The Newsweek Poll has George W. Bush up by six points 50-44. Hindrocket is skeptical of the poll.

Perhaps the lead isn't as large as the poll suggests, but it does show that Bush has pretty good momentum three days before the election:

Oct. 30 - After months of the tightest presidential election contest in recent memory, a new NEWSWEEK poll suggests momentum may be moving toward President George W. Bush. As the bitter campaign enters its final days, against the eerie backdrop of a surprise appearance by Osama Bin Laden, Bush’s lead is still within the poll’s margin of error, but larger than last week. If the election were held today, 50 percent of likely voters would cast ballots for Bush and 44 percent for the Democrat, Sen. John Kerry. (Ralph Nader would receive 1 percent.) That compares to a Bush lead last week among likely voters of 48 percent to Kerry's 46 percent.

In a two-way trial heat, excluding Nader, Bush/Cheney would defeat Kerry/Edwards 51 percent to 45 percent among likely voters. Last week Bush led 48 to 47 in the two-way contest.

The poll finds the race closer among registered voters. Forty-eight percent of registered voters would vote for Bush and 44 percent would vote for Kerry. One percent would vote for Nader. In a two-way race, 48 percent would vote for Bush/Cheney and 45 percent would vote for Kerry/Edwards. The worse news for Kerry: in the last lap of the race, the number of “persuadables” is falling. Now, 9 percent of registered voters say they haven’t made up their minds, down from 13 percent last week. And just 6 percent of likely voters say they haven’t decided.

The debates do not appear to have helped Kerry very much:

Weeks of the candidates bashing each other seem to have hurt Kerry more than Bush. As memories of Kerry’s performance in the debates—which almost every poll said voters rated superior to the president’s—have waned, so have his poll numbers. And despite a constant drone of bad news—from missing explosives in Iraq to weaker-than-expected economic growth—Bush has not only stayed strong, he’s grown stronger.

Could it be that the "bad news" has had no effect on the president's poll numbers because the majority of Americans now have come to understand that the "bad" news wasn't news at all, but simply manufactured hit pieces by the New York Times, ABC News, CBS News/Bill Burkett/Dan Rather/Mary Mapes/Joe Lockhart phalanx?

Could it be that the "weaker-than-expected" economic news has had little effect because the country understands that the economic growth rate that we are currently experiencing is way above-average, considering the long lasting economic damage created by the September 11th terrorist attacks? Could it be that the country rejects the pre-9/11 economic model that the media wishes to judge this president by? The answer is yes to all of these, and it is the reason that George W. Bush is doing very well at this point in the race.

The television ads being run against Kerry appear to be hitting the mark:

Kerry has seen exactly the opposite shift. His favorable/unfavorable ratings are 47 percent favorable and 46 percent unfavorable this week, basically even. Last week, his favorability rating was 50 percent and his unfavorable 45 percent. The anti-Kerry ads may be having an effect, especially with blue-collar, socially conservative white voters. Although pollsters say the sample size is too small to be statistically solid (with a margin of error of plus or minus nine points), in the new poll, labor-union households—part of the Democratic base—are leaning toward Bush 54 percent to 42 percent. Last week, they were leaning toward Kerry 61 to 35 (with a margin of error of plus or minus 11). Again, it’s a tiny sample of just 153 households, but if other polls bear out the trend, Kerry could face a Reagan Democrat renaissance

And, of course, Osama bin Laden has reentered the stage:

Now the president may get a helping hand from an unlikely source. On Friday, just before NEWSWEEK started its third and final night of polling, Osama bin Laden appeared on TV screens in living rooms and offices across America. It was the first time the nation had seen a new image of bin Laden in more than a year. In a video­taped message directed explicitly to American voters, bin Laden says that neither candidate can protect them and mocks Bush for lingering in a Florida classroom after the September 11 attacks.

Some pundits and Kerry backers argued that bin Laden’s appearance, looking healthy and rested, just days before the election would remind voters that Bush had failed to get the man he promised to capture “dead or alive.” They argued that that failure would support Kerry’s assertion that Bush’s war in Iraq was a dangerous distraction from defeating Al Qaeda.

But whenever the subject of the campaign has turned to terrorism, it has benefited Bush. In every poll since the campaign began, voters have said they trust Bush more than Kerry to handle the challenges of terrorism and homeland security—usually by a 15-to 20-point margin (the one exception: polls immediately after the Democratic National Convention, when Kerry managed to close the gap to a few percentage points.) In the new NEWSWEEK poll, registered voters say they trust Bush over Kerry 56 percent to 37 percent to tackle terrorism.

Late deciding independants, contrary to conventional wisdom, also seem to moving toward Bush:

Independents seem to be moving toward Bush. Last week Kerry captured independents’ support 52 to 38 percent. This week, for the first time since the debates, Bush has retaken the lead among independents, 47 to 38 percent. The margin of error is plus or minus six points for independents’ support, but Kerry’s lead a week ago was almost outside that poll's plus or minus seven-point margin.