WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush's high job approval rating may have been the single most significant factor in the Republican's November 2002 national landslide, according to a poll commissioned by a seniors group.
The poll of 1,000 registered voters in the Nov. 5 election, commissioned by the United Seniors Association, a conservative group that supports market-based reforms in the nation's eldercare system, found President Bush enjoys a 65 percent approval rating among the voting electorate.
Among self-described independents, Bush's approval rating was even higher, coming in at 68 percent.
National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government with a reputation for strict partisan neutrality, identifies United Seniors Association as the most successful public interest group among twenty they followed in the 2002 election.
The magazine tracked the efforts of 20 groups in 15 competitive Senate and 45 competitive House races and found USA backed the winner 88 percent of the time, compiling a 15 and 2 won-lost record.
USA's survey suggests that Bush's decision to spend political capital on getting fellow Republicans elected paid off handsomely.
In the weeks leading up to Nov. 5, the president traveled to a number of states and appeared on behalf of candidates for the Senate, the House and governor. When all the votes were counted, it was clear the GOP had achieved historic results for a mid-term election.
The Republicans regained an outright majority in the Senate, added to their majority in the house and became the majority party in most of the nation's 99 state legislative chambers.
They also finished with just with one fewer governorships then they had going in, defying most expectations. Republicans defeated three elected Democratic incumbents and lost no elected incumbents of their own.
Much of the shift in voter attitudes toward the GOP is, according to the poll, a result of the Republican's decision to nationalize the election.
According to the data, 52 percent of the electorate said that agreement with a candidate's position on national issues was more important when deciding how to vote in a congressional election. Only 42 percent said that a candidate's ability to do things to help people in a congressional district was more important.
This alone may, some analysts say, suggest that former House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill was wrong when he uttered his legendary maxim, "All politics is local."
David Winston, the pollster who conducted the survey, says, "I think what you have seen over the course of the '90s and certainly very much in this election is that there was a set of issues that constructed a national agenda in virtually every district in the country. Bush was able to pull together the common themes -- jobs, the economy, terrorism, education -- across the districts to the benefit of his party."
"What Bush did was recognize that trend before anyone else and turn it to the Republicans advantage. The country, in what they were telling pollsters, wanted to elect a Congress that was concerned about the country as well as the community," Winston says, acknowledging that politics is, above all else, personal.
His analysis of the November 2002 election returns show Republicans broke the partisan deadlock that has been evident since the 1996 election.
He says neither party has been able to win 50 percent or more of the vote since 1996 -- the longest single period of such division in history.
In 1998, the Republicans garnered 48.9 percent of the vote v. 47.8 percent for the Democrats -- with 3.3 percent going to independents or others. In 2000, the Democrats held steady while the GOP slipped to 48.3 percent and independents gained .6 percent, taking them to 3.9 percent.
The GOP increased their total share of the electorate by 2.2 percent in 2002, breaking the 50 percent barrier with .5 percent to spare. Democrats dropped to 46.3 percent while independents dropped to 3.2 percent.
Among the respondents in the USA survey, 50 percent voted for a Republican congressional candidate while only 45 percent voted for a Democrat. Independents and third party candidates got 3 percent.
Among seniors -- a key constituency for both parties because those who are 65-and-older tend to vote in larger numbers than the rest of the population -- the Republicans mustered a 56 percent to 43 percent margin.
Independents broke for the GOP 48 percent to 41 percent.
Much of this may have to do with what voters said was the top issue in the survey. Economy/jobs were cited as the most important issue by 29 percent of voters while 18 percent said it was defense and terrorism. Only 12 percent said it was education, an issue on which Republicans have now pulled even with Democrats. Ten percent said the top issue was health care and prescription drugs.
The election results likely also have a lot to do with what voters heard from candidates and from the two parties through the summer and fall.
When asked to identify the issue they heard about most from the Republicans, the voters identified "Defense/Terrorism" as the top issue. This was followed by "Taxes" and then "Negativity," meaning negative or contrasting messages about the Democrats.
Voters said that from the Democrats they heard most about "Economy/Jobs," followed by "Negativity" and "Education." The war on terrorism was noticeably absent from the list.
"What you saw in terms of the difference between the messages the two parties conveyed to the voters is that the GOP put forward a balanced message, including issues of domestic policy and foreign affairs," Winston says. "The Democrats only addressed domestic policy -- with a much higher level of negativity than the GOP -- and neglected foreign policy entirely. The voters wanted a balanced message and so the overall tone of the campaign pushed them towards the Republicans."
