Six days before the presidential election, FOX News Channel host Sean Hannity selectively cited several polls from battleground states to show a lead for President George W. Bush. Earlier that day, radio host Rush Limbaugh erroneously asserted that Bush's lead over Senator John Kerry in Ohio is substantial and that “Kerry cannot break even with Bush with female voters.” Yet polls suggest otherwise in both cases.

On the October 27 edition of FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, Hannity (citing a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted October 22-25) reported that Bush leads Kerry by 4 percent in Iowa and (citing a Detroit News poll conducted October 20-21 and October 25) that Kerry leads Bush by only one percentage point in Michigan.

But a Reuters/Zogby poll of Iowa voters conducted October 23-26 shows an even race. While a Reuters/Zogby poll conducted October 24-27 shows the race in Michigan tied, a Rasmussen poll conducted October 20-26 gives Kerry a 5 percent advantage.

Hannity stated that “brand new poll numbers from key swing states ... could mean some bad news for John Kerry.” But Hannity failed to mention several battleground states where new polling data favors Kerry. The Reuters/Zogby poll, conducted October 24-27 and released October 27, shows Kerry leading Bush by 4 percent in both Wisconsin and Colorado and by 3 percent in Minnesota. And four Ohio polls released this week (Reuters/Zogby, Los Angeles Times, Survey USA, and American Research Group) show Kerry leading Bush by a range of one to six percentage points.

Despite the aforementioned polling data for Ohio, Limbaugh, on the October 27 broadcast of the nationally syndicated Rush Limbaugh Show, quoted the following from an October 27 National Review Online column by Peter W. Schramm: “The mainstream media are spinning that it's close in Ohio, when it really isn't. And this explains why Bush was able to stay away from Ohio for ten days.” (Schramm is executive director of the John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs and a professor of political science at Ashland University.) Limbaugh advocated Schramm's view “despite what the polls are saying,” because “the press is not talking about how well organized the Republicans are [in Ohio].”

Limbaugh also repeated Schramm's assertion that “Kerry cannot break even with Bush with female voters.” While it is unclear whether Schramm was referring to national polls or Ohio polls, polling in both cases suggests otherwise. For example, a Reuters/Zogby poll conducted October 20-22 showed Kerry with a three-point lead among women nationally, while a Pew Research poll conducted October 15-19 gave Kerry a ten-point lead. A poll by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University conducted October 17-21 gave Kerry a three-point lead among women in Ohio.