05.28.04
BUSH'S DETERIORATING BASE?: Pollster Stanley Greenberg has released an update http://www.greenbergresearch.com/publications/reports/r_still2americas052704.pdf of the data presented in his excellent book The Two Americas. One of his main findings from interviewing 8,000 likely voters between January and April 2004 is that Bush is suffering a small but very significant erosion among his most loyal supporters. As the bloggers say, go read the whole thing, but here's a key excerpt from an e-mail sent out by Greenberg's polling firm announcing the new research:
Before any new trends that may have developed in May with the president's slippage in Iraq, the political playing field had already tilted. While the two parties were at near perfect parity in the post 9-11 period, the Democrats now enjoy a 4-point advantage (48 to 44 percent in overall party alignment).
The problem for Republicans is rooted in their base. Greenberg's analysis shows that Rove's base strategy is in trouble--President Bush is falling roughly 4 points short of his 2000 vote in nearly every group in the Republican loyalist world. If Bush was depending on the white evangelicals, white rural and Deep South voters, and older blue-collar men, he's got a problem to address. He will have to play an even stronger cultural politics to stay in the game.
These changes are illustrated by trends among rural voters, one of the core Republican groups discussed in The Two Americas. These rural voters, referred to as "Country Folk," represent 21 percent of the electorate. In 2000, 63 percent of Country Folk backed Bush. Yet today, only 58 percent support him and only 51 percent want to continue in Bush's direction; 47 percent want to go in a "significantly different direction."
An overall drop of 5 points in the Republican presidential vote among these voters may not seem like a major shift, but in a country at parity it could provide the margin of victory. This impact is amplified by where the Country Folk live: they are concentrated in the battleground states, like Iowa, Missouri, Louisiana, New Hampshire and Minnesota.
Greenberg's conclusion is that to win these voters back, Bush's only option may be to start emphasizing culture war issues like gay marriage and abortion. That's a trend to keep an eye on.