Men’s Backing Helps Power Bush Past Gore

Overwhelming support among men has powered George W. Bush back ahead in the race for the White House, a new Times Poll has found.

Less than six weeks before the Nov. 7 election, the survey finds men and women diverging on their presidential choices to an enormous degree. While women still prefer Vice President Al Gore by 7 percentage points, men give Bush a crushing 22-point advantage--enough to provide the Texas governor a 48%-42% overall lead among likely voters, the poll found.

Yet the poll--which found a slightly wider Bush lead than several other surveys released this week--also pinpoints the assets that may allow Gore to rebound in what’s emerging as perhaps the closest presidential race since John F. Kennedy squeezed past Richard Nixon in 1960.

Despite Bush’s overall lead, voters divide almost evenly between the two men on a long list of personal attributes--and give Gore the edge on most issues, including the critical measure of which candidate can best keep the country prosperous. And nearly 3 in 4 voters say the presidential debates that begin Tuesday will have an important effect on their vote.

Still, at this point Bush has pushed ahead by restoring a cavernous margin among white men--the bedrock of his support--and regaining an advantage among white married women, which is offsetting the traditional Democratic strength with single women. And after weeks of criticizing Gore’s plan to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, Bush has also taken a narrow lead with senior citizens.

Indeed, Bush is attracting voters who tend to vote Democratic slightly more effectively than Gore is capturing support from those who lean toward Republicans--a trend the vice president will need to reverse if he is to recover before November.

The survey found little national interest in the two third-party candidates. Green Party nominee Ralph Nader drew just 2% and Pat Buchanan, the Reform Party standard-bearer, just 1%. Seven percent said they were still undecided.

The Times Poll, supervised by Polling Director Susan Pinkus, surveyed 1,052 registered voters, including 694 likely voters, from Sept. 23 through Sept. 25. All the results reported here are from the 694 voters considered likely to turn out in November; for those voters the survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Other Polls Give Bush Smaller Lead

The last Times survey, taken in early August, between the Republican and Democratic conventions, showed Bush with a 12 percentage point lead over Gore among likely voters. But after the Democratic convention ended in mid-August, almost all public surveys through mid-September showed Gore taking the lead as he consolidated his lead among Democrats, surged among women and reduced Bush’s advantage among white men.

But Bush has rebounded in the latest round of polls. Three other surveys released Tuesday showed Bush regaining the lead over Gore, though his margins were narrower than in the Times result: The Texan led by 2 percentage points in the daily Gallup/USA Today/CNN survey, 2 points in a survey by independent pollster John Zogby and 3 points in the daily tracking poll by the political Web site Voter.com.

All of these surveys followed a week in which many analysts said Bush had his best stretch since the GOP convention, which included appearances on daytime television shows hosted by Oprah Winfrey and Regis Philbin. Gore, meanwhile, was entangled in questions about his disputed assertion that an identical arthritis drug cost his mother-in-law far more than it did for his dog.

With election day nearing, the Times Poll found each candidate successfully consolidating his base. Fully 94% of Republicans say they are voting for Bush; among Democrats, 86% say they are backing Gore.

Independents preferred Bush over Gore by 11 percentage points in The Times survey. That’s partly because Bush’s lead among independents who consider themselves conservative is larger than Gore’s lead among those who call themselves moderate and liberal.

Gender Is Big Story Among Independents

But the larger story among independents--like virtually every group in the poll--is gender. Gore remains strong among women but not nearly as strong as Bush is among men. The pattern recurs when looking at virtually any category of men and women.

Among women 65 and older, for instance, Gore leads Bush by 17 percentage points; but senior men prefer Bush over Gore by about 2 to 1. As a result Bush leads among seniors overall by 46% to 42%. Gore has a single-digit lead among women who are independents, but independent men again prefer Bush by almost 2 to 1.

Why is Bush running better with men than Gore is with women? One reason is the “marriage gap”--a powerful demographic force that usually receives less attention than the “gender gap.” Bush has retained the usual Republican lead among married men, who prefer him over Gore by that recurrent 2-1 ratio. Gore remains strong among single women, leading Bush in that Democratic-leaning group by about 3 to 1.

