55 and above 410 (37%)

White 858 (77%) Democrat 375 (34%)

African American 129 (12%) Republican 313 (28%)

Hispanic 83 ( 7%) Independent 299 (27%)

Other/Refused 39 ( 3%) Other/Refused 122 (11%)

Northeast 251 (23%)

South 337 (30%)

Midwest 274 (25%)

West 247 (22%)

Regional Groupings:

(States within each region and number of electoral college votes)

Northeast South Midwest West

Connecticut 8 Alabama 9 Illinois 22 Alaska 3

Delaware 3 Arkansas 6 Indiana 12 Arizona 8

D.C. 3 Florida 25 Iowa 7 California 54

Maine 4 Georgia 13 Kansas 6 Colorado 8

Maryland 10 Kentucky 8 Michigan 18 Hawaii 4

Massachusetts 12 Louisiana 9 Minnesota 10 Idaho 4

New Hampshire 4 Mississippi 7 Missouri 11 Montana 3

New Jersey 15 N. Carolina 14 Nebraska 5 Nevada 4

New York 33 S. Carolina 8 N. Dakota 3 New Mexico 5

Pennsylvania 23 Tennessee 11 Ohio 21 Oregon 7

Rhode Island 4 Texas 32 Oklahoma 8 Utah 5

Vermont 3 Virginia 13 S. Dakota 3 Washington 11

W. Virginia 5 Wisconsin 11 Wyoming 3

Total

Electoral 122 160 137 119

Votes

Analysis

K Donkey Business

Convention Wisdom: Vice President Al Gore is increasingly perceived as too weak to win the presidency in November 2000 and could be deserted by the party faithful in favor of former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley.

Fact: Barring circumstances that would be more unimaginable than unforeseen, Vice President Al Gore will glide to the 2000 Democratic Party’s presidential nomination with a minimum of turbulence.

Analysis: Gore’s all-but-certain lock on the Democratic nomination is rooted in his strong job approval rating with Democratic primary voters. These are the people who will choose the party’s nominee, not the pundits who seem to find Gore wooden and boring. Democratic primary voters overwhelmingly approve (83%) of the job Gore is doing as vice president.

It’s only among general election voters that the Vice President’s job rating is soft, plunging by almost half (43%). It is a mistake to assume that, since Gore runs a poor second to George W. Bush in hypothetical Y2K match-ups, he is in danger of losing his party’s nomination.

K More Conservative Than Thou

Conventional Wisdom: The astonishing level of support for Texas Governor George W. Bush (he Ames to please) demonstrates that Republican voters aren’t nearly as conservative as most people think.

Fact: By a margin of nearly two-to-one (62% to 35%), Republican primary voters say they generally vote for the candidate they consider to be the most conservative. Right now, 19% of the Republican primary electorate considers George W. Bush to be the most conservative candidate in the field – but 59% say they’d vote for him. Among all GOP primary voters, only Patrick J. Buchanan is believed to be more conservative than Bush. Bush is perceived as more conservative than Dan Quayle, Gary Bauer, and Orrin Hatch.

Analysis: There are at least two possible explanations. One is that Republican primary voters don’t really vote for the most conservative candidate. THE OTHER IS THAT REPUBLICAN PRIMARY VOTERS DON’T REALLY VOTE FOR ANOTHER SIX MONTHS. GOP primary voters don’t yet know enough about the field of candidates to accurately rate them on an ideological scale. Support for Bush now, we believe, is more about the past than about the future. Everything we’ve observed about Republican voters tells us that candidates in GOP primaries are seldom punished for being too conservative.

K An Elephant Never Forgets…Why He Became An Elephant In The First Place

Conventional Wisdom: Republican primary voters are willing to do anything, including voting against their conscience, in order to nominate the strongest possible general election candidate for the 2000 presidential election.

Fact: By a margin of nearly four-to-one (71% to 18%), Republican primary voters say they will vote for the candidate who best reflects their views over the candidate who has the best chance of winning the general election.

Analysis: Republican primary voters would rather be right than be President. GOP party leaders would rather be President. And there are more Republican primary voters than party leaders. But for now, 74% of Bush voters say they vote for the candidate who reflects their views, a delightful coincidence for GOP voters, party leaders, and for Bush himself.

K The Body Watch

Conventional Wisdom: Pat Buchanan would be more at home in the Reform Party than in the Republican Party.

