ARDMORE, Pa., June 10 — They are more likely to be white than black, female than male, married than single, and live in the suburbs rather than in large cities. They are not frequent churchgoers nor gun enthusiasts. They are clustered in swing states like Ohio, Michigan and here in Pennsylvania. And while they follow the news closely, they are largely indifferent to the back and forth of this year's race for president.
These are what pollsters describe as the rarest of Americans in this election year: the undecided voters. And with aides to President Bush and Senator John Kerry increasingly confident about their ability to turn out their base voters, and thus create an electoral standoff in as many as 15 states, these people have become the object of intense concern by the campaigns as they try to figure out who these voters are and how to reach them.
Only about 5 percent of the voting public is undecided, about one-third of what is typical at this point in the campaign, according to several recent polls. That figure increases to about 15 percent when pollsters include supporters of Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush who say they might change their minds. In addition to those who are torn between the two major-party candidates, and possibly Ralph Nader, there is a sizable number of Americans who are deciding whether to vote at all.
Here in this Philadelphia suburb, as well as elsewhere across the nation, the undecided voter was the rare exception in hours of interviews that produced vociferous declarations of support for Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry. "I am very torn," said Marge Pyle, 52, a Republican who works as an administrative assistant at Bryn Mawr College. "I really — I just don't know who I'm going to vote for."
Carol Ferring Shepley, a college instructor in St. Louis who voted for Mr. Bush in 2000, and who is in many ways an archetype for this kind of voter, said: "I am really totally undecided. At this point, I couldn't vote for either of them."
Aides to Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry described this thimbleful of voters as a source of worry to the campaigns because they are disengaged from the presidential contest and thus less susceptible to traditional tools of political persuasion.
At the same time, many of them are closely following the news of the day, pollsters said, meaning they might well be rushed to one side in the last days of this contest by a major event, more turmoil in Iraq, good economic news at home, that is beyond the control of either campaign.
Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager, said that if the two parties succeeded at turning out their base vote, as both sides said now appears increasingly likely, "this election looks as though it's going to come down to these late deciders."
"We all read the daily polling," Ms. Cahill said, adding. "You have to try every possible way to reach them."
Both campaigns are struggling to adjust to this endlessly complicated electoral equation. Ms. Cahill said her campaign believed that one of the most effective ways to reach many of these voters was on radio shows, and had geared its surrogate speaker program to make Kerry advocates available for many radio shows.
The Bush campaign in May produced an advertisement on education featuring Laura Bush, appealing to suburban female voters, and placed it on the Web site of The Philadelphia Inquirer in an effort to reach voters in Philadelphia suburbs like this one.
"You can't get messages to them just by broadcasting on the major nets," said Matthew Dowd, a senior Bush strategist, referring to television networks. "Primarily, the way most of them make up their mind is with glimpses here and there that they catch of the president and Kerry."
And who are they? Undecided voters are likely to be younger, lower-income and less educated than the general electorate, said Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster.
These voters are more likely to put themselves at the center of the political scale: Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, said approximately 45 percent of undecided voters described themselves as moderate, compared with 23 percent of the general electorate.
As a group, undecided voters in some ways mirror the general electorate.
Pollsters and analysts said an in-depth examination of undecided attitudes have identified some shared characteristics of these voters that could be of concern for both candidates, but particularly for Mr. Bush.
These voters consider the environment an important issue, suggesting, some Democrats said, an opening for Mr. Kerry this fall. They tend to support abortion rights, and while they oppose gay marriage, they do not share the intensity of Republicans, said Andrew Kohut, who runs Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
Here in Ardmore, Joan Donoho, 61, an accountant who was a convention delegate for George H. W. Bush in 1980, and who voted for Mr. Bush in 2000, said she was unsure who to vote for, in part because of Mr. Bush's strong identification with opponents of to abortion rights.
"I haven't decided — my concern is that Bush is too conservative," said Ms. Donoho "I'm disappointed that the son isn't more like the father." On two often revealing behavioral indicators, undecided voters were less likely than Mr. Bush's supporters to attend church services or own guns, findings that pollsters said should be a matter of concern for the White House. A poll of undecided voters in swing states by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center released last week found that 33 percent of these undecided voters went to church weekly or more, compared with 40 percent of respondents at large.
Ellen Plotkin, 67, a retired surgeon's assistant who lives near here, said that she attended synagogue about twice a year, supported restrictions on gun ownership and was against restrictions on abortion. Ms. Plotkin described herself as a Democrat who voted for Mr. Bush in 2000, but who this year was put off by some of his social policies and the war in Iraq.
"But I'm not sure about Kerry," Ms. Plotkin said. "Based on all the things I've heard about him, he seems wishy-washy."
By large numbers, undecided voters, like the general electorate, think the nation is heading in the wrong direction. And in another measure of incumbent distress closely traced by pollsters, just 44 percent said they approved of Mr. Bush's job performance, the Annenberg poll found.
"To me, the most significant figure is that only 35 percent think things are going in the right direction," said Mark Penn, a pollster who released a survey of swing states on Thursday for the New Democratic Network, a Democratic advocacy group. "That means there is tremendous impetus for change."
