Comfortable Voters Not Contented, Poll Finds

Disappointment with Congress and deep ambivalence about President Clinton are creating the conditions for a tumultuous election year, even in a period of widespread satisfaction with the economy, a new Times Poll has found.

In their early preferences for next year’s congressional and presidential races, voters are voicing a sentiment rarely heard in American political history: Times are good, so throw the bums out.

Even with more than 80% of Americans saying the economy is doing very or fairly well, voters today would give Democrats the edge in congressional elections and Republican presidential front-runner George W. Bush the advantage in the presidential race, the survey found. If those preferences hold, they could invert the current Washington balance of power, which has Republicans controlling Congress and Democrats the White House.

Behind that impulse for change are clear signs of frustration with both President Clinton and the Republican Congress after a legislative year that opened with a bitter battle over impeachment and closed with stalemate on most major issues. Only 4% of voters say Congress has accomplished “a great deal” over the past three years, while nearly 10 times as many--38%--say it has accomplished “not much or nothing at all.” (About 55% say Congress has accumulated “some” accomplishments.)

When voters who said Congress hasn’t accomplished much were asked why, 56% blamed both Clinton and the Republicans. Yet even amid this frustration at gridlock, a little more than half of voters still say they prefer to divide control of Congress and the White House between the parties, so that each can act as a check on the other.

That reluctance to give either party unified control is especially strong among independents--and could emerge as a wild card factor in the election as voters sort through their choices in the congressional and presidential campaigns.

The Times Poll, supervised by Poll Director Susan Pinkus, surveyed 1,800 adults, including 1,430 registered voters, from Nov. 13 through Nov. 18. Both groups have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The battle for control of Congress is a decentralized struggle shaped by local conditions, fund-raising success and the quality of the candidates in dozens of competitive races around the country. Yet these races all float on a sea of shifting national attitudes about the two parties, and changes in those currents can be crucial to the outcome. That’s especially true in races for the House, where candidates often aren’t as well known as Senate contenders.

For instance, when Democrats gained House seats in the 1996 and 1998 elections, they led in national surveys that asked voters which party they would back in the congressional races; Republicans led on that question before their breakthrough victory in 1994.

In the Times Poll, Democrats have now taken a 47% to 41% lead over the GOP when voters are asked which party they intend to support in next year’s congressional election. Likewise, Democrats now have a 38% to 33% advantage when voters are asked which party they believe can “do a better job handling the major problems facing the country.”

The contrast between the presidential and congressional races spotlights some of the reasons why Vice President Al Gore trails Bush by 55% to 40% in the survey.

Gore Losing Some Voters to Bush

Gore is suffering substantial defection to Bush even among elements of the traditional Democratic coalition that, for now, are uniting behind the party’s congressional candidates. To take three examples: Voters older than 65 give 55% of their votes to Democrats for Congress but only 46% to Gore against Bush; union members prefer Democrats for Congress by 16 percentage points, but Bush by 6; and while only 8% of moderate and conservative Democrats say they will vote Republican for Congress, 28% say they would pick Bush over Gore.

Indeed, the pattern of defection to Bush raises intriguing questions about whether Gore’s current weakness owes more to Clinton’s troubles or to his own.

Voters continue to give Clinton strong grades for his job performance, with 57% approving and 40% disapproving. When voters are asked directly if their feelings about Clinton will affect their willingness to support Gore, the president emerges as a modest, but tangible, drag: 78% say attitudes toward Clinton will have no effect, 16% say it will make them less likely to support Gore, and 3% say more likely.

Yet other questions pinpoint a much more complex assessment of Clinton--as well as a subtle interplay between judgments about Clinton and his vice president. The question that perhaps best captures the ambivalence about the president asked voters to choose among four options to describe their views on Clinton and his policies.

Given that choice, 29% said they liked Clinton personally and liked his policies, while a mirror image 29% said they disliked him and his policies. A small group (7%) said they liked Clinton personally while disliking his policies, and the largest swing group--exactly one-third of voters--said they liked Clinton’s policies but didn’t care for him personally. Combining those groups produces a striking result: Overall, 62% of voters say they dislike Clinton personally. The exact same percentage--62%--say they like his policies.

Gore’s Image May Need Polishing

Bush likes to joke that he’s inherited half his father’s friends and all of his father’s enemies, yet that notion seems to describe more precisely Gore’s inheritance from Clinton. Gore loses 17% of those who like Clinton and his policies while attracting just 7% of those who dislike the president on both counts. Even more important, among those who dislike Clinton personally but like his policies, 55% prefer Bush, and just 41% favor Gore--the man who promises the most obvious continuity with Clinton’s agenda.

Is that a measure of disillusionment with Clinton or with Gore? One hint is that only 41% of that swing group (those who like Clinton’s policies but dislike the president personally) say Gore has strong leadership qualities. Fully 69% of those same voters apply that label to Bush. Those numbers suggest Gore may face a more urgent need to rehabilitate his own image than Clinton’s.

Returning to Congress, two factors appear to create risk for the GOP. One is the prominence of issues on which Democrats traditionally hold the advantage. When voters were asked what issues they want to hear most about in next year’s presidential campaign, the top finisher was education, followed by health care and Social Security.

Only 9% cited taxes--even though Republicans made a push for massive tax cuts their major policy thrust this year in Congress. Indeed, when asked whether they would prefer to devote most of the federal budget surplus to tax cuts (as Republicans proposed) or to spend it primarily on Social Security, Medicare and education with a small tax cut (as Clinton proposed), 80% of voters said they preferred Clinton’s approach. Just 15% favored tax cuts.

The second ominous trend for the GOP is Congress’ slumping approval rating. Among all adults, just 42% give Congress positive marks, while 48% say they disapprove of its job performance. That’s Congress’ worst showing in a Times Poll since the budget showdown in fall 1995. And among registered voters, the picture is even bleaker: Just 39% approve of Congress’ performance, while 53% disapprove.

Still, the news isn’t all bad for congressional Republicans. While independents give Congress negative marks, they aren’t sold on Democrats either: Independents still lean toward the GOP when asked their preference in the congressional race, with 43% backing Republicans and 37% Democrats.

Otherwise, after this year of unremitting partisan hostility, the picture in the congressional races, not surprisingly, is one of intense polarization. More than 90% of voters in each party say they will support candidates from their own side for Congress; the Democrats lead overall because the Times Poll, like most other national surveys this year, found that more Americans once again identify themselves as Democrats than Republicans.

Times assistant poll director Jill Richardson contributed to this report.

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Congress and Clinton

Fewer Americans think that President Clinton will leave the country in better shape or that Congress is doing a good job. Ratings for both have declined, even though the nation’s economy continues to be strong.

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Source: L.A. Times Poll

HOW THE POLL WAS CONDUCTED

The Times Poll contacted 1,800 adults nationally, including 1,430 registered voters by telephone Nov. 13 through 18. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the nation. Random-digit dialing techniques were used so that listed and non-listed numbers could be called. The sample was weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education and region. The margin of sampling error for the entire sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For certain subgroups the error margin may be somewhat higher. Poll results can also be affected by other factors, such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented.

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More Times Poll results available on: https://www.latimes.com/timespoll