2:30 P.M. EDT
Real Audio of Briefing
MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlement, and welcome to the Foreign Press Center. As part of our ongoing series of election briefings, we are pleased to present you a briefing on the polling that is going on and what it tells us about the mood of the electorate shortly before Election Day. To do so, we have a long-time expert, Peter Hart, who is CEO of Peter D. Hart Research Associates and is well known as a pollster for NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Hart will have an opening presentation. After that, as usual, we'll be delighted to take your questions.
Mr. Hart.
MR. HART: Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here and let me just state that I am going to talk about the election, where I see it, what I think is happening. I know there are a lot of questions about methodology, how polling is done, and I will be glad to entertain those kinds of questions afterwards.
The data that I'm drawing from is from the work that we do, along with Bill McInturff, who is a Republican pollster for NBC and The Wall Street Journal. I have been involved, doing the NBC/Wall Street Journal polling since 1989 with Robert Teeter, who was the Republican pollster, and, as many of you know, Robert Teeter, a good friend of mine and a superlative pollster, died this summer, and Bill McInturff has picked things up.
Our most recent poll was done October 16th to 18th. It was done with a cross-section of 1,004 registered voters. And what I'd like to do is just take you through what I think the election is about, the bigger and the more important questions. And let's start with the first slide, if we could.
There's probably no better place to start than to understand the level of interest that the voters have this year. A question that Bill McInturff's been asking for the last ten years is, "On a scale of one to ten, how much interest do you have in this election?" And the highest number he has ever received for just the ten on that one to ten scale is 55 percent.
What I can tell you at this stage of the game -- in August, we had about 63 percent put themselves at a 10. In September, it went to 71 percent, and in this latest survey, 74 percent -- unprecedented interest. Interest is equal between Republicans and Democrats, between Bush voters and Kerry voters. Level of interest is slightly less among people who are under 35, but still, about 75 percent put themselves in the nine or ten category.
Interest among African Americans and retirees is exceptionally high. I think you have to go all the way back to 1960 to find this kind of intensity and this kind of interest.
The second reason there is so much interest is -- the other side of the slide -- which is, how much difference does it make to me? And the voters believe that it makes a huge amount of difference to them. A question that we asked at NBC/Wall Street Journal in '92 and '96 shows about 40 percent, 45 percent saying that this is an election that makes a deal or quite a bit of difference.
What we find today is 72 percent say that it makes a great deal or quite a bit of difference. And among voters, 45 percent say it makes a great deal of difference. And again, the intensity level among Democrats and Republicans are exceptionally high, Democrats even a little bit higher. And among undecided voters and those who are not affiliated, it is less. But overall, this is just an election that has a fever pitch to it, and 30 percent of all Americans say that within the last 30 days, they have been contacted by either the Republican Party, Democratic Party, the candidates, et cetera. In the battleground states, it's 50 percent, so the level of intensity and interest -- let me just take you to a particular point, which is, I know when you look at polls, there's the tendency to say, the most important thing to do is tell me where the pairing is. Well, if you're a professional pollster, you tend to back off of that because in some cases, that can be the most misleading rather than the most helpful set of numbers. And what we think elections tend to tell you more about is the broad mood of where America is at.
And overall, what you find is that the level of approval of George Bush right after we captured Baghdad in April of 2003 was 71 percent. The level of the percentage of Americans who said the country was off on the wrong track was [only] 22 percent.
Elections are about fundamentals. If you stop and look, at this stage of the game, about 48 percent approve of the job performance of the President and about 49 percent tell us the country is off on the wrong track. Simply put, we haven't seen a president reelected where both the percentage of people who say things are headed on the wrong track is at 50 percent and the job approval rating is below 50 percent. We are really right on the cusp there. And as I put it with others, George Bush is on the cusp of victory. He's also on the cusp of defeat. It is that close. It is that narrow. And that's the way it is.
Let me take you to two critical points here. When we asked the public, "Should he be reelected or not?" As you can see, the public is absolutely divided -- very little gender gap on this. People under 35 tend to say no by a margin of 52 to 43. People over the age of 65 say he should be reelected by a margin of 53 to 44.
The really interesting break within the electorate is women who are non-college-educated. 56 percent say he should be reelected. 39 percent say he shouldn't. That's about 30 percent of the electorate. Among the people who are women with a college education, by a margin of 61 to 33, they say he shouldn't be reelected -- very important group that we will be watching.
