Tuesday, August 10, 2004
That's not to say we can take the undecideds for granted, of course. We still need to work hard, doing things like improving our media outreach.
If you're a Dispatch subscriber you can read the article on their website, along with a chart showing the demographics of the undecided 7%, otherwise, read it below...
Key bloc of voters leaning to Kerry
Group that could deliver Ohio open to change, Dispatch Poll indicates
Sunday, August 08, 2004
Darrel Rowland
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
This hotly contested presidential election might come down to the 7 percent of Ohio voters who say they are undecided.
And danger signs aplenty lurk for President Bush amid that voting bloc, according to the latest Dispatch Poll.
More than three-fourths of undecided respondents said the country is on the wrong track, and more than 7 of 10 disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy and the situation in Iraq.
Such numbers are significantly closer to those of supporters of Democratic challenger John Kerry than of Bush's backers.
Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio found similar results when he looked last month at undecided voters in 19 battleground states, including Ohio.
"If you look at them, they're clearly not favorably disposed to the president," said Fabrizio, who was Bob Dole's pollster in the 1996 presidential campaign. "Under the best circumstances (for Bush), those undecideds will break 60-40 for Kerry."
The Dispatch Poll showed Bush topping Kerry 47 percent to 44 percent, with 2 percent favoring consumer advocate Ralph Nader and 7 percent undecided. The margin of sampling error was 2 percentage points. The July 14-23 mail survey from was based on returns from 3,047 registered Ohio voters who said they intend to cast a ballot Nov. 2.
Kerry will work hard to win the support of Ohio's undecided voters because "the outcome of the presidential election is in their hands," said Jennifer Palmieri, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts senator's campaign in Ohio.
"By and large, these voters have shown themselves to be dissatisfied with Bush's performance on the economy and Iraq," she said. "We will spend the next 90 days making sure these voters learn what plans Kerry and (running mate John) Edwards have to make our economy stronger at home and America respected abroad."
Bush will make his case with undecided voters by "showcasing presidential leadership" through an emphasis on a growing economy and the need to keep America safe, campaign spokesman Kevin Madden said.
"He looks forward to looking an undecided voter in the eye and making the case for why he's the right president at the right time," Madden said. "We'll make sure we contrast our optimism versus the Kerry campaign's doom and gloom."
But unless the Bush team can improve voters' perception of the economy and lower their view of Kerry, the undecideds "appear poised to break heavily against President Bush in John Kerry's favor," Fabrizio said.
"Clearly, if these undecided voters were leaning any harder against the door of the Kerry camp, they would crash right through it," he said in an analysis of his July 8 poll.
Although the Bush campaign has spent as much as $100 million in ads against Kerry, they almost are forced to step up the assault, Fabrizio said.
"They've got to do a better job of bloodying him up," he said.
In many respects, the undecided voters are not remarkably different from those in the Dispatch Poll who already had made their selection. They are neither concentrated in any particular region of Ohio nor defined by racial background or union membership, and they are spread proportionally across all income and education levels.
The share of undecideds is somewhat higher among female respondents and those ages 35 to 44.
Undecideds are unlikely to vote for a sitting president, political experts say.
An established incumbent would be lucky to pick up a third of undecided voters, said Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report, in a recent National Journal column.
"Voters who now consider themselves `undecided' have already made a tentative decision not to support the incumbent; the remaining decision is whether to vote for the main challenger," he wrote.
After reviewing data on the nation's undecideds from several polls, Cook predicted Bush would lose the election -- barring a major, unexpected event.
