Kerry taps Democrats’ anger at Bush
KNOXVILLE (AP) — John Edwards and Wesley Clark spent more time campaigning in Tennessee, but Democratic primary voters saw John Kerry as the best choice to challenge President Bush, according to an Associated Press exit poll.
The Massachusetts senator won broadly Tuesday across most demographic lines — among men and women, blacks and whites, across all ages and income levels.
He did especially well with the one-quarter of voters older than 65 and with the more than one in five voters identifying themselves as black, collecting nearly half of each of those groups.
Kerry did best among liberals, but he also won among moderates — representing almost half of the voters — and only trailed Edwards, the North Carolina senator, among “somewhat conservative” voters. He carried the day with the “very conservative” crowd.
Clark, the retired Army general and former NATO commander from neighboring Arkansas, might have been expected to benefit from the nearly six out of 10 voters with a family member once or now in the military.
But Kerry, the decorated Vietnam veteran, won nearly half the military household vote as well. Clark won one out of five of these votes, slightly less than Edwards.
“I like the things he’s done in the Senate. I like the fact that he’s a war hero. We need someone in the office who’s been in war and knows the issues,” said Knoxville retired teacher Celia Ambrester, 69, who voted for Kerry.
Kerry tapped into Tennessee Democrats’ anger with the Bush administration, opposition to the war in Iraq and worries about the nation’s economy, and was seen as the best candidate to unseat the Republican incumbent in the fall, according to the survey.
The poll of 2,489 voters was conducted for the AP and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.
The survey included 961 voters interviewed as they left early voting locations statewide from Jan. 31-Feb. 5 and their responses were weighted to represent 32 percent of the total sample. Results were subject to a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, higher for subgroups.
More than one-third of surveyed voters listed a candidate’s ability to “defeat George W. Bush in November” as their deciding factor — more important even than whether he agreed with them on the issues.
And three of five of them voted for Kerry.
“I’m motivated more strongly by revulsion to Bush’s behavior,” said Robert Wilson, 77, of Knoxville. “Of the candidates on the ballot and still viable, Kerry is the best bet.”
Even if they didn’t vote for Kerry, seven of 10 voters who supported either Edwards, Clark or former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said they would be satisfied with Kerry as the party’s nominee.
“I am willing to get behind any candidate who can go up against George W. Not only will I support him, I will work for his campaign,” said Linda Rust, 38, a Knox County government worker and local party official in Knoxville who voted for Dean.
More than eight in 10 voters said they were dissatisfied with President Bush and more than two-thirds said they disapproved of the decision to go to war with Iraq. The greater the disapproval, the more support for Kerry.
Nearly half said their families are worse off financially than four years ago — a level comparable to how Democratic primary voters felt in 1992. Nearly half voted for Kerry.
Although two-thirds of polled voters had jobs, the state of the economy in the eyes of eight of 10 voters is either poor or “not so good.” Again, Kerry attracted more of these voters than any other candidate.
“I don’t like his economic policies. I don’t like his arrogance with our allies and I don’t like right-wing fundamentalism creeping into the White House the way it has,” Dorothy Pugh, 50, artistic director of Ballet Memphis, said of Bush.
“Angry and dissatisfied,” said Aaron McNutt, 19, of Nashville who attends Rhodes College in Memphis. “Saying you’re either for us or against us is dishonest to the American people.”
Geographically, Clark did better in the Memphis area near Arkansas, while Edwards did better in Middle Tennessee and East Tennessee, bordering North Carolina. Kerry, however, led in all regions.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.