In N.H., Gore Beating Bradley, GOP Is Tossup

Vice President Al Gore has surged past Bill Bradley in New Hampshire while George W. Bush and John McCain remain locked in a step-for-step dead heat there, a new Times Poll has found.

After trailing Bradley in most New Hampshire polls earlier this winter, Gore has consolidated his hold on traditional Democrats while cutting into Bradley’s support among less-partisan voters, such as independents, the survey found. Overall, Gore now draws 50% to 41% for Bradley among likely Democratic voters in New Hampshire, which will hold its primary Feb. 1.

The movement toward Gore in New Hampshire follows a Times Poll last week that showed the vice president with a commanding 23-percentage-point lead over Bradley in Iowa, which formally opens the race for the nomination with its precinct caucuses Monday. Gore’s rise in the two kickoff contests set up the next eight days as a make-or-break challenge for Bradley, many analysts believe.

“Bradley’s problem is that the Democrats are rallying around Gore, who’s essentially the incumbent,” says Susan Pinkus, director of The Times Poll. “And if Bradley can’t shake that soon, he is in a lot of trouble.”

On the Republican side, the poll finds the two leaders battling to an absolute draw. Bush and McCain both attract support from 36% of likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire and are running even among most of the key demographic groups, men and women, older, younger, and more and less affluent voters.

The one exception to that pattern illuminates a potential wild card in the final stage of the New Hampshire GOP contest. Sen. McCain holds a double-digit advantage among independents and moderate voters, while Bush relies upon a comparable lead among conservatives to remain even overall. If conservatives Steve Forbes and Alan Keyes, who ran second and third in the latest Times Poll in Iowa, come out of that first contest with any momentum, they could pull away votes from Bush on the right--leaving the Texas governor without enough support to offset McCain’s strength in the center.

At this point, Forbes draws just 12% in New Hampshire, while Keyes runs fourth with 7%. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah attracted 2%, while social conservative Gary Bauer received less than 1% in the survey.

The Times Poll, supervised by Pinkus, surveyed 427 likely Democratic primary voters and 516 likely Republican primary voters from Jan. 16 through Thursday; it has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points for the Democrats and 4 points for the Republicans.

As in Iowa, New Hampshire voters seem to be settling on their decisions, though there is still room for final-week turbulence. Just 7% of Republican and 8% of Democratic primary voters say they are undecided. Between 60% and 70% of those backing the leading candidates on each side say they are certain to vote for their choice--leaving about a third in play.

The most unpredictable factor may be the potential for at least some independents--who can vote in either party--to switch between Bradley and McCain, depending on which seems more viable next week. The poll finds that Bradley voters have far more favorable impressions of McCain than they do of Gore. Likewise, McCain voters are far more favorable toward Bradley than Bush.

For nearly the last 50 years, New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary has occupied a privileged position in shaping the race for the White House. Traditionally, its role has been to anoint the finalists in the contest, not necessarily to determine the winner.

This year many analysts believe the state could decide whether a truly competitive race develops at all. With Bush and Gore both attracting so much institutional support and holding such large leads in national surveys, most believe that a New Hampshire loss would not be fatal to either. That’s especially so because the New Hampshire electorate, with a disproportionate share of independents and socially liberal upscale white voters, has grown less representative of each party’s mainstream.

But victory for Bradley or McCain could provide them with the momentum and media attention to press more serious challenges against the front-runners. Conversely, if McCain or Bradley loses in the state--where they benefit from an electorate sympathetic to their reform politics and have led in many polls since last fall--their insurgencies could be quickly deflated.

The survey finds clear winners in the central policy arguments that are dominating each race--though the effect of those decisions on the vote diverges.

Asked whether they prefer Bradley’s sweeping plan to provide health care for the uninsured or Gore’s more incremental approach, Democratic primary voters side with the vice president by a decisive 55%-to-34% margin.

Meanwhile, almost 3 in 5 Republican voters say they would prefer to use most of the anticipated federal budget surplus to bolster Social Security and Medicare while providing only a modest tax cut--as McCain has proposed. Just over a third of Republicans agree with Bush that most of the surplus should be used for a large tax cut.

