No Contest

It wasn’t rocket science to be convinced that the debates would more than make up for any lead that Bush had. Momentum is everything, and John Kerry has it at the right time.

Favorable public reaction to his performance in the first presidential debate has boosted Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and narrowed the contest with President Bush to a tie, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.

Bush's lead of 8 percentage points before Thursday's debate evaporated in a survey taken Friday through Sunday. Among likely voters, Bush and Kerry are at 49% each.

This was the same poll that had Bush ahead by 11 points after the Repub convention.

And in case you missed it, these are the results of key on-line pollsters after the first debate:

Summary of Some Online Polls:

CNN: 79% Kerry, 18% Bush
WSJ: 69% Kerry, 25% Bush
AOL.com K54% B45%
MSNBC: 70% Kerry, 30% Bush
LA Times: 86.4% Kerry, 10.1% Bush
Time K63% B35%
AJC: 64.03% Kerry, 28.13% Bush
Florida Sun-Sentinel: 78.3% Kerry, 14.9% Bush
Minneapolis-St Paul Star-Tribune: K69%, B31%
The Kansas City Channel 9 K74% B26%
Newsday K81% B18%
Boston Globe K82% B17%
WTRF-TV (Wheeling,WV): 12.20am: K70%, B26%
WHO-TV (Des Moines, IA) K72% B28%
WFTV-9 (Orlando, FL) K73% B27%
Denver Channel ABC 2 K73% B27%
WESH2 Orlando K73% B27%