The other thing that is a central dynamic is what the voters are really looking for. This is not a content electorate, but an electorate that is not that happy. And essentially what you see is 55 percent of the American public are telling us is, "We should make major changes if George Bush is reelected.” That includes 23 percent of Republicans, 56 percent of Independents -- the fact of the matter is what this election comes down to is a disappointment with the present term of George Bush. Is that enough to defeat him? Maybe, and maybe not. Next slide.
Simply put, you look at this, you've seen it in every poll that you've been looking in and everything you've been following. This election is a dead heat: 48 percent for John Kerry, 48 percent for George Bush. There are a lot of other independent polls out there. They all show roughly the same thing.
I think the ABC/Washington Post poll today tends to have Mr. Kerry ahead, Senator Kerry ahead. But one way or another, it's all within the margin of error. What is more important is to take a look at a few things that'll start to give you a clue about what this election is about.
First of all, the President has improved his standing among women with [only] high school educations, among women who are Independents and a group that was critical to him in 2000, regular churchgoers. That represents 40 percent of the electorate. He won that group by 20 points. At this stage of the game, he is ahead by 25 points -- 61 to 36 – a very important group to watch on election night.
The other thing to note is, John Kerry has improved the position compared to what Al Gore did four years ago, with voters under the age of 30. He has a 14-point advantage; Al Gore won them by four points. With men under the age of 50, President Bush won them by a margin of 13 points. In this election, we have the difference as being 2 points. Single men is a third group that John Kerry is doing much better with than Al Gore; and, also men with college educations.
This election still has a ways to play out. It is going to be based on turnout. It is going to be based on the events between now and the end. What I tell you is, if you look at the next slide, essentially, partisans have decided. They didn't just decide in the last couple of weeks, they decided eight months ago, six months ago. There was no moving 80 percent or more of the electorate. They knew where they were and they were drawn as tight as they could be.
If you go to the next slide, this election has been about a very small group of people -- those who are persuadable. We tend to find them among people who are in their 30s. They tend to be a little bit more secular than religious. They tend to be a little bit more on the minorities. They care more about the economy and healthcare than terrorism and moral values. You look at this group; they're slightly more Democratic. They are voting slightly more for John Kerry at this stage, but half of them are undecided. They're not overwhelmed by either of the two candidates, and the most important thing is, these are people who are deciding with reservations, reservations about the President's performance, reservations about how John Kerry would do as Commander in Chief. Next slide.
I just want to make one quick point here and that is, when you look at this, simply put, one of the great assets going for the President is that he's seen as likeable and easygoing. People relate to him. They like him as a human being; you can see the pictures on television, you can see them in the newspapers. It is the warm, the sense of the next-door neighbor. They also see him as a strong leader. That is a major plus that is working for him and something that's very much there.
The one thing that will surprise you is that everybody thinks that he has an overwhelming advantage on being commander in chief. The fact is, he really doesn't. Only 51 percent of all voters give him high confidence on being Commander in Chief. John Kerry has moved up from 35 percent up to 45 percent on confidence level in Commander in Chief. The place the President does have high confidence is in dealing with terrorism -- different from being Commander in Chief, which is seen as more foreign. Let's go to the next slide.
As you can see, the President does well in the whole area of personal dimensions: Being consistent, being a man of religious and moral principles, being easygoing. When it comes to being honest, compared to Kerry, it's pretty much a dead even, and the same when it comes to being a world leader. The one area where the President trails John Kerry by about 25 points is in the area of intelligence, and we'll just let that speak for itself.
Okay, on the other side, where the President trails is in the area of being professional -- the professional dimension. That is, handling the deficit, dealing with healthcare, dealing with the war in Iraq, dealing with the economy and dealing with terrorism is the one area where he has a clear advantage.
So what it comes down to is voters are really sort of working through two elements: One is the personal dimension where they find the President very appealing and they find him to be exceptionally good in terms of being strong, in terms of having the right set of values and being somebody they relate to. The problem is they just don't see him as doing the job, and that's what they're working through at this stage. Let's go to the next slide.
How's John Kerry doing? Well, John Kerry is sort of in the situation, which I would tell you is a mixed situation. Personally, as you can see, feelings towards him, as they are towards the President, are very divided, about the same as Al Gore had four years ago. And yet, on the professional dimension on who would be best to deal with the healthcare and health insurance question, Senator Kerry leads. Who would be best in terms of being able to get troops out of Iraq? They believe John Kerry. Who would be better able to unite the country? They believe John Kerry. And who would be able to get the economy growing? They believe, slightly, John Kerry. So it's this difference between them.