Like most Americans, these voters generally supported Mr. Bush's decision to go into Iraq. But they are more likely to say that troops should be brought home right away, according to the Annenberg survey. And some pollsters said that the high number of married suburban woman, many with children, in this group could be a matter of concern for the White House because of the demands of the military to fight the war.
"The draft issue is a huge concern — I have a teenage son," Susan Wood, 43, an undecided voter interviewed in Columbus, Ohio.
Still, undecided voters are not convinced that Mr. Kerry would be any better than Mr. Bush at ending the conflict. Mr. Bush has a decided advantage over Mr. Kerry on the issues of security and foreign policy that the White House sees as pivotal in this election, according to the polls.
From a tactical point of view, undecided voters present a special challenge to the campaigns because of their disinterest toward politics. The Annenberg poll found that 55 percent said they were not following the campaign closely or at all, compared with 32 percent of the general electorate in swing states, which has produced a bit of a conundrum for both campaigns.
"Sometimes I just don't even want to watch the news," Ms. Pyle said here, as she walked along an outside shopping mall here. She said that advertisements "don't affect me" because she does not believe what the candidates are telling her.
Ms. Plotkin said: "When I hear, `I authorized this ad,' I tune out."
Outside of Milwaukee, Karen Pauli, 52, said she saw no reason to pay attention to the contest before autumn. "Until then, I just ignore it because it's so much confusing hot air," Ms. Pauli said, adding: "I'm not even sure who Kerry is. Too early to tell."
A senior Kerry advisor describes this segment of the electorate as "the classic picture of a relatively low-information, relatively disengaged political person. Less likely to know about the candidates, less likely to think that politics is relevant to their lives at all."
"These are the people you focus on all the way through," said this adviser. "Most of them are not going to make their final decisions until the end."
As a rule, undecided voters ultimately go against the incumbent, rejecting someone they know in favor of someone they do not, a line of history noted by Mr. Kerry's advisers in arguing that the situation augurs well for the senator from Massachusetts this fall.
But Mr. Bush's campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, said that in this supercharged electoral atmosphere, voters would make their decisions based on security and economic concerns, and that would hurt Mr. Kerry.
And Mr. Mehlman argued that Mr. Kerry's wavering supporters were much more likely to drop away once they got to know Mr. Kerry and his record, or at least got to know him the way Mr. Bush is trying to portray him.
"The common theme among undecided voters is that they are not typically motivated," Mr. Mehlman said.
"We're talking about winning the war on terror and making the economy stronger. Our base voters care about that, and the swing voters care about. He's talking about why Bush is bad. His appeal is to his base, but undecided voters are motivated by different ideas and different issues."
NY Times.
These are what pollsters describe as the rarest of Americans in this election year: the undecided voters. And with aides to President Bush and Senator John Kerry increasingly confident about their ability to turn out their base voters, and thus create an electoral standoff in as many as 15 states, these people have become the object of intense concern by the campaigns as they try to figure out who these voters are and how to reach them.
Only about 5 percent of the voting public is undecided, about one-third of what is typical at this point in the campaign, according to several recent polls. That figure increases to about 15 percent when pollsters include supporters of Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush who say they might change their minds. In addition to those who are torn between the two major-party candidates, and possibly Ralph Nader, there is a sizable number of Americans who are deciding whether to vote at all.
Here in this Philadelphia suburb, as well as elsewhere across the nation, the undecided voter was the rare exception in hours of interviews that produced vociferous declarations of support for Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry. "I am very torn," said Marge Pyle, 52, a Republican who works as an administrative assistant at Bryn Mawr College. "I really — I just don't know who I'm going to vote for."
Carol Ferring Shepley, a college instructor in St. Louis who voted for Mr. Bush in 2000, and who is in many ways an archetype for this kind of voter, said: "I am really totally undecided. At this point, I couldn't vote for either of them."
Aides to Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry described this thimbleful of voters as a source of worry to the campaigns because they are disengaged from the presidential contest and thus less susceptible to traditional tools of political persuasion.
At the same time, many of them are closely following the news of the day, pollsters said, meaning they might well be rushed to one side in the last days of this contest by a major event, more turmoil in Iraq, good economic news at home, that is beyond the control of either campaign.
Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager, said that if the two parties succeeded at turning out their base vote, as both sides said now appears increasingly likely, "this election looks as though it's going to come down to these late deciders."
"We all read the daily polling," Ms. Cahill said, adding. "You have to try every possible way to reach them."
Both campaigns are struggling to adjust to this endlessly complicated electoral equation. Ms. Cahill said her campaign believed that one of the most effective ways to reach many of these voters was on radio shows, and had geared its surrogate speaker program to make Kerry advocates available for many radio shows.
The Bush campaign in May produced an advertisement on education featuring Laura Bush, appealing to suburban female voters, and placed it on the Web site of The Philadelphia Inquirer in an effort to reach voters in Philadelphia suburbs like this one.
