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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: chalu2 who wrote (18639)	5/10/2000 6:59:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Respond to of 769670

Bush Leading Gore as Democratic Base Falters Texas governor is rebuilding pre-1992 GOP coalition. Vice president is particularly weak among married voters. By RONALD BROWNSTEIN, Times Political Writer Erasing the recent Democratic advantage among women and dominating among men, Republican George W. Bush has opened an imposing 8-percentage-point nationwide lead over Democrat Al Gore, a new Times Poll has found. Six months before the presidential election, the poll finds Bush, the presumptive Republican nominee, establishing a broad initial base of support. At an unusually early point, the Texas governor has virtually unified the Republican base, even as he's reaching successfully into swing voter groups who proved crucial to President Clinton's two victories. Perhaps most strikingly, Bush is reestablishing a traditional Republican advantage among married voters that Clinton largely neutralized. Married voters, who tend to be more conservative on social issues, now prefer Bush over Gore, the presumptive Democratic nominee, by a commanding 21-percentage-point margin. Bush is leading decisively not only with married men but also married women. Bush's strength among married women is offsetting Gore's hold on single women and allowing the Texan to run step-for-step with the vice president among women overall, eliminating a solid Democratic advantage in the last two presidential elections. If Bush can maintain anything near parity with women, it would put Gore at great risk, because the Republican is displaying enormous appeal for male voters, even Democratic men... ...Bush leads Gore among every age group except voters 65 and older, who narrowly prefer the vice president. Bush leads Gore among every income group except middle-class families earning from $20,000 to $40,000, who tilt narrowly toward the Democrat. Likewise, Bush now leads Gore among voters at every level of education; even voters with only a high school degree or less, usually the most reliably Democratic group, prefer Bush. In a sharp contrast to the previous two GOP nominees--his father, George Bush, in 1992, and Bob Dole in 1996--the Texas governor is also showing substantial appeal to both women and men. At this early point, Bush is drawing men like a two-for-one beer night at the corner pub. Indeed, compared to Clinton's showing in The Times' exit poll of the 1996 election, Gore has lost more ground among men than women in the new survey. Among men overall, Bush leads Gore by a gaping 55% to 39%; Bush is even attracting about one-fifth of Democratic men. Republicans typically run better with men than women. But Bush's lead harkens back to the towering advantages among men that characterized the victories of presidents Reagan and Bush during the 1980s. Neither side is exactly sure why Bush is running so well with men, though explanations include doubts about Gore's leadership, Clinton's persistently lower approval rating among men and more sympathy for Bush's position on issues such as gun control. Bush's showing among women has a back-to-the-future feel as well. Though his advantage isn't as big as Clinton's in 1996, Gore continues to hold a double-digit lead among single women, whose economic insecurity and liberal views on social issues has combined to make them one of the electorate's most reliably Democratic blocs. But just as Republican nominees did in the 1970s and 1980s, Bush is offsetting that lead with a strong performance among married women, who comprise fully two-thirds of the female electorate. Bush leads Gore by at least 14 percentage points among both all married women and married women with children, the poll found... latimes.com