What John Kerry's position is at this stage of the game -- this is my point of view -- he has gone as far as he can go in terms of the anti-Bush feelings. The ant-Bush feelings are at a razor edge, and I think the voters who don't like Bush know it. I think what John Kerry needs to do in the last five days or seven days of this election is basically to seal the deal. And by seal the deal, I mean he basically has to be able to communicate with the American voter, especially those people in the middle, and to be able to show, number one, a sense of toughness, a sense of a person with an internal core that you feel that can be consistent. Secondly, be able to give them a sense of values. And third, to give them a better sense of what his plan is. So, I mean, I think one of the things John Kerry has to do is find that situation that allows him to open up and talk to the voters.
Let me talk about a couple of quick issues. What President Bush has tried to do throughout his four years is make sure that he doesn't lose, like his father. Well, I've got news for him. He's going to lose in his own way, versus the way of his father. His father was just a little smile for everybody out there.
In any respect, what you find is that 12 years ago when the president, President George Herbert Walker Bush, was running for reelection, 74 percent of the voters said, "The economy's in bad shape." Today, in October, by a margin of 52 to 45, the voters say the economy is in "good shape." So he certainly can't be in the same economic problem. Then, there's another thing that we know about presidents over the last 52 years. And that is, every time the voters believe that the economy -- consumer confidence -- is on the plus side, we've reelected an incumbent. Every time we've seen it on the negative side, we have defeated an incumbent. Bush, Carter and Ford are the only three, and it was negative during their terms.
So you look at this and you would say, nothing could be better for the President at this stage of the game because here he is in a situation where the economy is a lot better; it's not what his father faced. And number two, you look and you say, hey, he's right there with Clinton. He's right there with Reagan. He's right there with Nixon, LBJ and Ike -- can't be a bad place to be as an incumbent. So you say, well, why would the economy even be an issue? Well, turn to the next chart.
And this is why it's an issue. Because what is really has to do -- and we asked the simple question, on the basis of what you see for the future, the signs point to economy that's going to be in trouble. Jobs are moving overseas. The budget deficit is growing. And too many jobs do not have health insurance. Or the other side is that the economy will be strong because jobs are being created, the inflation is low, and the stock market is up.
Well, as you can see, the results show by a 52 to 38, the public says, "No. It's not good." So the problem the President's facing is, he's selling an economy, which he says, "It's great. Love it. It's in a marvelous position." But the truth of the matter is, the voters really say, "No, I'm worried. I'm uncertain and I don't feel good about it." And the key here, as you can see, Republicans believe it's a strong economy. The problem is that the Independent swing vote, by almost two to one says, "No. I'm worried about the future of the economy." And Democrats, by an overwhelming margin, say it is not good.
So the economy is working against him. Iraq is a much more interesting issue because it is more divided and different. And the next slide shows you.
There's a critical question we've been asking on Iraq, and that is, "Based on what you see, when it comes to war in Iraq, do you think that removing Saddam Hussein from power was worth the number of military casualties and financial costs of the war?" And as you can see, at this stage of the game, as it has been for a while, more Americans say it's not worth it. If you go back to the time we captured Saddam Hussein, Americans believed that it was worth it. So the attitudes on how we look at Iraq have changed.
The second thing is, as the voters look at what's been happening over the past few weeks, since this is obviously before we found all of the high explosive munitions had disappeared, by a margin of 52 to 34, the voters say they feel the situation in Iraq is less stable and more out of control. Well, you look at those two things and you say, "Well, clearly Iraq has to be working for the challenger." People are unhappy. They see things as being less stable, et cetera. Not quite. Take a look at the next two charts.
When we asked the public to tell us whether they feel more confident or less confident in terms of the successful conclusion to the war, in September, by a wide margin of 53 to 37, they said, "I feel less confident." Today, by a slight 46 to 41 margin they say more confident. Now that, along with, "Will there be a victory or not?" has also changed from slightly no to slightly yes. And to me, that's sort of what makes Iraq a jump ball issue -- one that is hard to know how it will play out until the final Election Day. I think every day is new information and it pushes people one way or another. And the difference between the September figures and the October figure really comes down to one thing. I think the voters did not see as much of Iraq on the front page. I think that they saw a sense of more stability there. And all of that said to them, maybe it's going to turn out okay.
At this stage of the game, my guess is they're seeing more sense of uncertainty and chaos. If you look and you ask the voters, "Who's better on Iraq?" they will tell you George Bush. But from my point of view, this is really only about one thing. It's an up or down on George Bush. Nobody will vote for John Kerry on the basis of Iraq. They will vote against the incumbent on the basis of Iraq. And that's an important thing to understand and a difference there.
