AP/Ipsos Presidential Poll 2004: New Voters, Bored Voters, Persuadable Voters, Decisive Voters
Persuadable voters (19% of likely voters) -- It's hard to believe they still exist and in large numbers, but 3% remain undecided or currently support a minor party candidate, 5% are voting for Bush but say they could be persuaded to change their minds, and 10%, the lion's share of persuadables, are voting for Kerry but might change their minds.
Kerry leads Bush 49%-46% overall among likely voters. But because so much more of Kerry's support includes weak supporters, Bush actually claims a nominal lead among strong supporters by 41%-39%. At first that might seem bad news for Kerry -- Bush's support is more committed. The fact that Kerry maintains a large contingent of weak support while his strong support number is generally rising indicates a different interpretation, however: New support is entering Kerry's weak row each week, with roughly equal numbers of Kerry weak supporters moving up to his strong support row each week. That was clearly the pattern between late September and early October. Between early and late October, however, that pro-Kerry trend may have stalled. Are the persuadable voters going to continue to surge in this final week toward firm support for Kerry?
As a group, these persuadable voters favor Kerry. More than half of them are weak Kerry supporters -- 52% are weak Kerry supporters, 26% are weak Bush supporters, 9% Nader and 13% truly undecided. For Kerry to win, the group of persuadable voters as a whole would have to remain about 2-to-1 in Kerry's favor through this last week.
More than half of them are Democrats (54%), few are Republicans (29%), and many are true Independents not leaning toward either party (14%). More than two-thirds of them feel the country is on the wrong track (68%), and only 25% are satisfied with the direction Bush is leading the country. They disapprove (66%) rather than approve (31%) Bush's job performance overall by a 2-to-1 margin, and similarly, 69% disapprove and only 29% approve Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq. By roughly 2-to-1 margins, persuadable voters also disapprove rather than approve Bush's handling of the economy (63% disapprove, 34% approve) and other domestic issues (65% disapprove-32% approve). By a whopping 73%-13% margin, persuadable voters think Kerry, not Bush, would be better at creating jobs -- all good signs for Kerry.
On the other hand, among the persuadable, nineteen percent, that Kerry must win by 2-to-1 over Bush, only 57% disapprove and a solid 43% approve of Bush's handling of foreign policy issues and the war on terrorism -- not the 2-to-1 margin Kerry needs. Persuadable voters are more likely to say Bush is decisive (73%) than to say the same for Kerry (44%). Most (55%) think protecting the country is a more important assignment for the next President than creating jobs (33%), and Bush beats Kerry by 46%-38% on which of them would better protect the U.S. Those scores suggest that Kerry might fall short among persuadable voters in the final week, particularly if the focus is on the wolves of terrorism at our doorstep.
Persuadable voters, compared to all likely voters, tend to be slightly more likely than average to be younger men, in sales and service jobs, lower income, with children at home, living in the West. The only ones the campaigns care about, of course, are the persuadable voters living in the half-dozen to a dozen states still up for grabs.
New voters (12% of likely voters) -- registered voters who failed to vote in 2000 but swear they will vote this time represent an important part of Kerry's base. (By "new voters" we mean those who did not show up four years ago -- a few may have voted in previous elections before 2000). As a group, new voters are actually more Republican (40%) than persuadable voters are (29%), with 54% of new voters Democrats and only 6% truly independent. Nonetheless, 68% of new voters say the country is on the wrong track, 63% disapprove of Bush's overall job performance, 67% disapprove of his handling of domestic issues, and unlike most groups of voters, they believe Kerry (56%), not Bush (41%), would do a better job protecting the U.S. They currently favor Kerry over Bush by 60%-35%.
New voters represent a triumph for the Democratic ground game. By a 2-to-1 margin, they are more likely to have been contacted by the Kerry campaign than by the Bush campaign. The question when it comes to new voters is not which candidate they will vote for so much as it is: Will they vote?
Most (64%) are under age 35, they tend to be men who are less well-educated, low-income, in sales, service and skilled trade or technical occupations, with children at home, as often renting rather than owning their homes. Relatively few have faith in traditional religions (only 57% are Protestant or Catholic, compared with 78% of all likely voters who profess one of the two major religious groupings in the U.S.), nor do they have faith in the stock market (only 32% hold stocks or bonds, compared with 61% of all likely voters). Kerry leads by 3 percentage points among all likely voters largely on the strength of his lead among this group of new voters. If they do not turn out, Bush will win. If, as Democrats argue, the polls actually underestimate their numbers, Kerry will do very well.
Uninterested in the campaign (not counted as likely voters, but representing 22% of all registered voters) -- historically, registered voters who say they are not interested in following the campaign do not turn out to vote, despite their best intentions to do so. In this poll, these registered voters who are so turned off by the campaign that we don't count them as likely voters turn out to be disproportionately Bush supporters. That explains the very unusual pattern developing in this final week: Usually Democrats benefit from a heavier turnout, Republicans from a lighter turnout. But the presence of this large group of uninterested registered voters who strongly favor Bush means that the Bush campaign will do better with a slightly larger than expected turnout.
Uninterested registered voters we are not counting as likely voters are more likely to be Republicans (45%) than Democrats (41%). They divide evenly on the question of whether the country is headed in the right direction (48%) or is on the wrong track (48%). They approve the job Bush is doing overall (57%), and if they do vote, 50% plan to vote for Bush, only 40% for Kerry.
If they were included in our sample of likely voters, the vote would be 47% Bush and 47% Kerry. Like the new voters, the question regarding these uninterested registered voters is whether they will join the 60%+ of self-proclaimed registered voters who participate, or the nearly 40% who do not each Presidential election year. History says they will not vote in 2004 -- even though almost all of them claim to have voted in 2000. The Bush campaign argues that their efforts in the final 72 hours will bring these people to the polls despite the historic patterns showing that discouraged, disinterested voters stay home.
Like all the key groups in the final week, uninterested registered voters whom we do not count as likely voters tend to be somewhat younger and less well educated than the pool of likely voters. This group includes a disproportionate number of women, in clerical or administrative jobs, more likely than average to be religious, a born again and Christian evangelical. They are slightly more likely than average to be Midwestern, rural and homeowners. If the Bush campaign turns them out, the race is a flat-footed dead heat, and if the Bush campaign delivers even more like them -- supporters of Bush who are turned off by the campaign but who defy history and vote anyway -- Bush could win easily.
With one week left, all the ingredients are in the cake and the cake is in the oven. There is no opportunity to add new elements to either campaign's recipe of issues and candidate biography. Now it is just a matter of seeing how the cake comes out -- who votes, and in what numbers. It has been a campaign that has been fought longer, and at a higher intensity, and with poll results that have been closer and more consistent, than any campaign in modern history. As the song about another cake goes, "I don't think that I can take it, `cause it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have this recipe again..." But with any luck, on Election Night November 2, we will taste the results and see who came to the party, who didn't, and who won.
Methodology The Associated Press Poll is conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs. Between October 18-20, 2004, the AP/Ipsos poll interviewed a representative sample of 1,540 adults nationwide, including 1,330 registered voters, 976 likely voters. The margin of error is +/- 2.5 for all adults, +/- 2.7 for registered voters, and +/- 3.1% for likely voters. Margin of error for subgroups may be higher. Terms Of Use For Referencing This Poll In reporting the results from this poll, please use the following protocol: The first time the poll is referenced, it should be, "The Associated Press Poll conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs." All subsequent references should be "The AP-Ipsos Poll." Thank-you.
For more information on this press release, please contact: Janice Bell Director, Ipsos Public Affairs Washington, D.C. 202.463.7300
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