Opinion

CBS Poll: Listening To Voters

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

August 4, 1999 / 9:02 AM EDT / CBS

The campaign strategy of "listening" to what voters want resonates with the public -- at least in this early stage of the 2000 presidential campaign. By 56 percent to 32 percent, voters want presidential candidates to listen to what they have to say, rather than have those candidates explain their positions on issues.

WANT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TO ...

Listen to what voters say: 56%
Explain their positions: 32%

Although all segments of the public prefer to have candidates listen rather than talk, the "listening" strategy is preferred by more women than men, by more Democrats than Republicans and by more voters between the ages of 30 and 65.

In fact, time spent by candidates explaining their positions may well be wasted effort. At this point in the campaign, few voters are listening to what the candidates have to say. Only 9 percent of all registered voters, and only 10 percent of Democratic primary voters, say they are paying a lot of attention to the campaign.

THE BRADLEY STRATEGY

Presidential candidate and former Senator Bill Bradley's strategy of listening to the public rather than detailing his own positions clearly reflects what most voters say they want candidates to do.

AP
Former Sen. Bill Bradley

Nevertheless, by just over two to one, Vice President Al Gore still leads among Democratic primary voters as the choice for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. In this poll, 51 percent of likely Democratic primary voters favor Gore as their party's nominee, and 24 percent favor Bradley. The change from two months ago, while a marginal improvement for Bradley, is not outside the range of sampling error. Then, Gore led Bradley 56 percent to 21 percent.

DEMOCRATIC PREFERENCE

Gore: 51%
Bradley: 24%

Gore fares better with women, and with nonwhite voters; Bradley does best in his home region of the Northeast. However, as in the previous poll, the vast majority of Democratic primary voters say their minds could change. Only 22 percent say their minds are made up.

VIEWS OF THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES

At this early stage in the election, with few candidates expressing views on issues and few voters paying much attention to the campaigns, opinions of the Democratic candidates have yet to take shape.

AP
Vice President Al Gore

Half of all registered voters don't express any opinion Â– favorable or unfavorable Â– about Gore, while three-quarters have no opinion of Bradley. In fact, even among registered Democratic primary voters, 52 percent express no opinion of Gore, while over two-thirds have no opinion of Bradley.

But those registered Democratic primary voters who do have an opinion view both men favorably. Few Republican primary voters have an opinion of Bradley, but most have a negative view of the Vice President.

OPINIONS OF AL GORE

Gore's negative evaluations Â– almost one-third of registered voters view him unfavorably Â– do not necessarily derive from what some observers have called "Clinton fatigue." In this survey, voters were asked why they held a favorable or an unfavorable view of the Vice President. Only 5 percent of voters hold an unfavorable view of Gore and said that the cause was Bill Clinton, and most of those voters were Republican. The reasons for voters' unfavorable views were much more likely to relate to Gore's own attributes Â– that he is a weak leader and not presidential, that voters disagreed with his policies (the environment was specifically cited here), or that they just didn't like him.

In a CBS News poll conducted in June, leadership was cited as the characteristic voters most wanted in a presidential candidate (it was chosen over honesty and issue agreement, with 51 percent naming leadership, 41 percent honesty and only 7 percent agreement on the issues). Historically, vice presidents (including George Bush before his victory in the 1988 presidential election) have a difficult time asserting their leadership, and Gore is no exception.

These results come from two polls: 927 adults (and 308 likely Democratic primary voters) interviewed August 1-2, 1999, and 722 adults interviewed July 13-14. The "listening" question comes from the July poll. Sampling error for the August poll is plus or minus 3 percentage points on the total sample, and plus or minus 6 percentage points among Democratic primary voters. Sampling error for the July poll is plus or minus four percentage points on the entire sample.