Let me conclude with two quick things. One is the whole area of terrorism. That has been the major strength of the President throughout this campaign. It has been what he's played to from the beginning all the way through today. He will conclude his campaign on terrorism. And as you can see, the numbers going all the way back to April of 2002 were overwhelmingly positive in his handling of this. But as you can see, in our most recent poll, it has now gone to 50, 46. So it is not the same sense of overwhelming confidence that they had before. But when you ask people, "How much confidence do you have in the President handling the war on terrorism?" You can see 65 percent of the American public say, "I have a great deal of confidence." And if you look at the same question asked about Senator Kerry, it's only 46 percent. So what we have here, is when it comes to the Commander in Chief issue, which I've always believed was the most important thing for a challenger to be able to overcome, John Kerry has probably passed the test on Commander in Chief in a broad sense. But now, you've added an extra dimension in terrorism. And in that area, I don't think that the voters know enough about Kerry. But at this stage, they feel comfortable with the President on the issue of terrorism, and that's an important element.
Let me just conclude with just two points that I think everybody understands. One, this is about events. This is as close an election as I've seen. Is it closer than 2000? I don't know. But it is a different kind of election. And what makes it so interesting is that I think that any little breeze, any little event, could turn this from being a very close election to an Electoral mandate. In other words, it could shove three, four, five states in one direction, and suddenly you go from a 270 up to 300, or above that, in terms of electoral votes.
The second thing is I would tell you that turnout is the most important thing to understand. None of us know where that will go. From everything I would see, I think that we will go above 115 million total vote. We had 105 million last time.
That covers what I see.
MR. DENIG: Very good, thank you so much, Peter. Now we'd like to turn to your questions, and ask you, as usual, to please use the microphone, identify yourself and your news organization. We'll start with Australia up front here.
QUESTION: ABC TV Australia. Can you tell me, historically, how reliable the polls are and whether we can actually use them to predict the outcome at this stage?
MR. HART: I certainly wouldn't use them to predict the outcome because I never believe polls are very good at predicting. Polls are very good at reflecting.
How reliable are they? I guess I would tell you within the margin of error they're reliable. But let me explain something that's exceptionally important, and that is when all the polling organizations go out and interview registered voters, we're all interviewing the same universe; that is, we know what a registered voter is because we just simply say, "Are you a registered voter? Are you a registered voter?" If you're not, we don't interview you. If you are, you qualify.
Now, the difficulty is what you're reading in the polls from all the different polling organization is likely voters. Every organization has their own methodology for likely voters. Which organization is right? Mine is. Why? Because that's my definition. And if you go and talk to Mr. Gallup, then he'll tell you his definition is right. Nobody knows what the right definition is.
So that a lot of times when you're looking at the results, say I can't understand how they're all different from one another, well, the problem is that in some of Mr. Gallup's polls he excludes people that in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll we would include. I mean, I would tell you, to be perfectly honest, if I were looking as a journalist or as a lay person at this, I would treat it very much like gymnastics in the Olympics; that is, throw out the high, throw out the low, and you probably have a pretty good sense of where things are at; that I think in an awful lot of cases you'll look at results and they look wildly different and if they look wildly different, chances they are probably not done in the same way.
But would I rely on them for predicting? No. But I would have told you that in 2000 and in 1996 and in 1976. All they can tell you is this election is close.
MR. DENIG: Let's go to Africa.
QUESTION: Thank you, sir. My name is Ben Bangoura, Washington correspondent for Guineanews. Why is the nation divided? In recent years we have been seeing an election that is increasingly close. How do you explain that?
MR. HART: That's an excellent question, and if I had a simple answer I'd give it to you.
We are an exceptionally divided nation and I'm looking at 2004, and I would explain it because George Bush has made us divided. And I do not mean that as a partisan attack. What I do mean it as is that they had a strategy, the White House and Karl Rove, that the key was to be able to energize the base. As soon as you want to energize the base, that means you're going to say things that alienate the other side. After September 11th, 2001, having gone through a very divided and divisive election of 2000, it was a nation ready to come together. I believe that for a short period of time the President brought the American public together, and then I think they went after an agenda which was energizing the base.
I think that beyond that there are cultural questions that deal with this country, there are value questions, and there are fiscal end goals that we have, and a lot of these things are just the nature of where America is at right now. And this election, to be perfectly honest, is not going to decide anything about America in terms of a mandate or a direction. We are going to continue, in my estimation, with a nation that continues to be divided. The only thing that I would say is that when you start a new presidential term, you get a clean blackboard, whether you're the incumbent or the challenger, and if the next president chooses to work towards uniting the nation, I think they will have a very favorable atmosphere to bring people together. But we still have a long way to go at this period.
