Key Midwest Swing States Are Leaning Toward Bush

President Bush is leading Sen. John F. Kerry in three hotly contested Midwestern states, despite continued doubts about the country’s direction and the administration’s policy choices, new Times polls have found.

Bush has opened small leads -- within the surveys’ margin of error -- in Ohio and Wisconsin, states where the presidential race was closer in Times polls taken in June. The new Times survey also finds Bush ahead in Missouri, though by a narrower margin than in June.

The three states, with a combined 41 electoral votes, are among those both sides view as critical to the outcome of the race.

In Missouri, Bush leads among registered voters, 46% to 44%; in Wisconsin, he leads 48% to 44%; in Ohio, the president holds a 49%-to-44% advantage, the surveys found.

Like a nationwide Times poll released Wednesday that showed Bush ahead, 49% to 46%, the state surveys underscore Kerry’s difficulty in converting a general desire for change into support for his candidacy.

Kerry trails in the three states even though a majority of voters in each says the country is not better off because of Bush’s policies and “needs to move in a new direction.”

Bush draws support from virtually all voters who support his policy direction; by contrast, Kerry attracts about four-fifths or fewer of voters who want a new course.

Barb Chiamulera, a special-education teacher from Florence, Wis., who responded to the poll, said she remained torn between disappointment in Bush and uncertainty about Kerry.

“It seems like we’re kind of at a dead end,” she said of Bush’s presidency.

“But I just feel I don’t know Kerry’s philosophy as well as I should. I still don’t really feel like he’s come up with any definite plan for what he would do and how he would change things.”

The Times Poll, supervised by polling director Susan Pinkus, contacted 507 registered voters in Ohio, 580 in Missouri and 512 in Wisconsin, from Saturday through Tuesday. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for each state.

Wisconsin, which Democrat Al Gore carried by less than one-half of a percentage point in 2000, ranks among the top targets for Bush’s campaign. Missouri and Ohio, both of which Bush won by less than 4 percentage points four years ago, are two key targets for Kerry.

The three states have attracted large amounts of the advertising dollars spent by the two candidates and independent groups supporting them.

Times polls in June showed Kerry and Bush tied in Wisconsin, Kerry holding a statistically insignificant 1-point advantage in Ohio and the president leading in Missouri, 48% to 42%. The new results show that the race has tightened in Missouri, while Bush has improved his position in Wisconsin and Ohio.

Wisconsin and Ohio were two of the three states where a group of anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans ran an ad accusing him of lying about his military record in that war. (The commercial also aired in West Virginia.) The ad also was frequently broadcast nationally by cable network news shows.

In Ohio, 58% of voters said they had seen the ad, in Wisconsin, 56%, and in Missouri, 47%. In the national poll, the figure was 48%.

As in the national poll, a majority of voters in each state survey rejected the charges that Kerry misrepresented his record.

Those allegations, made by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, have been challenged by a succession of witness accounts and official documents that mostly confirm Kerry’s version of events.

Doug Redd, a union carpenter from Portsmith, Ohio, who voted for Bush in 2000 but now backed Kerry, said of the Democrat: “He went and he fought for us, and that’s all that matters.”

In a reference to the dispute between Kerry and the veterans group opposing him over whether he deserved all of the five medals he was awarded in Vietnam, Redd said, “I don’t care if he got that Purple Heart when he tripped over a branch. He fought for us.”

Kerry leads in all three states among voters who have seen the ad. Bush holds big leads among those who have heard about but not seen the ad -- a finding that probably reflects the right-leaning audience for talk radio hosts highlighting the controversy. Bush also leads in the three states among those unaware of the dispute.

Kerry may face somewhat more risk from the Swift boat group’s second ad, which criticizes antiwar Senate testimony he delivered in 1971, after returning from Vietnam. That ad has aired only in Nevada, New Mexico and Pennsylvania, but the percentage of voters aware of it is nearly as high in Ohio, Missouri and Wisconsin as for the first commercial.

One finding in the state polls suggests negative reverberations for Kerry from the ad.

In the national poll, 48% of voters said Kerry’s combat service “demonstrated qualities America needs in a president,” while 37% said his protests upon returning “demonstrated a judgment and belief that was inappropriate in a president.” Thus, voters nationally tilted toward Kerry on those questions by 11 percentage points.

But in Ohio, the margin favoring Kerry was 7 percentage points, and in Missouri it was 6. In Wisconsin, by a 2-percentage-point margin, more said Kerry showed inappropriate judgment with his anti-Vietnam War protests than said he had demonstrated the right qualities for a president.

