10:40 A.M. EDT
Real Audio of Briefing
MR. DENIG: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. Welcome, also, to our colleagues in the New York Foreign Press Center.
Today's briefing in our series of briefings on Elections 2004 features the very well known pollster and President of Zogby International, John Zogby, and he will brief today on the latest election polls. Without any further ado, I will welcome John to the podium.
Thank you.
MR. ZOGBY: Thank you so much. Why are you all here? There isn't much going on.
What I'd like to do, first of all, is start with some numbers, of course, about where the race stands, and then I'd also like to just briefly paint for you the context in which the election takes place.
So, first of all, the numbers. We have been looking for months at what we call a virtual tie between Kerry and Bush. I can report to you this morning that it's an actual tie. It's 47 percent for Kerry and 47 percent for Bush. You will note that my hair is a little grayer these days than it has been.
What is remarkable is how much this election mirrors the election of 2000. And so while we are doing daily tracking of this race, we have been posting in our news releases the similar days of daily tracking four years ago, and it's stunning. What will happen is that one of the candidates will have a little bit of momentum for two days, and then just when I expect to see the third day continue that momentum so that I can get a clear picture of what's going on, the momentum stops and it goes in the other direction for the other candidate.
Both men start with 47 percent. That is their base, their constituency. And so where we stand today, with four days to go, is that the President has done a very good job consolidating his base. He has over 90 percent support among Republicans. He's doing extremely well among married voters, both married men and married women. He's doing very well among the born-again Christian conservatives, among conservatives in general. He is doing very well among the so-called investor class. Those are people who identify themselves as being investors.
By the same token, John Kerry is doing well with his Democratic base. He's getting approximately the same support among Hispanics that Al Gore got, over 60 percent. However, I should note that's 60 percent of a larger number of Hispanic voters. Kerry is also around 90 percent of support among African American voters, although last night we noticed that he went below 90 percent among African Americans, but I don't know if one day makes a trend. Kerry is also doing well among single voters, union voters and among voters who live in big cities.
Among key swing groups, independents, those not registered or identified with any one party, of course, tied. Catholics are tied. These are the kinds of things that make an election like this very difficult to call.
Where we stand today, we have approximately 5 percent undecided. We go as low as 4 percent undecided on some days.
Who are these undecided voters? They do tend to be Independents, that is, in terms of party affiliation. They do tend to be moderates, meaning not liberal and not conservative. Unlike previous years, they tend to be middle-aged voters, meaning not young and not old.
We have polled them -- the undecideds, that is. We have also done focus groups among undecideds. Contrary to popular belief, contrary to what I, personally, believed; these undecideds generally have told us that they had their minds made up in the past. This is a new phenomenon for them. They also told us that they were paying attention. They could identify for us basically where each candidate stood on the issues. Since we did the focus groups in the so called "battleground states" of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Minnesota, they told us that they have seen campaign commercials.
Here are some of the things that we have found out among undecided voters: They like the President as a person. They give the President good marks for leadership and decisiveness. They appear to be very much opposed to the war and to the way that we got into the war. They give the President good marks on personal morality and family values.
At the same time, they tell us that they like John Kerry, that he is smart enough, they believe that he is competent enough to be President. They also feel that John Kerry is one that they identify with on their issues, which are domestic issues that we heard about, the economy and health care, education and so on. They have questions about whether or not they trust Kerry, about whether or not they believe where he stands on issues. They do tend to say, and I guess after hearing so many commercials and seeing so many commercials, that they feel that Kerry is a person who changes his position to win popular support.
The undecideds told us that they're passionate, that they will vote. Some of them indicated that they were actually agonizing over their choice. And they also told us that they're genuinely undecided.
Significantly, from the polling, and not from the focus groups, we find that only 1 in 5 of the undecided voters tell us that the President of the United States deserves to be reelected. Between one-third and 40 percent, so between 30 and 40 percent of the undecideds tell us that they feel it is time for someone new, and then half of the undecideds are not sure, or they're undecided, about that question, the President.
Some of you may recall that in May I wrote a column suggesting that I thought that this race was John Kerry's to lose, that I thought that he would win. I renewed that sentiment in a column in The Financial Times the morning of the first debate. I read with interest the column by Robert Novak yesterday, a man for whom I have an enormous amount of respect, in which he suggested that I had changed my mind. I have not changed my mind. If you reread his column, from the second paragraph on down is material that I clearly said that, at the time that I spoke to Novak, the polling trend was looking good for the President, and if the election were held at that moment, the President would win. However, I did say, and I'm saying right now, that at that point, when I spoke to Mr. Novak, there was over a week to go and anything can happen. There's four days to go and anything can happen.