MR. DENIG: We'll take the gentleman back there, please.
QUESTION: Yes, Jose Lopez of the Mexican News Agency. It's been more than three years since the terrorist attack of 2001. In this time, have you gathered any kind of evidence that perhaps we are here before a different kind of elections? I mean that 9/11 perhaps changed the paradigm that even the President is going in the wrong track, perhaps people don't blame him for that or even his popularity is not very good, perhaps, they believe that he is facing unprecedented circumstances?
In other words, do you think that perhaps this election will change other preconceptions of how elections are viewed in the U.S.?
MR. HART: I think it's an excellent question and, simply put, yes, I do think it's a different election, that I actually wrote a memo yesterday which called the election “Seven Days to Go,” and what I said in this memo is that, absent terrorism, this election would be over, it would not be a close election, it would be equivalent to Ronald Reagan against Jimmy Carter, because absent terrorism I think the President does not have enough of a base to be able to win this election. With terrorism, and the suggestion that you made, I believe that we're looking at things very differently. When you look at women who are high school education or less and women who are under the age of 50, the President is doing much better than he did four years ago. I don't think it's on the basis of his programs. I think it's on the basis of two things: one, the issue of security; and number two, on the issue of values. I think he's done a very good job of speaking on both those things.
But in the end, if the President wins reelection, I think your point is absolutely right. does it become a paradigm for future election? I think that's far too early to say and too bold at this moment.
MR. HART: Let's take Kuwait in the front row, please.
QUESTION: How are you doing? Ron Baygents, Kuwait News Agency. The date of this polling was over a week ago?
MR. HART: Right.
QUESTION: And you referred to the importance of event-driven things.
MR. HART: Right.
QUESTION: The 380 tons of explosives is since then.
MR. HART: Right.
QUESTION: The question is, that specifically, is that -- will that kind of stuff move people? Do you think these numbers might be different even now were they a week sooner?
MR. HART: We have been looking at all the national polls, and I should say that our organization is doing a tremendous amount of polling within various states. We believe that the last three days -- Saturday, Sunday and Monday -- have been terrible days for the President, that the numbers at this stage look very negative. We think it relates as much as anything to the problems that have happened in Iraq and the sense of both the killings as well as the explosives.
See, one of the things that happens here is that elections, as much as anything, are a way of affirming a suspicion that people have, and one of the suspicions people have is that despite the President saying everything's going well and everything's working, the public out there says I have suspicions that it's not working. And so when something like the missing munitions comes forth, it reinforces something that's already there.
And so, from my point of view, yes, it made a difference. And the only warning that I'd like to make to everybody right in this room, and that is there is always a tendency to say, oh, look, it's broken for Kerry, look at the last two days in the ABC-Washington Post tracking poll. Don't believe it. And when I say don't believe it, there are a couple of reasons I tell you that. Number one, nobody understands tracking polls, they just read them. And what they don't understand is it is like a windshield wiper, and that is it wipes out the old stuff and enters in new stuff, so it can take out a very good George Bush day and put in a slightly good Kerry day, and suddenly you say, oh, the whole election is moving. No, it's what they took out rather than what went in.
So what I would tell you is this is an election that has what I would say, a spin and a rinse cycle still left, and don't think that it's over at this stage. Don't read the poll today and say now I know and I can see where it's headed. Only in 1980 do I believe that we really got that kind of a definitive movement, and that was because we had the only debate some seven days out, and I think at that stage the voters just flocked to Ronald Reagan.
QUESTION: Yeah, while I've got the mike, I had another quick one. I think you said 150 million a possible turnout?
MR. HART: No. I said 115.
QUESTION: Okay. My question is: What percentage would that be, and can you extrapolate a little bit on what that might mean for Kerry or Bush?
MR. HART: Yep. That essentially we had 105 million turnout last time, which was approximately about 51 percent. If you went as high as about 118 million, I think you'd be at 55 percent. Karl Rove has figured that the maximum turnout will be 112 million and he's predicated most of his strategy on that basis. It looks to me, on the basis of everything I see, barring all these challenges, that we'll probably be above that number. I think we could be above 115 million. And the implication to me is a strong turnout probably means difficulty for the Republicans.
MR. DENIG: Let's go to Turkey, please.
QUESTION: Yes, you said, you know, about the --
MR. DENIG: Identify yourself, please.