Fact: Jesse Ventura is right. Pat Buchanan’s key issues – international isolationism and social conservatism – put him out of step with the majority of Reform Party voters, and hold him to 14% of the primary vote even without Jesse Ventura in the field. Sixty-four percent agreed that “social issues such as abortion and school prayer do not belong in a presidential party’s platform” and 78% agreed that “America’s economy benefits from our maintaining and promoting free trade and open markets with the other countries of the world.”

Analysis: Jesse Ventura is right about something else, as well. If he is a candidate for the Reform Party nomination, he will probably win it. Former Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker runs well as long as Ventura is not in the contest. When Ventura enters the race, he leads Weicker by a margin of nearly two-to-one (32% to 18%).

K The Third Party’s The Charm?

Conventional Wisdom: There is no appetite for a third political party in the vast majority of the American electorate.

Fact: Responses to a straight-up question, asking general election voters whether the two-party system is serving their needs and those of other Americans, produced a response that should scare the socks off the leaders of the Democratic and Republican Parties alike. Less than half, 48%, felt that the current two-party system is serving their needs, while 43% said it was not, and that they would consider voting for a third-party alternative.

Analysis: The numbers are actually worse than that for the establishment parties. We next posed a “push” question containing information that a third-party candidate would impart to the voters during the course of a campaign (linking the government shutdown, the impeachment proceedings, and the failure to enact campaign finance reform to intractable partisanship). After receiving that information, 20% of the voters who initially agreed that the two-party system adequately served their needs changed their minds. Together with the respondents from the first group, that totals 52% of general election voters who say they would consider a third party alternative in 2000 because the current two-party system is not meeting their needs.

K Be Careful What you Wish For!

Conventional Wisdom: A third party candidacy by Jesse Ventura would hurt George W. Bush and help Al Gore.

Fact: Jesse Ventura draws voters from Bush and Gore in approximately equal percentages. Bush leads Gore 55% to 37% in a head-to-head match-up. Bush drops to 48% with Ventura in the mix, but Gore falls to 32% while Ventura picks up 14%.

Analysis: After being “pushed” with Reform Party-type campaign issues, even 53% of current Bush and Gore voters indicate that they would consider a third party alternative in 2000. If the leaders of the major parties fail to consider the power of these issues in the hands of a charismatic third party candidate, they are whistling past the graveyard.

K Not A Dime’s Worth Of Difference?

Conventional Wisdom: If the notion of a third party takes hold, it will be because there is no discernible difference between the two major parties.

Fact: Forty-eight percent of Democrats are self-described social liberals; 56% of Republicans are self-described social conservatives. Eighty-one percent of Democrats are self-described fiscal liberals or moderates; 79% of Republicans are self-described fiscal conservatives.

Analysis: There is plenty of difference between the views of the rank and file members of the two major parties. There seems to be fewer differences between the Democrats and Republicans once they are assimilated into the Washington culture. Failure of elected leaders to hew to the views that got them elected in the first place goes a long way to explaining why more than half of general election voters are willing to look at an alternative to the status quo in November of 2000.

Democratic Primary Sample

347 “Likely” 2000 Presidential Primary Voters

SCREENER: When there is a Democratic primary election held in your state, do you vote:

Always (Included in sample)

Most of the time (Included in sample)

Some of the time (Excluded)

Rarely or Never (Excluded)

QUESTION: If you were voting today for the 2000 Democratic presidential nominee, for whom would you vote if the candidates were Bill Bradley and Al Gore?

Results

	Gore	Bradley	Undecided

Nationwide	61%	27%	12%

Men	50%	36%	14%
Women	71%	19%	10%

White	55%	32%	13%
African American	80%	11%	9%

Cross-tab: Party Affiliation by Gore Job Approval

	Approve	Disapprove	No opinion

Democratic Primary voters	83%	7%	10%
General Election voters	43%	33%	24%

Republican Primary Sample

331 “Likely” 2000 Presidential Primary Voters

SCREENER: When there is a Republican primary election held in your state, do you vote:

Always (Included in sample)

Most of the time (Included in sample)

Some of the time (Excluded)

Rarely or Never (Excluded)

QUESTION: If you were voting today for the 2000 Republican presidential nominee, for whom would you vote among these candidates?

Lamar Alexander

Gary Bauer

Pat Buchanan

George W. Bush

Elizabeth Dole

Steve Forbes

Orrin Hatch

John McCain

Dan Quayle