Now, in addition to the 47/47 tie in the national polling, we're doing ten battleground states, and Senator Kerry leads in four, President Bush leads in four, and in two of the states they are tied. Those are some additional gray hairs that I have. Among those states where Bush or Kerry leads, none of the leads are big and insurmountable. This is just an extremely close election.
Now, on the basis of history, if history is any guide whatsoever, I still believe: number one, that the race is about the incumbent, a referendum on the incumbent, and the fact that the incumbent has not broken 48 percent suggests to me that the President is not polling good numbers for reelection.
In addition to that, in terms of the other barometric readings that I look at, you still have a net negative of voters who say that the President is not doing a good job. He gets a negative job performance rating. He gets a negative reelect, meaning slightly more people think it's time for someone new than that he deserves to be reelected. And slightly more people feel that the country is headed on the wrong direction. Now, the President has improved all of those numbers, but they're still not reelection numbers. In addition to that, on the top five issues that the voters tell us are tops on their minds, the President leads in one of those issues, fighting the war on terrorism: He leads substantially against Senator Kerry. Among the other four issues, Senator Kerry leads by double digits over the President.
Now, let me just give you a broader picture here. This is so much bigger than Kerry versus Bush, and I think you need to understand that. America has this election in the context of two warring nations, equal in size, and polarized more so than anyone has seen in our lifetime: Polarized culturally, spiritually, demographically, ideologically.
Let me give you some examples. If we take this purely artificial construction that we have created, "red" states, those that voted for Bush in 2000, and "blue" states, those that voted for Gore in 2000, and as a footnote, I call those artificial constructions because Florida is a red state by a few hundred votes. New Hampshire is a red state by 7,000 votes. Oregon, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Minnesota are blue states by a few hundred to a few thousand.
But if you just cluster the two, the reds and the blues, listen to what we learned in a poll that we did back in December. Number one, 54 percent or red state voters told us that they attend a place of worship at least once a week. That is a very important conservative voting barometer -- 54 percent of red state voters. 32 percent of blue state voters said they attend a place of worship at least once a week. That's a 22-point difference.
Majorities in both the red states and the blue states said that they want the next President to identify with God, to be a spiritual person. It was 75 percent of the red state voters, 51 percent of the blue state voters. How do they identify that God? The overwhelming majority of red state voters told us that they identify their God as a God representing good triumphing over evil, a God that punishes evil. And they identify spirituality in terms of good versus evil, right versus wrong: absolute morality. The overwhelming majority of blue state voters identified God as a loving God who loves sinners as well as non-sinners, and more of a live and let live moral relativism.
Fifty-eight percent of red state voters told us that they keep a gun at home. Thirty-three percent of blue state voters keep a gun at home.
And then finally -- there are many other indications, but just by way of one last example -- you are 7 to 9 points more likely to be single and never married in a blue state than in a red state. Why is that significant? That is the real gap in this election: Married voters versus single voters. You may have seen recently that some polls have reported that there's virtually no gender gap anymore. My polls are saying almost the same thing: Very little of a gender gap. That's because the huge differences are between married men and single men and married women versus single women. They see their worlds differently and they indicated that they're voting as much as 25 to 30 points differently.
So in closing, I identify this election, and I've been calling this election "the Armageddon election." We have seldom had such elections in the past, but we have had them. Armageddon, each side is saying, essentially, that if the other side wins it's the end of the world as we know it. We have had close elections before, but never -- or seldom, I should say -- have we been this polarized, this angry, and this unwilling to accept the winner of a close election if it's the other guy.
MR. DENIG: Thank you very much, John.
We'll start with questions. We have very little time today, so I'll ask that questions be brief. We'll go to New York for our first question. Please identify yourself and your news organization.
QUESTION: My name is Gry Winther. I'm from P-4, Norway.
I'm wondering, could you tell me about the magic of the last poll? We know that the incumbent will not -- his numbers will not, his numbers will not be higher than the last poll. I've also heard that the challenger always will go higher than the last poll.
MR. ZOGBY: I'm glad you asked that because I didn't make that very clear.
The key reason why I still think that Kerry will win, perhaps, possibly (laughter) -- have I made myself clear here? Okay. That traditionally, the undecideds break for the challenger against the incumbent on the basis of the fact, simply, that the voters already know the incumbent, and it's a referendum on the incumbent. And if the incumbent is polling, generally, under 50 percent and leading by less than 10, historically, incumbents have lost 7 out of 10 times.
