Submerged with data

Thursday's American Enterprise Institute Election Watch briefing was especially informative, dealing with the "bounce" in the polls that coincides with vice-presidential nominations and the party conventions. Check out the handouts for reams of figures as well as the video.
 
The polling data all points to a close contest to be won by Kerry. What I am not seeing is how this compares with 2000. We should remember that the opinion polls at the equivalent stage predicted a Democrat victory for Al Gore. Intriguing fact of the day, the Gallup polling is in 16 states, nine of which were held by Gore in 2000. Is Bush really threatening to win Michigan?
 
I will report on this further, but the thought occurs that we could be looking at a 1987 British election where the BBC announced a hung-Parliament at the close of polls only for a 100 seat Conservative majority to be declared when the actual votes were counted.
 
Ignore the swings in the polls before the end of the Republican Convention in late August: Kerry isn't likely to show better poll ratings before then than Michael Dukakis did in 1988. By November, Dukakis held 11 states to George Bush MkI's 40.