Newsweek Poll: Kerry Leads

MSNBC reports that in the first national telephone poll using a fresh sample, Newsweek found the presidential race statistically tied among all registered voters, in a three-way race.

Registered Voters
Bush 45%
Kerry 47%
Nader 2%

The poll was conducted among registered voters between September 30 and October 2 and has a margin of error is plus or minus 4 percent.

Newsweek's September 9-10 found a 6% lead for President Bush 49% to 43%.

UPDATE:: At Power Line, Hindrocket posts that Newsweek's most recent poll included 345 Republicans, 364 Democrats and 278 independents. This compares to Newsweek's published data for their most recent prior poll, which showed President Bush with a comfortable lead: 391 Republicans, 300 Democrats and 270 independents. As Hindrocket notes if you drop 46 Republicans and add 64 Democrats, you will get considerably better results for the Democratic nominee.

Could the Newsweek pollsters are Machiavellian enough to have set up the polls to give a result indicating a Kerry surge?

At The Pink Flamingo Bar Grill, Pierre Legrand suggests they are.

At PoliBlog, Steven Taylor posts that when this poll found a 11% lead for President Bush the Democrats were calling the poll an outlier with a flawed methodology a few weeks back.