QUESTION: Rehat Atasagun with the Public Television Turkey. You said President Bush divided the country most of all. You know, I find it very hard to understand because remembering the previous elections where he was not the President, the country was already divided. So I can't -- I mean --
MR. HART: Let me explain: What I'm saying is that after 9/11 there was a period where I think this country was ready to come together to work for a common agenda, and what I would tell you is the President, whether it was his domestic issues or his policy on -- now it's escaping me -- the national security --
QUESTION: Patriot Act.
MR. HART: Thank you very much. The Patriot Act. I think that that became exceptionally divisive and I think in terms of one of the policies that he has followed basically what you've seen is a very divided Congress.
Now, was it divided going in to 2000? Yes. But remember my point is that it's a blackboard and it gets erased for each administration. And while I think the feelings were much tougher that President Bush faced in 2000 because of the way in which the election was adjudicated, I do think that he still had the opportunity to be able to unite it.
Yep, a follow-up.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) to the 2000 elections, so who divided then the nation when they (inaudible)?
MR. HART: Well, I guess what I would tell you, of course, is that I believe that the Republicans divided it. Now, I'm speaking as Democratic pollster and my point would be the way in which the House and the Senate dealt with many of the issues that I believe that they were the divisive ones. But that's a personal opinion.
MR. DENIG: Let's go to Germany, front row.
QUESTION: Michael Backfisch, Germany's Business Daily Handelsblatt. You said that the only thing John Kerry has to do is to seal the deal. Is this really true? You said that the President has an edge of 21 percentage point over John Kerry, which is an important factor also among women, you know, which are 52 percent of the electorate.
Considering the fact that the discontent with the war in Iraq is decreasing, and thirdly, as you said, in 1992, 74 percent of the Americans said the economy is in a bad shape, today it's 45 percent, doesn't this add up to a structural advantage of Bush? And I remember -- I mean, I can imagine on the last days, you know, this speech to the nation, "My Dear Fellow Americans," for years after 9/11, and so forth.
MR. HART: Yep. I mean, the point you make is a good point. Here's the problem. And that is, if you go back for elections over the past 34 years, and keeping in mind the remarks about this could be a new paradigm, but leaving that alone, over the last 34 years, if you look at the last poll produced and what the incumbent gets in that poll and what he receives in the election, it is generally the same number or within one point. And what I'm suggesting to you is that we know an awful lot about where President Bush stands and recognize that the point that you just made on the economy is the point that he's been trying to make for six months or eight months, and the difficult is it just doesn't work because the public says it's not working for me, the economy is not there.
And in terms of Iraq, I believe it's a jump ball. No, I don't know how the next six days work out because I tried to give you both sides: on one hand, the sense of uncertainty and the sense of unhappiness; two, the sense of positive feelings on conclusions.
But when I say that John Kerry's job is to seal the deal, what I'm saying to you is just bashing George Bush is probably not enough to get him into the Oval Office. It will get him to the front steps of the White House, but I think he needs to be able to communicate a message that has to do with him in order to be able to get those votes that he needs. So that's what I'm meaning by seal the deal.
MR. DENIG: In the front row here.
QUESTION: Thomas Nordagren, Swedish Broadcasting. I just want to know about the exit polls and what will happen on the -- how reliable they are and if the states in the eastern time satellite -- Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida -- will we sort of have the President before California closes, or what is your prediction on how reliable will the exit polls be?
MR. HART: I will be at NBC on election night. I started my career in 1964 working on the exit polls for Louis Harris in New York, so 40 years later I'm still there. And what I would tell you is that the exit polls are the most remarkable element of polling that exists in terms of election, but not for calling races. And they have been used tremendously for calling races.
I think that it will take a tremendous amount of restraint by the networks, which I think you will see, that when the elections are close in any given state they will not call them, period. They will let the votes speak for themselves. And my guess is no, we are not going to know by the time of California, and with Hawaii now being a close up-for-grabs state, we may have to wait until we hear from Hawaii. I would tell you that if I were you I'd get a very good night's sleep Monday night because it's going to be a long Tuesday.
There's one other problem with the exit polls, and that is that so many people are no longer voting at the polling place [because they are voting by absentee ballot and in other ways], so we lose all of those people. And while they may try and phone those people to see what they're doing, I don't think it's quite the same thing. So there are a lot of things. I would be careful. Analytically, they are a brilliant tool, brilliant, but better used Wednesday and Thursday than they are Tuesday night.
MR. DENIG: The lady in the green sweater, please.
QUESTION: I'm Joyce Karam from Al Hayat newspaper. I wanted to ask you regarding President Bush support on the war on terror, if we were to have -- God forbid -- another terror attack before the election, how would that play?
