Crossover Champion Edwards Needs to Lure More Democrats

Can John Edwards avoid the fate of John McCain?

Early in the 2000 Republican presidential race, McCain surged into contention against George W. Bush largely on the strength of support from independents and Democrats who crossed over to vote for him in the New Hampshire and Michigan primaries.

But after McCain’s early breakthroughs, Bush quickly recovered to win the nomination when the Arizona maverick couldn’t attract enough core Republicans to compete in states such as New York and California. The result proved what we might call the McCain maxim: It’s difficult to win a party’s nomination by relying on voters who don’t belong to it.

Edwards is now in a similar position in the Democratic presidential race. Support from independents and crossover Republicans has been central to his success in every contest where he has run even reasonably well. Except in his native state of South Carolina, Edwards has trailed John F. Kerry among traditional Democrats in each contest where the National Election Pool, a consortium of television networks and Associated Press, has conducted exit polls.

If Edwards can’t significantly improve his showing among core Democrats, he won’t seriously challenge Kerry. The test is particularly urgent for Edwards because only five of the 10 states with primaries or caucuses on March 2 allow non-Democrats to vote. In other words, Edwards has a big problem and not much time to solve it.

The early results underscore the task facing Edwards in the March 2 contests open only to Democrats: New York, Connecticut, Maryland and Minnesota. Voting in Ohio is limited to Democrats, but the state allows voters to switch their party registration on the day of the primary.

The National Election Pool has polled voters in 10 of the 17 contests held so far. Apart from beating Kerry among voters who identified themselves as Democrats in South Carolina, Edwards ran just 1 percentage point behind him in Oklahoma. In Iowa, Edwards ran 10 points behind Kerry among Democrats.

In the other seven states where the consortium has conducted exit polls, Kerry beat Edwards by at least 17 percentage points among Democrats. Even in last week’s Wisconsin primary, where Edwards finished a surprisingly close second, Kerry beat him among Democrats, 48% to 31%. Given Kerry’s dominance among these partisans, it’s reasonable to ask whether Edwards should be devoting so much effort to New York, which allows only Democrats to vote in the primary.

Since Iowa, Edwards has kept himself afloat largely by appealing to independents and the relatively small number of Republicans voting in the Democratic race. Edwards hasn’t shown a McCain-level attraction for independents: Kerry has beaten the North Carolina senator among independents in six of the 10 states with exit polls.

But in most states, Edwards has won a greater share of the vote among independents than among Democrats. Edwards has run ahead of Kerry among independent voters three times -- in South Carolina, Oklahoma and Wisconsin -- and split them with him in Tennessee.

Meanwhile, Kerry has won a smaller share of the vote among independents than Democrats in all 10 states with exit polls. That’s been true whether his principal opponent in a state was Edwards, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (as in New Hampshire) or retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark (as in Arizona).

That pattern suggests an opening for Edwards now that he and Kerry are the last two major candidates standing. If there is an independent block dubious of Kerry, Edwards might be able to consolidate them in the five March 2 states that allow independents to vote.

But three of those five are New England states (Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont) where Kerry is a heavy favorite. The only other states with open primaries next week are Georgia (where any voter can participate) and California (where Democrats and independents can vote).

In both those states, Edwards faces another problem: his poor showing so far among minority voters. In Georgia and California (as well as in New York), African Americans and Latinos are likely to constitute at least a quarter of all voters -- more than in any state that has voted except South Carolina.

Edwards’ numbers among African Americans have looked much like Kerry’s with independents. In Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin and even South Carolina, Edwards’ support among blacks ran at least 10 percentage points behind his backing from white voters. In all of those states, Kerry ran better among blacks than whites.

These results are especially frustrating for Edwards’ camp because he talks about race relations so passionately. Edwards’ advisors believe Kerry is dominating among African Americans largely because he has been introduced to them through media coverage as the likely nominee and the Democrats’ best hope against President Bush. To the Edwards camp, that phenomenon also explains much of Kerry’s advantage among partisan Democrats.

That analysis has a lot of truth, but it’s not the entire story. Voters focused on experience are still resisting Edwards. And Kerry has presented his personal story and agenda in a way that’s attractive, or at least acceptable, to all segments of his party. In many states, 80% of primary and caucus voters have said that regardless of which candidate they supported, they would be satisfied with Kerry as the nominee.

Can Edwards dent that consensus in the next eight days? Beyond his appeal to independents, he has shown strength with moderates and voters whose principal concern is the economy. Edwards also closes well: In almost every state he’s run better among late-deciders than early-deciders. But to really press Kerry for the Democratic nomination, Edwards will need to attract a few more actual Democrats.

Ronald Brownstein’s column appears every Monday. See current and past columns on The Times’ Web site at www.latimes.com/brownstein.