Issues Dominate Voters' Reasons for Choosing Presidential Candidates
Different issues important to Gore and Bush voters
by David W. Moore
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ -- According to a recent Gallup poll, conducted August 24-27, voters are choosing either Al Gore or George W. Bush for president mostly because of various issues the two candidates are addressing. Voters are less likely now than they were last spring to say they are voting for a candidate because he is of their own party, and they are more likely to say that their vote is motivated either because they generally favor the policies/platform of their selected candidate, or because they favor his position on specific types of issues.
The types of issues mentioned by each group of supporters, however, are quite varied -- Gore's supporters are more likely to mention economic, environmental, health, and welfare issues, and Bush's supporters more likely to mention tax, defense, gun, and size-of-government issues. In addition, about a third of Bush's supporters (32%) continue to mention some negative aspect about Gore as a reason for their choice, while only 14% of Gore's supporters classify their vote as a choice specifically against Bush. And, while few of Gore's supporters mention morals or ethics as a reason for their vote choice, almost one in five of Bush's supporters say these considerations are important in their vote decision.
Nearly Half of Each Candidate’s Supporters Mention Issues as Reason to Vote for Candidate
The poll asked respondents to explain in an open-ended format why they expect to vote for either Gore or Bush for president. Fifty-one percent of Gore's supporters and 48% of Bush's supporters mentioned some type of issue area, including 17%-18% of each group who indicated their general support of the policies/platform of their candidate. Last spring, in a poll conducted March 30-April 2, a similar question showed that only 6%-10% mentioned the policies/platform of their candidate.
The candidates’ supporters often reflect the themes of the candidates’ respective campaigns when mentioning reasons for voting for their preferred candidate. For example, Gore's supporters are much more likely to mention economic issues (11%) than are Bush's supporters (1%), and are also much more likely to volunteer that their candidate cares about the "average" American (the middle class, the old, the poor, or the average person) than are Bush's supporters -- by a margin of 17% to 1%. Gore's supporters also mention social issues such as health, welfare, Medicare, and the environment more often than do Bush's supporters, by 13% to 5%.
Bush's supporters, on the other hand, are more likely than Gore's supporters to mention such issues as taxes, defense, and less government, by 14% to 3%. In addition, Bush's supporters seem much more concerned about the personal integrity and morals of their candidate than are Gore's supporters, by a margin of 19% to 5%.
For both groups of supporters, the party affiliation of their candidate is now cited less frequently as a reason for their choice than it was last spring. Now, just 7% of Bush's supporters and 13% of Gore's supporters say they are voting "party lines." Last March-April, 17% of Bush's supporters and 25% of Gore's supporters offered that reason for their vote choice. The change may reflect the fact that voters today know much more about the candidates' specific policies and issues than they did in March, when they may not have known much more than the candidates’ party affiliation.
Survey Methods
The current results reported here are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,019 adults, 18 years and older, conducted August 24-27, 2000.
Results based on likely voters are based on the sub-sample of -- 664 -- survey respondents deemed most likely to vote in the November 2000 General Election, according to a series of questions measuring current voting intentions and past voting behavior. For results based on the total sample of Likely Voters, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points.
Gallup’s current likely voter estimation for 2000 assumes that 50% of the voting age population (VAP) will turn out to vote. (In 1996, turnout among the VAP was 49%. The average turnout rate in all presidential elections since 1980 is approximately 52%.)
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