Ground War May Decide Election

By Jarrett Murphy, CBSNews.com producer

Military leaders always hate to see sensitive information reported in the press, but this wasn't a query about the Pentagon's plan to drive insurgents out of Fallujah. It was a call to Ohio's Democratic Party for information on their voter turnout drive for Election Day.

The reluctance was understandable because the 2004 race may hinge more than any other on the ground war: The ability of each campaign to get its voters to the polls. The Bush and Kerry camps, their respective parties and private groups are spending millions and recruiting thousands to get out the vote this year.

It means the direction of the country may well depend on a phone bank in Ohio or a team of people in Pennsylvania driving voters to the polls.

The emphasis on turnout reflects the sharply divided electorate: Most national and battleground state polls are effectively tied. Getting out the vote is taken precedence over reaching undecided voters because so few people are still on the fence. A huge surge in registration has placed a premium on getting those votes in.

"More than any election I can remember this is a turnout election because there doesn't seem to be many people to persuade in the middle," said John Fortier, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Some projections of Tuesday's turnout have it higher than it has been since the voting age was lowered to 18-year-olds in 1971.

About 52 percent of voting-age Americans cast ballots in 2000. This year, Gallup is estimating voter turnout of 60 percent. Pew is basing its analysis on a 57 percent turnout, and finds "indications that turnout will be significantly higher than in the two previous presidential elections, especially among younger people."

Some areas are expected to break even older records. Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed expects 84 percent of registered voters to vote, "the greatest percentage since World War II."

The reason for the rush on the polls? A CBS News/New York Times poll over the weekend found that 76 percent of respondents find the race "interesting" — compared to 56 percent in October 2000. Registration has leapt in several states: Ohio has 800,000 more registered voters, New Jersey 460,000 new ones.
Conventional wisdom has always been that a bigger turnout favors Democrats. That was partly due to the fact that there were more registered Democrats than Republicans. But it also had to do with tactics.

"Democrats seem to have won this game in the past," Fortier said, pointing especially to the 1996 and 2000 races. One factor was "unions who had previously spent some money on ads really focused their efforts on the ground game.

"Because of that, Karl Rove and others really tried to duplicate, and come up with their own effort on turnout," he said.

Rove specifically targeted an estimated 4 million evangelical Christians. The GOP also established a task force to drive Republican turnout over the final 72 hours of the campaign. Republican operatives believe those efforts paid off.

GOP strategist Ralph Reed said he saw proof this weekend in Bay Country, Florida, a Republican "linchpin" where 40 percent of all registered voters had already cast ballots as of Saturday.

"Our absentee and early voting is off the charts in every battleground state," Reed said. "There will be a historically large turnout and it will benefit President Bush."

Whether that ends up being true depends on just where the turnout is heaviest. Polls suggest that a general surge in voting would favor Kerry.

Likely voter models tend to show Mr. Bush leading: 49 to 47 percent in Gallup, 48 to 47 percent in Reuters/Zogby. Fox has the candidates tied. In all three polls, among registered voters, Kerry has a small lead.

Reuters/Zogby found Kerry with a 54-40 percent advantage among newly registered voters. A computer analysis by the Columbus Dispatch finds that areas that were strongly pro-Gore in 2000 registered twice as many new voters as areas that went heavily for Mr. Bush.

But registering voters and getting them out are two different tasks. As veteran GOP strategist Roger Stone said in an October interview, "If you have to drag somebody to register, they're not highly motivated."

So parties aren't taken any chances. Quoting party officials, The Washington Post reports Republicans are spending $125 million to get out the vote, Democrats $60 million.

The Republican National Committee has outreach coordinators for 36 specific groups of voters, ranging from evangelicals to Lebanese-Americans and snowmobilers. In an October conference call, Democratic officials outlined an effort involving 2,500 precinct leaders, 2,500 paid staff and 250,00 volunteers.

"I think we're going to have largest, most effective, most competent, grassroots ground operation than we have ever had in our party," Kerry said on Monday's CBS News Early Show. "And I'm very proud of it."

At a Colorado Republican fundraiser last month, Mr. Bush said, "it's really time to start ginning up these voter turnout organizations."

"It's time to make sure that people understand we have an obligation in our society to vote. And I want to thank you all for helping to turn out that vote. It matters whether or not people show up to the polls," he said. "I mean, it — and I'm confident in this state we'll carry Colorado again."

Private groups are also involved. Some are busing people from "safe" states to battlegrounds.

ACORN, which has registered 1.1 million voters in the past year over 20 states, has had a "month-long get out the vote plan which involves knocking on doors of all those new voters," according to executive director Steve Kest. He plans to have 11,000 people in the field on Tuesday.

Americans Coming Together said it would make 12 million phone calls over the last three weeks of the campaign, distribute 11 million pieces of literature. On Election Day, ACT claims it will field 45,000 paid workers and spend $10 million. The group was also looking to sign up 25,000 volunteers.

The AFL-CIO claims that "200,000 volunteers have participated in union education and mobilization efforts so far," staffing 257 phone banks in 16 states.

However, some factors affecting turnout are beyond a campaign's control. A big one is weather. Rain can keep people away from the polls, and it is forecast for a band of swing states on Tuesday, including Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

By Jarrett Murphy