"You can't get messages to them just by broadcasting on the major nets," said Matthew Dowd, a senior Bush strategist, referring to television networks. "Primarily, the way most of them make up their mind is with glimpses here and there that they catch of the president and Kerry."
And who are they? Undecided voters are likely to be younger, lower-income and less educated than the general electorate, said Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster.
These voters are more likely to put themselves at the center of the political scale: Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, said approximately 45 percent of undecided voters described themselves as moderate, compared with 23 percent of the general electorate.
As a group, undecided voters in some ways mirror the general electorate.
Pollsters and analysts said an in-depth examination of undecided attitudes have identified some shared characteristics of these voters that could be of concern for both candidates, but particularly for Mr. Bush.
These voters consider the environment an important issue, suggesting, some Democrats said, an opening for Mr. Kerry this fall. They tend to support abortion rights, and while they oppose gay marriage, they do not share the intensity of Republicans, said Andrew Kohut, who runs Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
Here in Ardmore, Joan Donoho, 61, an accountant who was a convention delegate for George H. W. Bush in 1980, and who voted for Mr. Bush in 2000, said she was unsure who to vote for, in part because of Mr. Bush's strong identification with opponents of to abortion rights.
"I haven't decided — my concern is that Bush is too conservative," said Ms. Donoho "I'm disappointed that the son isn't more like the father." On two often revealing behavioral indicators, undecided voters were less likely than Mr. Bush's supporters to attend church services or own guns, findings that pollsters said should be a matter of concern for the White House. A poll of undecided voters in swing states by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center released last week found that 33 percent of these undecided voters went to church weekly or more, compared with 40 percent of respondents at large.
Ellen Plotkin, 67, a retired surgeon's assistant who lives near here, said that she attended synagogue about twice a year, supported restrictions on gun ownership and was against restrictions on abortion. Ms. Plotkin described herself as a Democrat who voted for Mr. Bush in 2000, but who this year was put off by some of his social policies and the war in Iraq.
"But I'm not sure about Kerry," Ms. Plotkin said. "Based on all the things I've heard about him, he seems wishy-washy."
By large numbers, undecided voters, like the general electorate, think the nation is heading in the wrong direction. And in another measure of incumbent distress closely traced by pollsters, just 44 percent said they approved of Mr. Bush's job performance, the Annenberg poll found.
"To me, the most significant figure is that only 35 percent think things are going in the right direction," said Mark Penn, a pollster who released a survey of swing states on Thursday for the New Democratic Network, a Democratic advocacy group. "That means there is tremendous impetus for change."
Like most Americans, these voters generally supported Mr. Bush's decision to go into Iraq. But they are more likely to say that troops should be brought home right away, according to the Annenberg survey. And some pollsters said that the high number of married suburban woman, many with children, in this group could be a matter of concern for the White House because of the demands of the military to fight the war.
"The draft issue is a huge concern — I have a teenage son," Susan Wood, 43, an undecided voter interviewed in Columbus, Ohio.
Still, undecided voters are not convinced that Mr. Kerry would be any better than Mr. Bush at ending the conflict. Mr. Bush has a decided advantage over Mr. Kerry on the issues of security and foreign policy that the White House sees as pivotal in this election, according to the polls.
From a tactical point of view, undecided voters present a special challenge to the campaigns because of their disinterest toward politics. The Annenberg poll found that 55 percent said they were not following the campaign closely or at all, compared with 32 percent of the general electorate in swing states, which has produced a bit of a conundrum for both campaigns.
"Sometimes I just don't even want to watch the news," Ms. Pyle said here, as she walked along an outside shopping mall here. She said that advertisements "don't affect me" because she does not believe what the candidates are telling her.
Ms. Plotkin said: "When I hear, `I authorized this ad,' I tune out."
Outside of Milwaukee, Karen Pauli, 52, said she saw no reason to pay attention to the contest before autumn. "Until then, I just ignore it because it's so much confusing hot air," Ms. Pauli said, adding: "I'm not even sure who Kerry is. Too early to tell."
A senior Kerry advisor describes this segment of the electorate as "the classic picture of a relatively low-information, relatively disengaged political person. Less likely to know about the candidates, less likely to think that politics is relevant to their lives at all."
"These are the people you focus on all the way through," said this adviser. "Most of them are not going to make their final decisions until the end."
As a rule, undecided voters ultimately go against the incumbent, rejecting someone they know in favor of someone they do not, a line of history noted by Mr. Kerry's advisers in arguing that the situation augurs well for the senator from Massachusetts this fall.
But Mr. Bush's campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, said that in this supercharged electoral atmosphere, voters would make their decisions based on security and economic concerns, and that would hurt Mr. Kerry.
And Mr. Mehlman argued that Mr. Kerry's wavering supporters were much more likely to drop away once they got to know Mr. Kerry and his record, or at least got to know him the way Mr. Bush is trying to portray him.
"The common theme among undecided voters is that they are not typically motivated," Mr. Mehlman said.
"We're talking about winning the war on terror and making the economy stronger. Our base voters care about that, and the swing voters care about. He's talking about why Bush is bad. His appeal is to his base, but undecided voters are motivated by different ideas and different issues."
NY Times.
