Extraordinary Balancing Act Tips Toward Change

On a night when the presidency teetered by the hour between Al Gore and George W. Bush, an electorate overwhelmingly content with the nation’s direction showed itself divided almost exactly in half between the two major parties--and appeared to narrowly choose change over continuity.

For the first time in nearly half a century, the election apparently gave Republicans unified control of the presidency, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Yet, paradoxically, the results demonstrated that neither party now controls a clear majority of support from the American people.

Depending on the results in the last three states too close to call--Wisconsin, Oregon and Florida--Bush or Gore will win the presidency by the smallest electoral vote margin since at least 1976, and perhaps since 1916. The popular vote remained divided as closely as in any election since at least 1960 and perhaps since 1884. It seemed entirely fitting, after a contest so even, that neither man could decisively claim victory in the early morning hours.

And though Republicans held the Senate, Democrats gained seats, perhaps even enough to reach a tie--though a Bush victory would give a Vice President Dick Cheney the tie-breaking vote. Nonetheless, the results left the parties so evenly balanced in both chambers that the next president will need to build bipartisan coalitions to achieve virtually any of his goals.

So close was the balance in the presidential election that even Ralph Nader’s small showing as nominee of the Green Party may have been critical.

Far more important than Nader’s overall national total was his showing in key states. In particular, though Nader only drew 2% of the vote in Florida; with the two men divided by only a handful of votes in that critical state--and apparently heading toward an automatic recount under state law--Nader’s showing there might be enough to determine the next president.

After the relentless appeals to swing voters, the presidential election proved largely an old-fashioned battle between the Republican and Democratic parties to turn out their base. And in state after state, the razor-thin margins separating Gore and Bush all pointed toward a single conclusion: The two parties today are operating from a position of extraordinary balance.

“This is the culmination of having six years where we have been at rough partisan parity,” said GOP pollster Bill McInturff.

Each candidate enjoyed an extremely high level of loyalty from his partisans, according to a Times national exit poll. Bush won fully 9 in 10 Republicans; Gore nearly 9 in 10 Democrats. Independents broke slightly for Bush. But independents comprised a notably smaller percentage of the electorate than in 1996; this was an election decided by true believers.

And for all the efforts of both Gore and Bush to reposition their parties, each in the end mobilized his side’s traditional electoral coalition. Though Bush cut into some traditionally Democratic turf, this was in many ways a generic test of strength between two parties now standing toe-to-toe.

Gun owners, a key constituency for the GOP, gave about three-fifths of their votes to Bush. Union members, an equally integral element of the Democratic coalition, gave about three-fifths of their votes to Gore. Women gave Gore a commanding margin; men gave Bush a smaller but still solid advantage. (White men gave Bush a double-digit lead, but white women broke narrowly for Gore.)

Married voters broke for Bush; single voters strongly preferred Gore. Gore ran best among low-income families; Bush carried the most affluent. Independents who consider themselves liberal strongly preferred Gore; those who called themselves moderates and independents went almost as strongly for Bush.

One wild card was Nader, who took a small but potentially deadly bite from Gore, the exit poll found. Nader, the Green Party nominee, carried a minuscule number of Democrats, but did draw more than one-sixth of independents who consider themselves liberals, helping Bush squeak out his narrow victory among independents overall. Given the closeness of the race, no matter how it turns out, Democrats are likely to target Nader with bitter recriminations in the days ahead.

The Times exit poll, supervised by polling director Susan Pinkus, surveyed 8,132 voters nationwide and an additional 3,393 voters in California. It has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The backdrop for this campaign was a mood of almost unprecedented material contentment: Nearly 7 in 10 said the country was moving in the right direction and a majority called themselves better off than eight years ago. Yet anxieties over the nation’s moral course were evident in the clear majority of voters who said they disliked President Clinton personally, and the high share of Bush voters who cited moral concerns as a reason for their vote.

Indeed, the mirror-image, evenly matched Republican and Democratic coalitions marched to utterly contrasting priorities. Asked what issues influenced their vote, almost three-fifths of Bush voters cited morality and ethical values; one-fourth cited taxes, and about one-fifth cited both education and abortion.

Contrast that with the priorities of Gore voters: More than one-third cited the economy, just under one-third picked education and one-fourth picked Social Security. Far fewer Bush voters cited each of those concerns; in turn, less than 1 in 10 Democrats cited taxes as a reason for their vote. Just one-sixth cited moral values.

The poll found that Gore, who had trailed in virtually all national surveys through October, narrowed the gap with a late surge. Those who decided from last weekend through election day strongly preferred the vice president. But it wasn’t enough to overcome Bush’s advantage.

Results in individual states also underscored the generic nature of the contest.

The magnitude of Gore’s victory in California underscored the hurdles facing Republicans in the state.

As in states across the country, each party’s partisans in California displayed enormous loyalty: Fully 9 in 10 Democrats and Republicans alike voted for their party’s nominee, a Times exit poll found.

But, according to the exit poll, independents broke decisively for Gore in the state. In a stirring demonstration of strength, Gore carried California voters at every income level and every age bracket; and he carried women (by an overwhelming margin) and men (with a solid lead). And despite Bush’s strong push for Latino support, he carried only about one in five votes, about the same percentage as Bob Dole in 1996.

Nothing demonstrated Gore’s reliance on the traditional Democratic coalition more than his victory in Michigan. It was a bruising shoulder-to-the-wheel kind of win that depended less on big breakthroughs with swing voters than on a massive turnout and commanding margins among core Democratic constituencies.

According to the Voter News Service/Los Angeles Times exit poll, independents divided almost exactly between the two men--with 46% for Gore and 45% for Bush.

But Gore benefited from strong showings among the core Democratic groups his campaign targeted--women, African Americans and, in particular, unions.

In Florida, another critical state, the story was more complex.

Strikingly, Gore stayed neck and neck even while narrowly losing seniors to Bush, according to the Voter News Service exit poll. Instead, the key to Gore’s competitiveness was the same as in northern suburban states: a big margin among women, especially women who work outside the home.

But Bush matched, and perhaps squeezed past, him, by consolidating the Republican base, the poll found; the Texan held 90% of Republicans, dominated among voters earning more than $75,000 a year, and crushed the vice president among white men.

In each of these three states, and across the country overall, attitudes toward President Clinton exerted a complex influence on the race.

In the end, the tendency of voters to reward the incumbent party for good times kicked in.

Like surveys all year, the exit poll found Americans fundamentally ambivalent about the president: about two-thirds said they disliked him personally, while three-fifths said they liked his policies.

The results from the Voter News Service surveys in Florida and Michigan also suggest that attitudes toward Clinton’s policies exerted more influence on the vote than assessments of him personally. In both states, voters who said they approved of Clinton’s job performance, but disliked him personally, gave Gore a solid three-fifths of their votes. Whether that was enough to win Florida remained uncertain early today--and with it the identity of the man who will succeed Bill Clinton.