Beyond these shadows over Kerry, Bush is being buoyed by improved ratings on several fronts. For instance, since June, approval for his handling of the conflict in Iraq has edged up in all three states.

Voters in the states picked Bush over Kerry when asked which man was most likely to develop a plan to succeed in Iraq and who would be more qualified to serve as commander in chief. They also gave Bush a big lead when asked which candidate would best protect the nation from terrorism.

“As for his No. 1 duty to protect citizens, I feel he’s doing everything in his power to do that,” said Tom Kelly, an equipment operator in Cudahy, Wis.

Bush’s overall approval rating increased slightly since June in Missouri, to 52%; and in Wisconsin, to 54%. But in Ohio, his approval rating remained at 47%, with 50% disapproving of his performance.

That’s a potential problem for Bush in Ohio. And other warning signs for him flicker through the state surveys.

In Missouri and Wisconsin, slightly more voters disapprove than approve of his handling of the economy. In Ohio, which has lost 230,000 jobs since he took office, 52% disapprove of his economic record.

“Our jobs are going overseas faster and faster, and he doesn’t even care,” said Redd, the carpenter from Portsmith.

In all three states, more voters say the country is moving on the wrong track than in the right direction.

Voters in Missouri and Wisconsin are somewhat more optimistic than voters nationally about the country’s direction, but in Ohio, voters are more pessimistic. Just 39% there say the country is on the right track, compared with 54% who think it is moving in the wrong direction; nationally the numbers were 40% and 52%, respectively.

In all three states, Kerry led Bush when voters were asked which man had better ideas for strengthening the economy. In Wisconsin and Ohio, Kerry’s lead on that question stretches to double digits. In each state, Kerry fights Bush to a draw on honesty and strength of leadership.

One other result spotlights the challenge for Bush -- and the opportunity for Kerry.

In each of the three states, fewer than 40% of voters agree that “the country is better off because of” Bush’s policies. A majority in each -- 55% in Ohio, 53% in Missouri and 52% in Wisconsin -- say “the country is not better off and needs to move in a new direction.”

Still, Bush’s overall lead in all three states is explained in part by the almost unanimous support he gets from those who say his policies have left the country better off. In each state, he wins at least 96% of those voters.

But among those who want a new direction, Kerry wins 81% in Missouri, 77% in Wisconsin and 75% in Ohio. The rest are either supporting Bush or undecided.

Those figures provide fodder for Democrats who think the challenge for Kerry is harvesting more of the voters open to change -- a process strategists call “closing the change gap.”

Norma Benedict, a tax advisor in Kansas City, Mo., typifies the sort of voter Kerry probably must convert to win. Though she usually supports Democrats, she voted for Bush in 2000. Now, she’s worried about the cost of prescription drugs, funding for schools and the war in Iraq.

“Maybe we need some new blood,” she says. Still, she’s leaning toward Bush again. “I guess I should study more about Kerry,” she says. “But I just don’t like him.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Presidential race: battleground states

Q: For whom would you vote if the election were held today?

In a two-way contest:

Missouri Ohio Wisconsin voters voters voters Bush/Cheney 46% 49% 48% Kerry/Edwards 44% 44% 44% Other 1% 1% 0% Don’t know 9% 6% 8%

Q: Have you seen, heard or read about a television ad that disputes whether Sen. John F. Kerry deserves the medals he received during the Vietnam War? Missouri Ohio Wisconsin voters voters voters Have seen ad 47% 58% 56% Have heard about ad 13% 8% 10% Haven’t seen/heard about ad 37% 27% 28%

Notes: All results are among registered voters in Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin. Some answers may not add up to 100% where some some answer categories are not shown.

How the poll was conducted The Times Poll contacted 1,781 adults in three separate battleground states. Included were 507 registered voters in Ohio, 580 in Missouri and 512 in Wisconsin. All interviews were conducted by telephone Saturday through Tuesday. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the states and random-digit dialing techniques were used to allow listed and unlisted numbers to be contacted. Adults in each sample were weighted slightly to conform with their respective census figures for sex, race, age and education. The margin of sampling error for registered voters in each of the three states is plus or minus 4 percentage points. For certain subgroups in all samples, the error margin may be somewhat higher. Poll results may also be affected by factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented. Telephone interviews were conducted by Interviewing Services of America, Van Nuys, Calif.

Source: Times Poll