The Times Poll : His Race Seen Aiding Jackson in Dixie Voting

Running for the first time this year in states with large blocs of highly supportive black voters, the Rev. Jesse Jackson is well positioned in the Southern presidential primaries on Super Tuesday next week to win a sizable number of Democratic convention delegates, according to the Los Angeles Times Poll.

In 1988, in the South, there is an advantage to being a black when competing in Democratic presidential primaries, the Times Poll found.

Jackson seems also to be reaching out to a small but significant nucleus of educated, affluent white liberals, competing with Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis for their support.

White Democrats Split

Overall throughout the South, white Democrats are lining up about equally on the sides of Dukakis, Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. and Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, the poll showed.

In the Republican race, the deciding factor for voters seems to be which candidate they believe can best carry on “the Reagan revolution.” And, based on this survey, GOP Southerners overwhelmingly think it would be Vice President George Bush.

The Times Poll, directed by I. A. Lewis, interviewed 1,730 likely voters in 13 Southern and Border states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. All but one hold presidential contests on Tuesday, along with eight other states. South Carolina will conduct a Republican primary on Saturday and Democratic caucuses one week later.

In total, 3,538 adults were contacted by telephone in order to reach 964 people who were considered likely to participate in the Democratic contests and 766 likely to vote in the GOP races. The interviewing was conducted for five days ending last Monday. The margins of error are 3 percentage points for all the likely voters, 4 points for the Democrats and 5 points for Republicans.

On Super Tuesday, more than 30% of each party’s national convention delegates will be at stake, the vast majority of them in the Southern and Border states. The Times’ 13-state survey of likely voters was designed to provide a basic measurement of how the candidates generally are faring in the South. But it cannot gauge the candidates’ strengths in individual states, which on Election Day will be what really counts. Neither can it measure the potential effectiveness of a campaign organization’s get-out-the-vote efforts on Election Day.

Throughout the overall region, the Times Poll found Jackson with 23% of the Democratic vote, followed by Dukakis and Gore, with 16% each, and Gephardt, with 14%. Then came former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, 8%, and Illinois Sen. Paul Simon, who has abandoned Southern campaigning, 4%. Nineteen percent were undecided.

Bush Well Ahead

In the Republican race, Bush held a whopping lead of nearly 3 to 1 throughout the South, being backed by 61% of the GOP voters. The vice president was followed by Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, 22%, former religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, 9%, and New York Rep. Jack Kemp, 3%. There were only 5% undecided.

Until the primaries reached the South, there were only minuscule numbers of blacks for Jackson to draw from--an average of about 1% of the voters in each early state. Still, he ran respectably--finishing fourth in Iowa and New Hampshire and second in Maine and Vermont while demonstrating an ability to attract affluent, educated white voters.

But, in the South, roughly one third of the likely Democratic voters are black, the Times Poll found. And Jackson is backed by 61% of these black voters, which is 10 times more support than they give any other candidate.

Put another way, blacks account for 86% of Jackson’s Southern support. In addition, the biggest single racial/ethnic voter bloc among Southern Democrats is blacks for Jackson.

Lesser White Support

On the other hand, Jackson is not demonstrating the same ability in Dixie that he did in Iowa and New England to attract white voters. Only 4% of Southern whites support Jackson, the survey showed. The bulk of the white vote--roughly two-thirds of it--is divided about equally among Dukakis, Gore and Gephardt.

But Jackson stands to benefit slightly on Tuesday from being black, the survey showed. And the boost could be around 5 percentage points.

Although Jackson still does not seem to be fulfilling his 1984 promise of a Rainbow Coalition, he is appealing to a small cadre of educated, affluent Southern white liberals and challenging Dukakis for their backing. For example, half of Jackson’s white supporters describe themselves as liberals. Half earn more than $40,000 a year. And three-fourths have gone to college.

Among Democrats of all races, Jackson and Dukakis get about equal support among liberals, which is twice as much as either Gore or Gephardt. Jackson has a slight edge among Democratic centrists, with Dukakis, Gephardt and Gore bunched behind him in a virtual three-way tie. But Jackson shows his wide Southern appeal by also being a slight favorite of Democratic conservatives, with Gore second.

Interestingly, more of Jackson’s black supporters consider themselves to be conservatives than either moderates or liberals. This probably has a lot to do with religion. Three-fourths said they have had a “born-again experience” and more than half regard themselves as “strongly” religious.

On the Republican side, 9 in 10 of Robertson’s supporters reported having had a “born-again experience.” This contrasted sharply with Kemp’s supporters--only a third of whom had been “born again”--and helped to illustrate how the two are appealing to distinctly different types of conservatives. Robertson’s followers, compared to Kemp’s, tend to be younger and not as high on the socio-economic scale, the survey showed.

Strong Reagan Supporters

What Southern Republicans have most in common, apparently, is their continued support of President Reagan. Eighty-seven percent approved of how Reagan is handling his job and nearly two-thirds of these voters said they back Bush, who has been running as the President’s alter ego.

The biggest issue by far among Southern voters--Republicans and Democrats alike--is the federal budget deficit, chosen 2 to 1 over any other topic as “most important.” A majority of Republicans agree with Reagan’s basic position that the deficit can be resolved without tax increases, and two-thirds of them support Bush.

Democrats, however, are evenly divided on the question of whether taxes should be raised to reduce the deficit. Those who approve of a tax hike tend to prefer Jackson, Dukakis or Gore. Those who oppose raising taxes support Jackson by a large margin.

Perhaps Gore’s strongest appeal to Southerners is that he is one of them--a candidate with Southern roots. One-sixth of Gore’s supporters are people who said they would be “more likely” to vote for somebody from the South. And, although this loyalty to Dixie was subscribed to by only 10% of Democrats, they sided with Gore by more than 2 to 1 over any other candidate.

There was evidence in this survey that Gephardt is not scoring quite as well with his protectionist trade theme as has been the conventional wisdom of political professionals. Foreign trade ranked only in the middle of the pack among issues deemed “most important” to Democratic voters. And those who did rate it the highest sided with Gore and Jackson by almost 2 to 1 over Gephardt.

IT HELPS TO BE BLACK

. . . in Southern Democratic primaries. Slightly different hypothetical candidates were described to two separate groups of people. Each description is accompanied by the percent of respondents who preferred that candidate for President. “Don’t know” responses are not shown.

Candidates described to group 1. Race not mentioned.

Mr. A He is about 55 years old, he was born and raised in Portland, Ore., he is married with two children and is a businessman.

51% Mr. B He is about 60 years old, he was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, he is married with one child and his career has been as an attorney.

34% Mr. B loses by 17 percentage points when race is not mentioned.

Candidates described to group 2. Race mentioned.

Mr. A He is about 55 years old, he was born and raised in Portland, Ore., he is married with two children and is a businessman.

45% Mr. B He is about 60 years old, he was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, he is black, is married with one child and his career has been as an attorney.

33% Mr. B runs a better race when he is described as a black.

He loses by only 12 percentage points.