Good News, Bad News in Polls
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday , October 23, 2000
So, you think clues to who will win this ever-so-tight presidential race might be found deep in the details of polls, well after the horse-race question is asked and answered?
In fact, partisans for both Vice President Gore and Gov. George W. Bush can find plenty to cheer them – and chill them – in answers to questions designed to probe voters' thoughts in recent polls. For example:
• Gore's support appears a bit softer than Bush's. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 84 percent of Bush supporters say they're "strongly" committed to their choice, while 76 percent of Gore's backers say the same about him. If it's cold or rainy in key states on Election Day (think Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Washington, Maine), Democratic turnout could suffer. Bush gets the edge here.
• More women than men remain undecided, and Gore has consistently held an advantage among female voters. It's possible that many "undecided" voters at this stage will wind up being non-voters, but Gore finds reason for hope here.
• People like being on the winning side, and Bush recently edged ahead of Gore on the question of who's likely to win the election, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll published today. If there's a bandwagon effect in the final days, Bush could reap a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Voters prefer Gore on several matters they consider important. In the Post/ABC poll, voters said Bush would do a better job of holding down the size of government, but Gore would be better at providing needed services. By a considerable margin – 58 percent to 30 percent – these voters said that providing needed services is the more important of those two issues. Gore gets the edge here.
• Conventional wisdom holds that voters who make up their minds at the last minute tend to vote for challengers. (If incumbents haven't made the case for re-election by then, the thinking goes, it's probably too late.) Since Gore is the closest thing to an incumbent in this race, Bush gets the advantage here.
•Conventional wisdom also holds that backers of third-party candidates tend to fall away at the last minute, reluctant to vote for a sure loser who might siphon away enough ballots to tip the election to the less desirable of the viable alternatives. Gore hopes this is exactly what happens among Ralph Nader's supporters, especially in the hard-fought states of Washington and Oregon.
• Finally, some analysts say the presidential election goes to the candidate who voters believe won the televised debates. But who won the three debates between Bush and Gore? Several instant polls, along with "expert" analysts, gave the nod to Gore. But in the horse race, Bush went up, not down, during the period encompassing the three debates.
Like so many other factors in this presidential race – possibly the tightest in 40 years – the debate-winner calculation is too close to call.
washingtonpost.com |