MR. HART: The President wins. In other words, we're now in the last six days. If you had asked me 40 days ago, I would tell you that it would depend upon when and I would tell you that it depends on when and it depends if America is seen as not having done its proper precautions and it's something we should have known. But it's six days out. I would have to say, if it happens, the President wins because we rally around the President. I don't think we're like Madrid or like Spain.
QUESTION: Thank you.
QUESTION: Szabolcs Toth, Magyar Nemzet, Hungary. Are there any groups in the U.S. that tend to be more hidden from the view of the pollsters? And if there are, is the emerging religious right such a group that could cause some sort of surprise on Election Day?
MR. HART: Are there groups that are hidden? Well, we know that polling companies cannot reach people who only have cell phones. That's 4 percent of the American public. So we're losing that group of voters. We suspect, based upon everything we know, that they are not voting atypically from the rest of the electorate, but we do not know for certain.
In terms of the question about the religious right, yes, they're exceptionally important, but that goes back to the question of turnout. And I think turnout will -- there are two interesting groups to watch here. One will be minorities, both African American and the Hispanic voters, and number two will be voters under the age of 30. If there are massive turnouts there, that is obviously to the advantage of John Kerry. In the reverse, if there are small turnouts, it helps George Bush. In terms of the religious right, I think that's where you look at states like Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. If you start to see George Bush doing well in those three states or winning those states, I think you can look at the religious group. They may not be the religious right, but it will be people who are motivated by values and religion.
MR. DENIG: Okay, let's go to the gentleman in the yellow tie right there.
QUESTION: Thank you. Ronan Philp, Sunday Times, South Africa.
(Inaudible) apparently voting in their own economic interests. You know, we've seen the map, the red and the blue. The red tends to represent the poorer parts of the country. How is it possible that we've seen more than ever people voting for big business?
MR. HART: Well, it is a really fascinating element of this election and of what's going on in American politics. If I were to direct you to one part of the nation that you could say, "What should I watch on election night," I would tell you to watch the counties south of Route 40 in the state of Ohio. And that comes across the state through Columbus all the way west out through Dayton to Indiana, and those are the counties that probably underscore a lot of what you refer to from the Tommy Franks book, and that is, in this election, I think there are two interesting strands playing out. On the one hand is the strand of economic concerns, the kinds of fights that people have on everyday basis to be able to pay their bills and to be able to try and get ahead. It's been a hard period for people. On the same front, I think the American public, when it comes to health care, have a major problem with how we're doing and how effectively things are coming across.
So you're saying you look at these people who tend to go into sort of the Appalachia region and that should be a good Democratic vote, but what you will find is on the other hand patriotism is exceptionally important with this group and these are sort of the working fighting class, if I can put it that way; and secondly, the values element.
And so you look at a state like Ohio. Everybody's going to say if John Kerry wins it, he wins it up north. He'll win it in the African American communities of Cleveland and Akron and northern Ohio. I would tell you that both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton won the state of Ohio by not losing southern Ohio by a large margin. I think that's what makes this such an interesting race.
And to follow up on your point, it would be West Virginia would be another place where it just seems absolutely certain that the Democrats would carry West Virginia. I think if they do carry West Virginia, that would be an exceptionally good sign that the economic issues and health issues are playing. [But] I do not expect them to carry West Virginia.
MR. DENIG: In the middle, back there.
QUESTION: My name is Wada. I'm with Japan's Mainichi newspaper. I think you said to the effect that people have -- the American people have become comfortable with the notion of John Kerry becoming the commander-in-chief but they are still not convinced that he can be an effective leader fighting the terrorism. And what in the mind of American people are the differences between these two qualities, and can John Kerry prove himself to meet the second test in the remaining six or seven days? Thanks.
MR. HART: Good question. And my answer would be no. I mean, I say that sort of flatly, but what makes it hard is that they saw what the President did in reaction to dealing with terrorism. They see his sense of firmness, his sense of resolve, and that provides a comfort. The difficulty here is I don't know how a challenger gets to that level. Now, you may be able to get to that level if you're a certain type of personality and people say, I see him as a person of great strength, of great dominance, or whatever.
In the area of commander-in-chief, I think we recognize that it is a more complex role than we may have thought of before, and I think that Kerry has gotten over that threshold. The difficulty is I think one of the reasons -- and then go back to the point on sealing the deal -- is that John Kerry needs to be able to have the kinds of one-on-ones with the American public where they see a sense of resolve, and I think that's going to be exceptionally important.
