You need more than 13/10 for value on the Democrat ticket?

Three recent polls showing 3-4% leads for George Bush have knocked some of the confidence from the Kerry-Edwards campaign that seemed to be on a roll. One of them, Zogby, is showing a 4% Bush lead which is even more striking because for the past two months its methodology seems to have favoured Kerry.

But two state polls, in New Jersey and Florida have given a boost to the Kerry camp and the latest electoral vote calculations is Kerry 243 Bush 257.

The Iowa exchange, where political bets are traded like stocks and shares, has seen a marked move back to Bush. The latest split is Kerry-Bush 42.5-57.5. The US-focused Tradseports exchange not has Bush 53 Kerry 47.

Interestingly these changes in sentiment have yet to be picked up in the UK where prices continue to move towards Kerry. For most of this campaign the UK markets has been more to Bush than the US. Now they are about the same.

The Republicans have seized on comments by John Kerry about the sexuality of Dick Cheney’s daughter and this has knocked things off course.

But many experienced pundits are still calling it for Kerry. This is from an excellent summary on Electoral-vote.com.

The Washington Post has an interview with Charlie Cook, a political guru in the same league as the late Izzy Stone. Insiders pay a lot of attention to Charlie Cook. He warns that the polls are missing the cellphone-only voters, a topic that has been discussed on this site repeatedly. He also says the election may be determined by events in Iraq. If it gets much worse, Bush is in deep trouble. Cook also confirms what I have heard from many, many sources: the undecideds ultimately break at least 2:1 for the challenger. An incumbent president has to be polling 49% to 50% going into the election. A 47% to 47% tie in the polls means the challenger wins. The interview is worth reading.

We think that Kerry is still worth backing but we would like to see the price ease.