But while 80% of Democratic voters who prefer Gore’s health care approach are voting for the vice president, just 58% of Republicans who back McCain’s plan are supporting him.

That disparity illuminates a key finding in the survey about how New Hampshire voters are making their choices: Those backing McCain, Bush and Bradley are all more than twice as likely to cite personal traits--such as experience or honesty--as issues when explaining their decision. But Gore supporters cite his views on issues--led by education, the environment and health care--as often as they do his personal qualities.

Typical of Gore supporters was Peter, a Londonderry engineer who refused to give his last name. “I believe he’s very knowledgeable about the issues and, of course, I agree with his views. Even though that hasn’t been in the forefront, I know that Gore has a strong record on the environment from past years.”

Those drawn toward Bradley were the most likely to cite personal traits, with morality and honesty, by far, leading the list. “I don’t really know all [Bradley’s] policies in depth,” said Seth Cross, a salesman and student from Concord who is choosing between Bradley and McCain. “I do not like what he wants to do with health care. . . . But I like the way he handles himself. He seems much more calm, much more natural.”

Among Republicans, Forbes’ support rests to an extraordinary degree on a single pillar: 62% of his backers cite taxes as their principal reason.

Bush backers list a broad range of issues and qualities; though most cite personal traits such as morality, experience and the legacy of his father (former President Bush), the single largest factor given for supporting the Texas governor was his stand on taxes.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for John McCain, but I think that, frankly, Bush has got the ability and the connections to get a good group down there in organizing the White House and all of the government agencies,” said Roger Burnham of Dover, a retired engineer who is supporting Bush.

Overwhelmingly, McCain voters point to morality and candor as the key reasons for their support. Only 1 in 10 cites his views on taxes and the surplus--and that’s the issue that draws the most mention. “He seems to be putting some honest ideas out there,” said William Button, a retired engineer in Pelham who is backing McCain. “Bush, I think he’s more political. He’s done a lot of talking, and I don’t know how sincere the talk is.”

One final calculation may be boosting the two front-runners: Regardless of who they support in the primary, 70% of Republican voters say Bush would be the strongest nominee in the general election--exactly the same percentage of Democrats who reach that conclusion about Gore.

The most striking trend in the survey is the tilt toward Gore. It follows several other surveys released in the state over the last week that show the vice president opening similar leads. In two national surveys released last week, Gore’s support among Democrats likewise swelled to around 70%, while Bradley fell to 30% or less.

Gore is leading Bradley among all core Democratic groups in New Hampshire, though the vice president’s margin among some of them isn’t as wide as it was in The Times’ survey in Iowa. For instance, in New Hampshire, Gore leads Bradley among women likely to vote in the Democratic primary by 12 percentage points; in Iowa, women gave Gore twice as large an edge. Gore leads among New Hampshire liberals by 7 percentage points, compared to more than twice that among their counterparts in Iowa. Similarly, Gore’s lead among union households isn’t as large in New Hampshire as it is in Iowa, the poll found.

But the basic class divisions that have defined the Democratic race from the outset remain powerfully present here. Bradley leads Gore by a robust 53% to 38% among voters with a college or graduate degree. (Reflecting his deeper inroads in New Hampshire, Bradley leads among both college-educated men and women there, while in Iowa he led only among college men, the bedrock of his support.)

As elsewhere, though, the faintly professorial Bradley is getting flattened among blue-collar and working-class voters. Gore draws fully 59% of likely voters without a four-year degree in New Hampshire, while just 31% are supporting Bradley. Democratic voters earning $40,000 a year or less prefer Gore over Bradley by more than 2 to 1.

Bradley, however, remains much more of a threat to Gore in New Hampshire than he appears to be in Iowa. That’s partly because of Bradley’s larger inroads among traditional Democrats but also because the less partisan voters attracted to him are a more significant factor in the Granite State.

