Posted on Fri, Oct. 22, 2004
Race in state still a tossup
Candidates heap attention, trying to tip balance
BY BILL SALISBURY and LIBBY GEORGE
Pioneer Press
If you wonder why a steady stream of presidential and vice presidential candidates is parading through Minnesota this week, a new poll provides the answer: The state is still up for grabs.
The Pioneer Press poll shows 47 percent of Minnesota voters would vote for President Bush, while 45 percent favor Sen. John Kerry.
That makes the race a tossup, because Bush's 2-point lead is within the poll's margin of error of 4 percentage points. Only 2 percent supported independent candidate Ralph Nader. The remaining 6 percent were undecided. Mason-Dixon Polling & Research conducted the poll of 625 likely Minnesota voters Friday through Monday.
"This is a deadlock. It's a bright, blinking light to both campaigns to spend even more time and money in Minnesota," said political scientist Larry Jacobs, director of the 2004 Election Project at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.
Nationally, the presidential race is a "nail-biter," Jacobs said, "and for anyone interested in politics, Minnesota has got a front-row seat."
That explains why Bush campaigned in Rochester on Wednesday and Kerry held a rally in Minneapolis on Thursday. Those two events were sandwiched between Sen. John Edwards' appearance in Hibbing on Tuesday and Vice President Dick Cheney's scheduled stop today in Rosemount.
Three other polls conducted in Minnesota earlier this month showed either Kerry with a narrow lead or a dead heat, according to RealClearPolitics.com. On average in those polls, Kerry led Bush, 46.7 percent to 44.3 percent.
Although the campaigns have barraged Minnesota voters with candidate visits, TV ads, mailings and phone calls for the past month, they haven't changed many minds.
A Pioneer Press/Minnesota Public Radio poll taken in mid-September showed Bush ahead, 46 percent to 44 percent. Each candidate gained 1 percentage point in the latest poll, while the number of undecided voters dropped from 9 percent to 6 percent.
Lori Bratsch, a 31-year-old registered nurse from Northfield, Minn., said she thought Kerry was impressive in the debates, but his performance did not sway her support for Bush.
"Kerry always says he has a great plan to change everything, but he never gives specifics," Bratsch said. "I guess I knew I always supported Bush … he started the war, so he should continue it."
"When you've got people this polarized, I guess you don't see much movement," said pollster Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon. "Maybe we'll get it at the very end, but right now, nothing's shaking."
Although 85 percent of Minnesota voters watched at least one of the three Bush-Kerry debates, they weren't moved very much by the candidates' performances. Forty-four percent said the debates reinforced their previous voting decisions, and 34 percent said the debates didn't affect their decisions at all. Only 3 percent said the debates made them change their choices, while 4 percent said the joint appearances gave them second thoughts about their preferred candidates.
"Blah, blah, blah. That's all I hear," said Donna Maday, a 62-year-old Circle Pines retiree and undecided voter who took part in the poll. Although Maday has followed the debates and also watched the news coverage and commentary about the Minnesota campaign visits, she said they have not helped her make up her mind in the least.
"I could see how they had plans according to their writers," Maday said. "But they're not really clearly expressing their ideas or what they plan to do."
Earlier this year, the economy, jobs and unemployment were the most important issues to Minnesota voters. But in the latest poll, homeland security and the war on terrorism pulled almost even with the economy as the biggest issue.
Twenty-four percent of voters listed the economy as the No. 1 issue — down 4 percentage points from September — while 23 percent said homeland security and terrorism were most important — up 4 percent.
Donald Colvin, an 83-year-old road contractor from Edina, said that while the economy is usually a key issue for him, the war on terror and Iraq trump it for him this year.
"Considering the situation with the bombing of the towers … (the economy) has been going very well," said Colvin, a Bush supporter. "I think we need to settle this terrorism thing, and I think Iraq is a part of it."
That apparently benefits Bush. Fifty-five percent of voters said Bush would do a better job at handling issues related to homeland security and terrorism, while 37 percent thought Kerry would do a better job on that issue.
Asked who would do a better job on handling the economy and unemployment, 47 percent picked Bush to 43 percent for Kerry.
Kerry gained ground, however, on the third-most-important issue — the situation in Iraq. Forty-three percent of voters said he would do a better job on Iraq — up 6 points from last month — while 48 percent said Bush would do better — down 3 points. Some 17 percent of voters said Iraq was the issue that would most influence how they vote.
But for poll respondent Lori Vanderhime, a 38-year-old Minneapolis stay-at-home mom, the economy and health care are what sold her on Kerry.
"I've seen what's happened in the last four years, and it's just ridiculous," Vanderhime said. She added that her biggest problem is health care premiums, which have gone "through the roof" in the last several years.
"The administration now doesn't seem to be doing anything to help that," she said. "Kerry at least has an alternative."
Fifteen percent said moral issues and family values are the most important issues, and voters said by a wide margin — 55 percent to 38 percent — that Bush would do a better job of handling those issues than Kerry.
The gender gap resurfaced in the latest poll. After being almost evenly divided last month, women now prefer Kerry to Bush, 49 percent to 43 percent. At the same time, Bush's lead over Kerry among men jumped, to stand at 51 percent to 41 percent — up from just a 2-point margin in September.
Kerry's approval rating rose slightly in the latest poll to 44 percent, up 4 points from last month, while Bush's approval rating dropped a point to 48 percent.
Nader is not doing as well in Minnesota this year as four years ago, when he got 5 percent of the vote.
"Nader's message is not resonating the way it did in 2000," Jacobs said. "The kind of liberal Democrats who had fled the Democratic Party in 2000 are staying home this time."
The poll puts Minnesota at the "vortex of the most exciting and important presidential election in recent memory," he added. "I think folks around the country might well be waiting up late on election night to see how things turn out in Minnesota."
ABOUT THE POLL
This poll of Minnesota voters was conducted for the St. Paul Pioneer Press from Oct. 15 to 18. The polling was done by telephone by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington, D.C.
The survey included 625 voters in Minnesota chosen through a random selection of telephone numbers.
In theory, 19 times out of 20, a sampling of that size should yield results differing by no more than 4 percentage points in either direction from the responses that would be received by polling the entire population.
The error margin is greater for smaller groups. Errors also can be introduced by the wording of questions and other factors.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Salisbury can be reached at
bsalisbury@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5538.