But Bush is outperforming Gore among the two traditional swing groups: single men and married women. Bush is holding Gore to a dead heat among single men--a group President Clinton carried comfortably in 1992 and 1996, according to network exit polls. More dramatically, Bush leads by 51% to 40% among married women--and by 16 percentage points among white married women.

Bush’s advantage among married women--the principal target for his “compassionate conservative” and education reform messages--allows him to hold down Gore’s overall margin among women; at the same time, Bush’s competitiveness among single men allows him to swell his overall margin among men. Indeed, because of his appeal to married women, Bush leads among white women overall by 48% to 43%; among white men, Bush holds a towering 63%-26% lead.

In turn, Bush’s formidable strength among whites is allowing him to erode the traditional Democratic advantage among union members. Gore leads Bush among union households by only 52% to 38%--far less than the three-fifths of the union vote Democrats are aiming for.

Notwithstanding these results, the poll also highlights the forces that have both camps predicting a photo finish.

The survey finds an extremely high level of satisfaction with the economy and the country’s overall direction--two factors that have usually benefited the party holding the White House. More than 90% of voters say the economy is doing well, and fully 53% say the country is on the right track--among the highest figures recorded in Times Polls during Clinton’s presidency.

That’s a level of satisfaction considerably greater than in 1984, 1988 or 1996--when the incumbent party held the White House. Gore’s problem is that he is not running as well with satisfied voters as Bush is with the dissatisfied: Three-fifths of those who say the country is on the right track are backing Gore, while nearly three-fourths of those who believe it is on the wrong track are siding with Bush. To win, Gore will probably have to come closer to the historical benchmark for the incumbent party of winning nearly three-fourths of voters who believe the country is moving in the right direction.

Gore clearly has other assets in his presidential quest. Asked who has a better grasp of the issues, voters gave Gore a 17-point advantage. Gore held a 62%-25% lead when voters were asked which candidate had the best experience for the job; the vice president also held double-digit leads when voters were asked which candidate best understands the problems of average Americans and cares about people like themselves.

On the other hand, after weathering the questions about his prescription drug story, Gore now trails Bush by 5 points when voters are asked which candidate has the honesty and integrity they expect in a president.

Asked who could better handle six different issues, voters preferred Bush on only one, giving him a nearly 40-point advantage on national security. But voters preferred Gore by 17 percentage points on health care, 14 points on Social Security, 11 points when asked who could keep the country prosperous, 7 points on education and 6 points on abortion.

When read descriptions of the candidates’ competing plans, voters were more divided. More than three-fourths still preferred Gore’s prescription for using the federal budget surplus (which would devote more of the money to debt-reduction, Social Security and Medicare) over Bush’s (which is centered on an across-the-board tax cut); and a majority backed Gore’s plans for Social Security reform over the Republican’s plan to create individual accounts in the system. But voters divided evenly when read the two men’s competing plans for reforming schools and gave a slight nod to Bush’s alternative for expanding health care to the uninsured.

Bush’s strength on those latter questions may reflect a continuing resistance to expanding Washington’s reach: Fully three-fifths of those polled say they prefer a smaller government with fewer services, while only one-quarter want a larger government with many services.

But the movement in voter attitudes when read descriptions of the candidates’ policy plans may reflect something even more fundamental: the fluidity of opinion in a race that still seems well within reach for either man.

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Poll Preferences by Group, Issue

George W. Bush is leading Al Gore among likely voters, according to the latest Los Angeles Times Poll. A breakdown of the vote by groups and issues:

George W. Bush: 48%

Al Gore: 42%

Ralph Nader: 2%

Pat Buchanan: 1%

Don’t know: 7%Notes: All results shown are among likely voters. *

Numbers may not total 100% where not all candidates or answer categories are shown.

*

Times Poll results are also available at

https://www.latimes.com/timespoll

*

HOW THE POLL WAS CONDUCTED

The Times Poll contacted 1,052 registered voters nationwide, including 694 voters most likely to vote, by telephone Sept. 23--25. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the nation. Random-digit dialing techniques were used so that listed and unlisted numbers could be contacted. The entire sample was weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education and region. The margin of sampling error for registered voters is plus or minus 3 percentage points; for likely voters it is 4 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.

Source: L.A. Times Poll

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Gender Gap

George W. Bush continues his large lead among male voters, the poll found.