Posted on 10/16/2002 9:09:54 AM PDT by No dems 2002
Poll: Dole still leads Bowles
October 16, 2002
By David Rice and Dana Damico JOURNAL RALEIGH BUREAU
Democrat Erskine Bowles' ads on Social Security and economic issues have helped tighten the race for the U.S. Senate, but Republican Elizabeth Dole remains 10 percentage points ahead, with 50 percent support to Bowles' 40 percent in a new poll.
"The attack ads are working some," said J. Bradford Coker, the managing director at Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., which conducted the poll.
"But whenever you go negative, you run the risk of your own negatives going up. He had to do it," Coker said. "Still, he faces an uphill battle to overtake Dole in the next three weeks."
Meanwhile, new reports filed yesterday reveal that Bowles spent $2.9million on campaign ads in late August and September, and the state Democratic Party disclosed that it has spent more than $700,000 on ads in the Senate race in the past two weeks alone.
The statewide poll of 625 likely voters was conducted from Friday through Monday for the Winston-Salem Journal and other news organizations. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4percentage points.
The poll found that the race has narrowed from the 14-point lead that Dole held a month ago, when a similar survey found Dole with the support of 49 percent of likely voters and Bowles with 35 percent.
Since then, Bowles and the N.C. Democratic Party have unleashed a flurry of ads that accuse Dole of wanting to privatize Social Security, although Dole insists that the ads misstate her position.
Democrats have also attacked Dole for supporting "fast-track" trade negotiating authority for the president, and both parties have tried to tar the other's candidate with ads that focus on corporate scandals.
The poll found that the percentage of voters who recognize Dole unfavorably has jumped from 12 percent to 25 percent since the previous poll.
The percentage of voters who recognize her favorably slid from 56 percent to 50 percent.
But Bowles' "unfavorable" ratings have jumped as well, from 19 percent to 29 percent, while his "favorable" ratings fell from 39 percent to 37 percent.
"He doubled her negatives, but I don't think it's at the point where it's a toss-up," Coker said. "It's closer than it was a month ago, but he's paying a bit of a price.... There's a bit of a backlash."
Coker noted that Dole's overall support has actually risen slightly, from 49 percent to 50percent, despite the Democrats' ads.
"As much as he's tried to attack her, he hasn't pulled her support down much. He's drawn mostly from the undecideds," Coker said.
The poll found that Libertarian Sean Haugh had the support of 2 percent, and 8 percent of voters said they are undecided. The poll, which was conducted immediately after the primary elections last month, found 15percent undecided.
The poll found that Dole leads among men (53 percent to 37 percent), among women (47percent to 42 percent), among whites (61 percent to 30percent) and among unaffiliated voters (44 percent to 39percent). But Bowles leads among black voters (77 percent to 6 percent) and among Democrats (60 percent to 29 percent).
The poll also found that Bowles now leads Dole in the Triangle region, 49 percent to 41percent. Dole runs strongest in the Triad, where she had 60percent support to Bowles' 31 percent.
The influence of Bowles' TV ads is evident in the issues that voters identified as the most important, Coker said.
Among those interviewed, 23percent identified the economy and jobs as the most important issue, 16 percent said that a candidate's character and experience were most important, and 13 percent said that Social Security reform is most important.
Though Mason-Dixon asks a similar question in political races around the country, "the only place the economy comes in on top is in this race," Coker said.
"This is the one place where the economy came in No. 1 and Social Security came in third. It's usually down toward the bottom. It's obvious he's hitting those hard, and he's getting some traction. Social Security is in the single-digits almost everywhere else you see it."
Fueling the ad wars are the contributions that the candidates have collected.
Campaign-finance reports released yesterday show that from Aug. 22 to Sept. 30, Bowles raised $2.3 million, including a $1.7million personal loan. He spent $3.4 million during the same period, including $2.9million on ads and ad production.
Bowles has debts and obligations totaling about $3 million.
Without making personal loans to her campaign, Dole raised $1.2 million during the same period and spent $3 million. She has debts and obligations of $168,773.
"We have a very strong grass-roots donor base," said Mary Brown Brewer, a spokeswoman for Dole. "Clearly Mr. Bowles doesn't have that kind of grass-roots support, so he's fallen back on his personal wealth."
Bowles is also getting help on the airwaves from the state Democratic Party.
Since January, the party has put $1.8 million into TV ads critical of Dole's connections to former Enron chief Kenneth Lay and her stance on Social Security, the Family and Medical Leave Act, abortion and guns.
The Democratic Party has spent $708,000 in the past two weeks alone, said Scott Falmlen its executive director.
"This is not an inordinate amount of money in a race that is targeted like this," Falmlen said. "It's a big race for us."
Dole, for her part, has received help in the ad war from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has run at least three spots, including one that charged Democrats of lobbing "Clinton-style attacks."
No official figures were available yesterday on the NRSC's spending, but a Republican source said that the committee had spent about $1.1 million on ads in the North Carolina Senate race through Oct. 14.
On the campaign trail, meanwhile, Dole spent yesterday touting prescription-drug and health-insurance pools for small business.
Bowles received the endorsement of the Sierra Club.
In Greensboro, Dole and Rep. Richard Burr, R-5th, visited with residents of the Evergreen Nursing Center. Dole praised Burr's prescription-drug plan and said that any plan should be voluntary and have a cap on out-of-pocket expenditures.
"It's do-able. It's realistic," Dole said of Burr's plan. She said she was disappointed that the U.S. Senate did not vote on the plan before its summer recess. "The Senate is a graveyard," she said.
Dole said that her tour of the state had shown her how badly a drug plan is needed.
"I have seen people who are cutting their pills in half," she said. "This is an urgent need."
That coupled with the fact that Dole lost no support from the prior poll (she actually went up one point), despite her negatives doubling, suggests to me that she is in very good position. The reason this poll is closer than the last one is because Bowles gained some support... that was to be expected as he upped his name ID. But he's not taking any away from Dole, which is what he needs to do in order to win.
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