Nixon Moves Out to an Astonishing Lead

AFTER a month of false starts and wheel spinning, the McGovern campaign bandwagon is definitely on the move--backward. A new TIME poll conducted by Daniel Yankelovich Inc. between Aug. 25 and Sept. 12 shows that McGovern's campaign is having a negative effect: in several states where he has stumped the hardest, he has lost ground; and the issues he has emphasized the most are those that are now hurting him more than ever. The poll finds that Nixon leads McGovern by an astonishing 39 points--62% to 23%.

That is an 11-percentage-point increase over the spread Nixon enjoyed in a TIME Poll conducted the previous month. The latest poll was based on telephone interviews with 2,239 registered voters in 16 key states with a combined total of 332 electoral votes (270 are needed to win). For McGovern, the figures are almost uniformly bleak. However the American electorate is sliced, by age or income, occupation or ethnic group, party affiliation or religion, McGovern leads the President only among blacks, Jews and college-educated youth. With the exception of the Jews and Germans, Nixon has held or gained ground in every group and on every major issue. Most startling of all, the poll shows that a plurality of Democratic voters now prefer Nixon over their party's own candidate by a margin of 43% to 40%.

In some respects, of course, it is still early in the campaign, and there is still room for fairly drastic swings in voter mood and opinion--and in polls. McGovern's own, released last week, showed Nixon 56%, McGovern 34%, with 10% undecided. It was taken Sept. 13-15 by telephone among 1,200 voters.

In the past few months, McGovern's image has slipped badly. During the spring primaries, samplings by Yankelovich determined that McGovern projected himself as a "strong liberal." It was precisely his firm and often courageous stands on controversial issues that set him apart from and above the host of other Democratic challengers. Now McGovern is casting a slim and pale shadow. Yankelovich interprets McGovern's new image as that of a "weak radical." Almost one in three voters now believes McGovern to be radical, in spite of the fact that he has softened many of his positions. At the same time and partly for the same reason, three out of four voters, including half of his supporters, agree completely or partly that McGovern is "indecisive." In a country that seems to be growing more conservative, the tag "radical" is more than ever anathema. Add the image of weakness, and the result is a formula for overwhelming defeat.

State by state, issue by issue, category by category, the poll shows almost uniform slippage for McGovern. Among the more revealing findings:

> Nixon has pre-empted the Viet Nam issue. Last spring the war in Viet Nam seemed to be the linchpin of McGovern's campaign. So sure was he of his support in that area that he sought to broaden his base and find new issues. But the TIME poll clearly indicates that it is Nixon and not McGovern who is now winning points on Viet Nam. In fact, it appears to be one of Nixon's key strengths and one of McGovern's most serious weaknesses. The war continues to be the No. 1 issue among voters, but 64% feel the President is "doing everything he can to end it." In the first Yankelovich poll, 47% picked Nixon as the "real peace candidate" compared with 39% for McGovern. This time round, 55% of the voters chose Nixon and only 30% McGovern, a net loss of 17 points in the spread.

> In spite of the voters' obvious concern over the economy, McGovern's efforts to spell out his own solutions seem to have backfired. Voters in the sample list the economy as their main concern after the war. But in the same breath, 48% say that Nixon has done everything he can to keep prices down. Asked to choose between the candidates, 52% picked Nixon and only 21% McGovern. Those figures represent a 13-point gain in the spread for Nixon over the previous poll. On which candidate can best close tax loopholes, McGovern led Nixon in the previous Yankelovich poll, 40% to 21%. In the current poll, voters astonishingly picked Nixon, 35% to 31%, even though the President has yet to spell out his tax reform proposals (see THE ECONOMY). McGovern fares no better on welfare and unemployment. Asked whose welfare proposals most resemble their own views, the voters gave Nixon a 25-point spread over McGovern. By a margin of 18 points, they judged him better able to provide jobs for everyone.

>At the beginning of the campaign, McGovern clearly hoped to draw on a deep well of dissatisfaction and bitterness among American voters--and that may have been his biggest miscalculation. To be sure, American voters are angry, but what they seem to be angriest about are attacks on their country. Asked if they were sick and tired of hearing people attack patriotism and American values, 75% of the voters sampled, including 59% of McGovern sympathizers, responded yes. Asked their view of the state of the nation, 9% said that they thought things were going "very well" and 50% said that things were going "fairly well," showing a majority relatively content with the status quo. Those twin moods--satisfaction with their own life and fear of those who would change it--surfaced in other responses. Asked whether the country "has to change a lot faster," a majority of blacks agreed, but a plurality of whites (49% to 46%) did not.

