campaign is talking about issues that young people care about, while, by 61-26, they feel the Bush campaign is not.

Sounds like a tough sell for the GOP among the nation's students!

Tomorrow: the white working class and the 2004 election