In this instance you have a tie, a President who is not going over 48, undecideds who tell us by small percentages that the President deserves to be reelected. And in essence, it gives all the appearances that the undecideds -- the most important people in the world today -- have made up their minds about President Bush. The only question left is: Can they vote for John Kerry? If it's a good turnout, look for a Kerry victory. If it's a lower turnout, it means that the President has succeeded in raising questions about John Kerry's fitness.
MR. DENIG: All right. Let's go to Mexico in the front row.
QUESTION: Jose Carreno, El Universal, Mexico.
Just -- what would be the consequence of this kind of vote in the congressional races? What could it say for governability in the United States?
MR. ZOGBY: A very, very good question.
First of all, in terms of the specifics, right now the Senate is 51/49 Republican over Democrat. It is within the realm of possibility, but getting more difficult day by day, for Democrats to regain a majority. It is possible. There are a couple of races that were not on anyone's radar screen: Alaska and Oklahoma as prime examples.
By the same token, Tom Daschle, in my latest poll, was down a couple of points in South Dakota. So for the Democrats, everything has to align in order for them to take back the Senate – they have virtually no chance in the House of Representatives. The only chance that you have, I think, for the Congress to turn is if, at the last minute, all of the undecided voters break, and break towards the Democrats, and this election, then, becomes like 1980 -- a referendum on the incumbent and a statement against the incumbent. That could bring some Democratic victories in both the Senate and the House.
Now, that's one half of your question. The other half is, from our polling, and part of this metaphor of it being the Armageddon election, the sense, the growing sense that we have is if this election is close, significant percentages of the other side will not accept the winner as a legitimate President. It's going to have to take some very strong leadership by the part of the President to restore a sense of confidence, a sense of stability, a sense of unity to a nation that will have to be healed.
MR. DENIG: Okay, let's go to Italy in the blue shirt, please.
QUESTION: Giampierro Gramaglia, Italian News Agency ANSA.
Why that is that the number of the undecided states is going -- day by day, is not going down?
MR. ZOGBY: Oh, a very, very good question.
We start with March of this year. We had 5 percent undecided in March. That's so incredible. It's normally 20 to 25 percent undecided. But we had already broken up into two warring nations as of March. And very simply, if you start, then, with the premise, number one, each candidate gets about 47 or 48 percent just for showing up, and then 5 percent undecided, the only movement that we have seen is the 3 percent soft Bush supporters and the 3 percent soft Kerry supporters jumping to the undecided column on the other side, and then back. That's the only movement.
This has never been a 13-point race or an 11-point race. I always had it within the narrow confines of just those 3 points off of each candidate changing. Whenever you see the undecideds go up to 6, it's because one of the candidates has, at least temporarily, lost some of his base support.
If we go into the election Tuesday with the undecideds going down, we'll know that it's a high voter turnout. If we go into the election, on the other hand, with the undecideds actually going up, then that suggests to me that there's a percentage of the undecideds who actually will not vote.
MR. DENIG: All right. Let's go to Kuwait on the far left here. Wait for the microphone, please.
QUESTION: Ron Baygents, Kuwait News Agency.
Two questions. One, do you have any feelings about the turnout?
MR. ZOGBY: I do.
QUESTION: And second, for those of us, like you, who have observed U.S. politics for a while, it may seem puzzling why places like Minnesota and Wisconsin and maybe even Iowa seem to be in play when, you know, traditionally, this seemed like a no-brainer for the Democrats. And could you address where you see that little section of the country going and how important that is to Kerry?
MR. ZOGBY: Sure. I'm still looking at a high voter turnout as of today. Again, the Bush strategy has been a very careful strategy and a well-executed strategy. If an incumbent, by now, cannot persuade 50 percent of the voters to vote for him, then really, the only thing left for the incumbent to do is raise questions about the opponent to dampen any enthusiasm among undecideds or weak supporters for the challenger to come out to vote.
So in that sense, we're still looking at about 4 or 5 percent who are undecided. I think it looks like a high voter turnout. One of the reasons why is that we're seeing a small percentage of undecideds among younger voters. And if younger voters turn out -- and so far, we have every reason to believe they will -- then it will be a big turnout, perhaps from a 105 million last time to 112, 115 million this time, which would make it a 55 percent voter turnout. And if that's the case, then look for a Kerry victory.
