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Gallup Polls on Election, Iraq

Aired October 29, 2002 - 14:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: It's no great mystery that national elections are often decided by regional issues. As the late House speaker Tip O'Neill once said all politics is local.
For some insight into the issues resonating strongest with voters, Gallup Poll editor-in-chief Frank Newport joins us from Princeton, New Jersey.

What are the people and the numbers saying?

FRANK NEWPORT, GALLUP POLL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Martin, first of all, a lot of people aren't paying attention. That's the bald fact of the matter. We compare this election to the previous midterm, say in 1998, and the people that are paying attention, it's lower. What I graph for you here is early October to late October, or the last poll we did, just last week, which is the percent of people who are paying a lot of attention to the election. You see it just went up 2 points; and that 35 percent -- that's just a third of the national adults -- is lower by about 5 points than what we found at roughly the same time back in 1998. So I don't predict a high-turnout election. Americans have been focussed on a lot of other issues.

What that means, Martin, is that a lot is up for grabs. When we asked people who are you going to vote for and then follow this with some probing questions, you got about 30 percent who say they are going to vote Republican, 30 percent Democrat. They're certain. But look at that: That leaves, Martin, about 36 percent of the public open, up for grabs, I might say, and these are the people everybody is going to be going after in this last week of this election -- Marty.

SAVIDGE: So there are a lot of stories that have been dominating the news as we build up to this election. And I guess what is it that people focus on right now?

NEWPORT: Well, there are so many different polls that we've looked at trying to get a handle on what are the issues that are really going to drive the election. There really are some ones that the Republicans would do well on if they're going to really resonate this last week. And some Democrats would do on.

These Republican issues -- and by that I mean these are the issues that Republicans really have an advantage on when we ask voters which party can do the better job -- are all related to foreign policy. Not a great shock: terrorism, possibility of war in Iraq, international world affairs in general -- all of these the Republicans have a decided issue. And these are important to voters. A lot of our polling shows these are probably the top issues people tell us in terms of other than local issues.

But look at the Democrats: Anything that's domestic, the Democrats do very well on. Prescription drugs for seniors, health care in general, Social Security. Look at the advantage over the Democrats have over the Republicans here. That's why the Democrats are trying to pull attention back to these kinds of issues.

On the economy, it's very much a split issue at this point. The Democrats trying to emphasize the economy, but among likely voters, which party would do the better job having to heal the nation's economy, Martin, it's virtually a dead even tie with Republicans and Democrats -- Marty.

SAVIDGE: All right. Moving on to another issue, that being Iraq and the United Nations, is there any consensus on what the public thinks about what's going to be decided here?

NEWPORT: Well, the public as we know, generally a majority in favor of Iraq in general -- that is U.S. military intervention in Iraq overall. But when we asked, Martin, a specific question about what's happening this week, that is the United Nations, we find the public says yes, the U.S. should wait for United Nations resolution. But do they have confidence in what the UN is gonig to do -- and that's what's come up here: 47 percent of Americans say not much confidence at all in the United Nations handling the Iraqi situation; 12 and 40 percent -- only 12 percent, a great deal, 40 percent, not much at all. So the bottom line on Iraq is, Martin, that the American public is saying wait for the UN to take a vote -- we have gotten that clear in all our polls -- but the United States citizenry is not all that confident with the UN is going to come up with. It's going to be something that the U.S. can follow -- Marty

SAVIDGE: Frank Newport, always good to know that the American people, including myself, are thinking. Thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired October 29, 2002 - 14:31   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: It's no great mystery that national elections are often decided by regional issues. As the late House speaker Tip O'Neill once said all politics is local.
For some insight into the issues resonating strongest with voters, Gallup Poll editor-in-chief Frank Newport joins us from Princeton, New Jersey.

What are the people and the numbers saying?

FRANK NEWPORT, GALLUP POLL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Martin, first of all, a lot of people aren't paying attention. That's the bald fact of the matter. We compare this election to the previous midterm, say in 1998, and the people that are paying attention, it's lower. What I graph for you here is early October to late October, or the last poll we did, just last week, which is the percent of people who are paying a lot of attention to the election. You see it just went up 2 points; and that 35 percent -- that's just a third of the national adults -- is lower by about 5 points than what we found at roughly the same time back in 1998. So I don't predict a high-turnout election. Americans have been focussed on a lot of other issues.

What that means, Martin, is that a lot is up for grabs. When we asked people who are you going to vote for and then follow this with some probing questions, you got about 30 percent who say they are going to vote Republican, 30 percent Democrat. They're certain. But look at that: That leaves, Martin, about 36 percent of the public open, up for grabs, I might say, and these are the people everybody is going to be going after in this last week of this election -- Marty.

SAVIDGE: So there are a lot of stories that have been dominating the news as we build up to this election. And I guess what is it that people focus on right now?

NEWPORT: Well, there are so many different polls that we've looked at trying to get a handle on what are the issues that are really going to drive the election. There really are some ones that the Republicans would do well on if they're going to really resonate this last week. And some Democrats would do on.

These Republican issues -- and by that I mean these are the issues that Republicans really have an advantage on when we ask voters which party can do the better job -- are all related to foreign policy. Not a great shock: terrorism, possibility of war in Iraq, international world affairs in general -- all of these the Republicans have a decided issue. And these are important to voters. A lot of our polling shows these are probably the top issues people tell us in terms of other than local issues.

But look at the Democrats: Anything that's domestic, the Democrats do very well on. Prescription drugs for seniors, health care in general, Social Security. Look at the advantage over the Democrats have over the Republicans here. That's why the Democrats are trying to pull attention back to these kinds of issues.

On the economy, it's very much a split issue at this point. The Democrats trying to emphasize the economy, but among likely voters, which party would do the better job having to heal the nation's economy, Martin, it's virtually a dead even tie with Republicans and Democrats -- Marty.

SAVIDGE: All right. Moving on to another issue, that being Iraq and the United Nations, is there any consensus on what the public thinks about what's going to be decided here?

NEWPORT: Well, the public as we know, generally a majority in favor of Iraq in general -- that is U.S. military intervention in Iraq overall. But when we asked, Martin, a specific question about what's happening this week, that is the United Nations, we find the public says yes, the U.S. should wait for United Nations resolution. But do they have confidence in what the UN is gonig to do -- and that's what's come up here: 47 percent of Americans say not much confidence at all in the United Nations handling the Iraqi situation; 12 and 40 percent -- only 12 percent, a great deal, 40 percent, not much at all. So the bottom line on Iraq is, Martin, that the American public is saying wait for the UN to take a vote -- we have gotten that clear in all our polls -- but the United States citizenry is not all that confident with the UN is going to come up with. It's going to be something that the U.S. can follow -- Marty

SAVIDGE: Frank Newport, always good to know that the American people, including myself, are thinking. Thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com