MR. DENIG: All right, let's go to Jyri right here, Finland, in the middle.
QUESTION: Jyri Raivio, newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, Finland. Is this anticipated very high turnout, can it bring huge surprises in polls and in the results? Last week there was a lady from Virginia here who said that they have half a million more registered voters than before. Is it possible that Virginia can sort of switch from a surefire Bush state to a surefire -- well, not so surefire, but a Kerry state? Are these kind of surprises possible when a turnout is very high?
MR. HART: Yeah, well, turnout is the one thing that I don't think polling companies can handle very well. I don't think we're particularly good at low turnouts and I don't think we're particularly good at high turnouts. And so it's one of these reasons that I tell you not to look at polling except to say that, "It's competitive." A competitive election.
But I would tell you one thing, and that is this election is going to provide a lot of unusual results. I have a question. A friend of mine does an Election Day poll and has a whole bunch of experts trying to figure things out. And one of the questions I suggested to him is, "Tell me the state that George Bush was the best compared to how he did four years earlier." So where will he show his greatest improvement?
I would not be surprised (inaudible) not that he will carry California, but that he lost it by such a wide margin and he'll lose it by a narrower margin this time. I think Virginia falls into that possibility. But at the end of the day, I look at the polling material and it says to me that the motivation is equally high from Democrats and Republican. When we see major switches in elections, 1994 and 1974, those are elections where one party is depressed and the other party is elated. This is a case where both parties are totally energized. I do not see that kind of differential this year. So if Virginia ends up in the Democratic column, I'll come back here and pay a special attention to your question, but I don't see it happening.
MR. DENIG: Okay, let's go the gentleman right up front here.
QUESTION: Yes, Alex Alexandrov, Russian News Agency TASS. I would like to turn the attention to African American voters. We know that they break overwhelmingly for Democrats, but they're also more conservative than the rest of the electorate. Is it possible that Bush could, because of his stance on social issues, do better with African Americans compared to four years ago, and could that possibly sway the election in his favor?
MR. HART: One of the questions is how will George Bush do with African American voters, and his conservatism and values, will that play better? The polls have suggested that he may, indeed, do better with the African American vote. He got about 8 percent last time. There are some people who have shown it as high as 17 percent. My guess is, at the end of the day, it will be closer to 10 percent. The difficulty for the President is it's still 90 percent to 10 percent, and if their turnout becomes much larger than it was four years ago, the differential in votes would hurt him overall. So yes, it could be marvelous if their turnout was not so high. In the end, I would suspect, if it's a close election and the Democrats win in both Ohio and Florida and in Pennsylvania, it will be the African American vote that will provide the critical difference for John Kerry.
MR. DENIG: Last question. Let's go to Guinea again.
QUESTION: Thank you, sir. I would like to come back to the electoral system, election system here, which is kind of unique. Why do you think the founding fathers of this country through the Electoral College system was the best way to go rather than giving the (inaudible) to popular votes?
MR. HART: Yeah, to be perfectly honest, I am exceptionally thankful to the founding fathers in an election like this that, essentially, you have to compete and win states, because given the type of election, I think what we would have ended up with is two candidates who would have gone so much to the extreme elements of their base that they wouldn't have been able to speak to the middle. I think the genius of the founding fathers in this setup is that you have to be able to talk to the middle of the electorate in order to be able to win. Otherwise, I think you would have George Bush spending all his time in Texas and [Kerry] spending all his time in California.
So I think the nation has been exceptionally well served in this process, especially when you look at how much time they've spent in the heartland and how much time they have given to what I call the middle of the electorate, and that's a plus.
MR. DENIG: Let's take the gentleman behind Guinea.
QUESTION: I am Ibnasi Abad from Catalunya Radio, Spain. What about the former Nader voters? Do you have information about what they are doing this time? And where do you suppose that he can challenge the election outcome, given that he's not in the ballot in some few states?
MR. HART: Well, the question on the Nader voters, we really don't know anything about them because they're so small that we can't look at that few people in a poll and have any reliability. We do know that it's around 1 percent of the electorate and obviously in the places that turn out to be exceptionally close, we'll say that Ralph Nader made the difference.
But I think unlike 2000, he has really not been part of the dialogue or part of the decision-making factor. So if voters vote for him, clearly they send a message to both Kerry and to Bush that they just didn't do a good enough job. So my tendency is really to believe that because he hasn't been part of the dialogue those are people who really are exceptionally unhappy with the two candidates, recognizing that they would be willing to live with either of them. I think they understand the consequences.
MR. DENIG: Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Hart. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