The highly partisan nature of the Democratic caucuses in Iowa, which require participants to publicly declare their preference, tend to discourage independent voters from participating. By contrast, independents have traditionally made up between a quarter and a third (or even slightly more) of the Democratic New Hampshire electorate.

And Bradley remains competitive with those voters, though Gore has erased his lopsided advantage in many earlier surveys. In the new poll, Bradley is drawing 46% of independents, compared with 44% for Gore, a finding within the margin of error. If turnout is slightly lower than the poll projects, college-educated and independent voters could well become a larger share of the vote, boosting Bradley.

As in Iowa, New Hampshire Democrats give President Clinton virtually unanimous approval for his job performance (with 87% approving) but divide almost exactly in half on whether they like him personally. Democratic voters who personally dislike Clinton give Bradley an 18-point edge; those who like Clinton prefer Gore by 38 points.

There are fewer clear fissures in the Republican race. At this point, at least, many of the earlier divisions in the race--such as McCain’s increased strength among men--have disappeared. The two leaders now run evenly among both men and women. (Bush may have gained ground with men by stressing tax cuts, just as McCain’s emphasis on Social Security and Medicare may have helped him close Bush’s earlier lead among women.) Neither is more than an eyelash ahead of the other whether voters are analyzed by their income, age, education or marital status.

Two notable exceptions diverge from that pattern--and could decide the New Hampshire contest. McCain leads Bush by more than 2 to 1 among independents planning to vote in the GOP primary; Bush leads by 6 percentage points among partisan Republicans.

McCain also leads Bush by 47% to 33% among moderate voters--with the remaining four conservative candidates drawing just 9% among them. By contrast, with his tough talk on taxes and his attacks on McCain’s campaign finance reform proposals, Bush draws 42% of conservatives, compared with 28% for McCain. This is where the others may play a role.

Forbes draws 14% of conservatives, while Keyes attracts 10%. More for either might mean less for Bush--leaving him in a vise, with McCain squeezing from the center. On the other hand, notes McCain’s pollster, Bill McInturff, since Forbes isn’t as identified with socially conservative causes in New Hampshire as he is in Iowa, he could grow among moderates as well, which would threaten McCain.

“If Forbes pops into the 20s in New Hampshire, that makes this a terribly hard race to predict,” McInturff says.

Even if he captures New Hampshire, McCain would be challenged to replicate such a victory without broadening his appeal to mainstream conservatives. In many ways, the New Hampshire GOP electorate--with the heavy influence of independents and suburbanites--has become unusually moderate.

GOP voters here, for instance, were far less likely than those in Iowa to say that they would be more inclined to vote for a candidate backing school vouchers or the single-rate flat tax, Forbes’ signature issue. Republican primary voters (at 74%) are almost as likely as Democrats (at 85%) to cite campaign finance reform as a priority.

Perhaps most tellingly, more than three-fifths of New Hampshire GOP voters say that a candidate’s “relationship with Jesus Christ” should not play a role in the campaign. In Iowa, a state with an active religious conservative movement, The Times Poll last week found the exact opposite result: three-fifths of GOP voters said that it should.

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Who Has a Clearer Vision?

Regardless of your choice for president, who do you think has a clearer vision to lead the country into the new century?

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Notes: All results are among likely voters. “ -- “ indicates less than 0.5%. Numbers may not total 100% where more than one response was accepted or “Don’t know” responses are not shown.

Source: L.A. Times Poll

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Times Poll results are also available at https://www.latimes.com/timespoll

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HOW THE POLL WAS CONDUCTED

The Times Poll contacted 943 New Hampshire primary voters likely to vote in their primary on Feb. 1. Four hundred twenty-seven of these primary voters are likely to vote in the Democratic primary, and 516 are likely to vote in the Republican primary. The poll was conducted by telephone Jan. 16 through 20. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all possible exchanges. Random-digit dialing techniques were used so that listed and unlisted numbers could be contacted. The sample was weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education and registration. The margin of sampling error for the entire sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points, and for likely Republican primary voters it is 4 points; for likely Democratic primary voters it is 5 points. For certain other 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.

New Hampshire Primary Matchups

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