In terms of your question about the other states, the red versus blue, that exists not only in the nation as a whole, inter-state. It's also intra-state. Call it urban versus rural, or metro versus retro. We have always had these differences. The key uniqueness this year is that we have also always had a centrist block of voters that have provided a buffer between the two extremes. This year, as of March, the centrist voter, the vital center, was missing, and so you have now in those key states, people lining up supporting the President on the war, opposing the President on the war.
MR. DENIG: Okay, Germany, first row.
QUESTION: Yeah, a follow-up to that one. Michael Backfisch, Germany's business daily Handelsblatt. You said that the President has only one major lead and that's the fight against terror, but couldn't it be that it's the match winner and couldn't it be that this is exactly the explanation why he's doing pretty well in Democratic-leaning states like Michigan. Who had thought about that? Wisconsin, Minnesota, and even Hawaii, where Cheney is flying on Sunday.
MR. ZOGBY: Okay, very good questions. But in addition to the issues, the President, as I think I said, gets good marks for leadership and decisiveness and so on, personal characteristics, which are points that are not positively viewed for Kerry.
At the same time, I think that what it is is more the demographic splits and ideological splits that have always existed in the states, and the sense that we are at war, which has polarized us, not only state by state but within each state.
I see states that are competitive today that I did not think would be competitive, but I have to tell you, it's very hard for me to see New Jersey or it's very hard for me to see Hawaii voting Republican in this election, simply because the President may be leading but he is leading with under 48 percent of the vote and leading by only a small amount of votes.
MR. DENIG: Okay, we'll go to the gentleman on the left here.
QUESTION: Hi, my name is Arshad Mahmud and I represent the daily Prothom Alo in Bangladesh. I just want to raise a question about the methodology of your polling. When you said that the star quality of Bush was the voters liking the leadership quality on his fight against terror, and I'm wondering what -- how do you pose the questions to the respondents, meaning that when the entire world sees the other way, that his fight against terror has made the world even less safer, even the United Nations Secretary General has said that the other day on record.
And the other question is about the character issue. What is -- you said that the voters like Bush because of his moral character. Is John Kerry a bad man, or how do you pose the questions? I'm interested to know that.
Thank you.
MR. ZOGBY: Yeah, very good question. I mean, first of all, the questions are basic. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the name George W. Bush or John Kerry? More importantly, I'm going to read you a list of characteristics, tell me who you think would do a better job or represents this better: leadership, family values, health care policies and so on and so forth.
In terms of the bottom-line personal qualities question, I'm going to read you a list of names. As I read each name, please tell me if your overall opinion of this person is very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, very unfavorable, or you don't have enough information to make a judgment.
For months, we've seen Kerry and Bush each getting 53, 54 percent favorable rating. We've seen Bush getting about a 42 percent unfavorable rating, and until just a couple of weeks ago, Kerry getting 37, 38, 39 percent unfavorable; of course, fewer people knowing Kerry.
What we're finding now is that Bush and Kerry are just about tied: 53,54 favorable; 42, 43 percent unfavorable. Here's the difference. The difference is, for voters, if they're going to replace the President, they want to be sure they're replacing the President with someone they perceive to be better, in terms of personal rating. And with Kerry's rating at just about the same, that's one of the things that does not make him a strong alternative.
If Kerry wins this, it will be because, number one, he is not George W. Bush; and number two, because he's perceived as a credible leader on issues.
Now, there were other questions within -- but I think I got them.
MR. DENIG: We have time for one last question. The gentleman back there in the blue shirt.
QUESTION: I'm Shada Omar from LBC television, Lebanon. Do you have any indication about how Arabs and Muslims are going to vote?
MR. ZOBGY: I do. This will not take long. We did a poll for Georgetown University, MAPS, Muslims in the American Public Square. It was 69 for Kerry, seven for Bush. I'm pretty sure, give or take, no matter how bad your margin of error is -- Shawnta, does that sound right? Sixty-nine to seven. Okay.
MR. DENIG: What about the rest?
MR. ZOGBY: The rest are undecided, which means they have reservations about Kerry. Now, in terms of Arab-Americans, our latest poll just came out a couple of days ago in four states: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida. And among Arab-Americans, it was 54 for Kerry, and 28 for Bush. When we eliminated undecideds, it was approximately 60 percent for Kerry and about 30 or 31 percent for Bush, and the rest were Ralph Nader.
MR. DENIG: John, thank you so much.
MR. ZOBGY: Thank you very much.
MR. DENIG: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much.
MR. ZOGBY: Thank you.
