Dead Heat

When John F. Kerry clearly won his first debate against President George W. Bush in 2004, the Democrat felt his campaign finally lift off the ground. A bunch of polls showed him surging. “Most concerning” to President Bush, said one wire story at the time, was a Gallup poll that showed Democrat Kerry had moved into a dead heat with the Republican incumbent. President Bush would remain locked in a virtual dead heat with the challenger for the rest of the race, but push ahead enough, in the end, to win a second term.

Brock Myers hit a tiebreaking double, and Goodlettsville, Tenn., gave up a 10-run lead in the bottom of the sixth before scoring nine in the seventh in a 24-16 victory Saturday over Petaluma, Calif., for a berth in the Little League World Series title game in South Williamsport, Pa. Only California's 10-run comeback to send the game into extra innings tied at 15 could overshadow Tennessee slugger Lorenzo Butler's extraordinary day at the plate....

WASHINGTON -- A pair of fresh polls is showing familiar results: The presidential race is essentially a dead heat. A New York Times/CBS poll released Thursday shows Mitt Romney's support at 47% of registered voters, with President Obama at 46%. A Fox News poll Obama at 45% and Romney at 41%. Both results are within the polls' margins of error and show very little movement from surveys taken earlier in the summer. As noted before on this blog , one of the most consistent things about the presidential showdown is its consistency.

EUGENE, Ore. - USA Track and Field officials were meeting late Saturday to determine how to break a dead heat between Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix for third place in the women's 100 meters at the Olympic track and field trials, with a berth on the London Olympic team at stake. Tarmoh was initially awarded third ahead of Felix, though the two Los Angeles-based training partners were timed in 11.068 seconds. Timers notified referees of a possible dead heat, leading to a review of the photo finish.

As Wisconsin voting places were closing, exit polls showed the recall race in a dead heat between Gov. Scott Walker and challenger Tom Barrett. Turnout in the state had been extremely heavy all day, appearing to match the predictions of state officials that 60%-65% of voting-age adults would turn out. The state allows same-day voter registration - a practice that encourages high turnout.  Although polls officially close at 8 p.m. local time (6 p.m. Pacific), Wisconsin allows voters in line by poll-closing time to vote.

In spite of the attention paid to the controversy over Elizabeth Warren's purported Native American heritage, the Democratic Senate hopeful has tightened the race against incumbent Sen. Scott Brown, according to new polling. The race is now well within the margin of error of the latest Suffolk University/7NEWS poll , with Brown holding a single point lead over Warren, 48% to 47%, with 5% of voters undecided. The numbers show a steady rise for Warren, who in February was 9 points behind Brown, 49% to 40%. “This leaves both campaigns no choice but to spend tens of millions of dollars in an all-out war to woo the 5% of voters who will decide this election,” David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said.

The hotly contested issue of whether to recall Wisconsin's Republican governor has the state's voters evenly divided, according to a newly released poll. Gov. Scott Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, his most likely Democratic opponent, were virtually tied, with Barrett leading 47%-46% among all registered voters and Walker ahead 48%-47% among those most likely to vote, according to the poll by Marquette University Law School. Barrett holds a strong and growing lead over three other Democrats a week before the party's May 8 primary, the poll showed.

If the Los Angeles mayoral election were held tomorrow, three candidates would be elbowing for the lead: City Councilman Eric Garcetti, City Controller Wendy Greuel and County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. That comes from a new poll, conducted by the Center for the Study of Los Angeles and based on interviews of 1,600 city residents. The results of the survey will be formally released this week. There are reasons not to give those results too much weight. It's almost a year until voters will cast ballots; not all the candidates who may run have entered; money is still being amassed; messages for the campaign have yet to be refined, debates held and advertisements aired.

As he set out on a snowy bus tour through Ohio on the eve of the Super Tuesday contests, Mitt Romney hammered his closing argument that he is the only candidate who had spent his life in the "real economy," painting his GOP rivals as creatures of Washington who are not equipped to address the nation's economic slump. After touring a steel manufacturer that makes guardrails, Romney reminded voters of his background in venture capital where he was involved in snapping up companies and making them more profitable for investors.