Kerry And The Anti-Bush Vote

Anthony Salvanto is with the CBS News Election and Survey Unit.

So far, in the primaries and in the polls leading up to this week, John Kerry has benefited from that kind of thinking in the electorate, attracting a lot of voters who want nothing more than to mete out an electoral punishment on President George W. Bush. Yet, the polls suggest Kerry may want to go beyond that. This week he gets his chance to do so.

About one out of four of Kerry's supporters backs Kerry today mainly because they want to vote against President Bush. Before John Edwards joined the ticket, there were even more such voters in the Kerry camp — about one out of three. The Democratic contest has been marked from the start by high levels of animosity toward the Bush administration; many of the voters who marched out into the cold to cast ballots in Iowa and New Hampshire said that they were outright angry – not just dissatisfied – at the Bush administration.

But the support that Kerry draws from people who are first and foremost anti-Bush voters does not carry the same level of commitment as the 41 percent who now say they are strongly in his camp.

One-quarter of Kerry's anti-Bush voter group says that despite their dislike of the president right now, there's still a chance they'll change their minds before November. So when the GOP convention rolls around or even later in the fall, the president may get the chance to win some of these voters back. If Kerry wants to reduce the chance of that happening, he may need to infuse them with enthusiasm for his own candidacy, starting now.

The Kerry people in the middle of the enthusiasm scale, who in turn make up about one-third of Kerry's support, are backing Kerry but say they have reservations about him — and they are the Democrat's most potentially fickle group. Almost half of them (more than any other set of his backers) are either undecided on, or still don't know enough about Kerry, to form an opinion of him — despite the fact that they say they'd vote for him at the moment. About 40 percent of them say they could still change their minds on their vote before November.

This week, those voters will likely be looking for Kerry to do more than make a case against President Bush; they already think the country is on the wrong track and already disapprove of the president's job performance at levels almost as high as other, more solid, Kerry backers. It appears, then, that they are instead waiting to get to know Kerry.

Stoking enthusiasm for one's candidacy is about more than just solidifying a voting base; it is also – and maybe most importantly — about turnout. While having doubts or reservations doesn't always preclude people from voting for candidates in November, voters excited about a candidate are usually more likely to show up on Election Day. In a tight race such as this, neither candidate can afford to have potential votes stay at home.

Today, though still far off from Election Day, voters siding with Kerry mainly because they dislike President Bush tend to be the least likely to say they'll definitely turn out in November. Sixty percent of President Bush's voters, on the other side, say they are strong supporters of the president, half again as many as Kerry's voters who describe their support for the Democrat that way.

At the end of the week many will judge the success of this convention based on the horserace polls, and whether or not Kerry gets a "bounce" out of it. But bounces can be fleeting this time of year. There will be a lot of voters tuning in this week who are already inclined to oust the incumbent, but are, perhaps, waiting to be sure that they're happy with the replacement. Whether Kerry and the Democrats succeed in fomenting enthusiasm among them may be, in the long run, the more predictive measure to watch.

by Anthony Salvanto