By constantly appealing to people's fears and dissatisfactions and demanding change without articulating a lofty vision of his own, McGovern may well have alienated many of the people he was trying to reach.

>McGovern has lost his populist appeal. One month ago, voters picked McGovern over Nixon 47% to 25%, as the man most likely to deal fairly with "the little man." Now those same voters give a 2-percentage-point edge to Nixon on the same question.

>Although voters believe Nixon is capable of underhandedness to achieve reelection, they seem to think him more honest than McGovern. Presented a statement saying, "Recent attempts to bug the Democratic headquarters show Nixon will stop at nothing to get re-elected," 21% agreed fully and 12% partly. Yet, asked who "will do more to have an open and trustworthy Administration," two voters picked Nixon for every one who chose McGovern.

Such results seem to fly in the face of logic. McGovern the tax reformer is given no credit for his promise to close loopholes. McGovern the peace candidate is thought less apt to bring peace than Nixon, who has failed to do so in his first term. McGovern the prairie populist is thought less likely to pay attention to the needs of the little man than Richard Nixon, who a majority of voters suspect is too close to big business. These responses suggest that the voters have turned against McGovern for intuitive, seat-of-the-pants reasons having more to do with personality than issues, and that they now rationalize their choice by giving Nixon the benefit of the doubt on issues.

Yankelovich calls this the "halo effect," and believes it colors almost all the answers related to issues. One month ago, voters claimed, by a margin of 45 % to 28%, that McGovern would do more to see that minorities are treated "fairly." Now they have neatly flip-flopped on the issues, although nothing concrete has happened in the campaign to cause such a change: 42% now see Nixon as best able to deal with minorities, v. 31 % for McGovern. This makes little empirical sense, but for that very reason it bodes ill for McGovern. More and more, Nixon is gaining momentum as the man who can do no wrong.

The change has affected virtually every geographic and demographic category, as the chart on this page shows. Thus Nixon has increased his lead in every age bracket. For example, one month ago TIME'S poll showed McGovern leading by 5 percentage points among the 18-to 24-year-old voters. Now Nixon holds the edge--3 percentage points. Even more ominous, 21% of the college youth and 26% of non-college youth view McGovern less favorably now than a month ago.

In the first TIME poll, McGovern led among Jews by a mere 7 percentage points. Making headway in his effort to overcome his problem with Jews, he has increased that margin to 20 points, presumably a sign that Jews are lining up along more classic liberal and economic issue lines. This seems so because when it comes to who can deal more fairly with Israel, Jewish voters still prefer Nixon 36% to 23%. The change among black voters is perhaps the most startling. In the first TIME poll, McGovern's lead among blacks was 73% to 10%. Now it stands at 55% to 20%, a loss of 28 in the spread.

Robin Hood. In spite of McGovern's Robin Hood tax proposals, which would hit the rich and benefit the poor, he has lost as much ground among the lower economic groups as he has among wealthier voters. Voters earning less than $7,500 now give Nixon a 22% margin over McGovern, exactly double the margin of a month ago. Nixon increased his spread by 15 points among blue-collar workers and 5 points among union members. Surprisingly, Nixon stretched his lead further among middle-income voters ($7,500 to $15,000) than among the rich ($15,000 and over), who stand to lose the most from McGovern's economic policies--possibly because of McGovern's strength among rich but liberal professionals.

For McGovern, the worst news in the poll is that Nixon seems to be pulling the country to the right, while voters perceive McGovern drifting to the left. At present, three out of four voters describe themselves as either conservative or moderate, and almost the same proportion see Nixon in one of those two stances. Yet they view McGovern as going in the other direction, in spite of all his attempts to stake out a more nearly middle-of-the-road position. Back in July and August, only 22% of the voters called McGovern radical. Now 30% see him as such, while only 1 % of the voters put themselves in the same category. Rather than getting in step with the average American voter, McGovern seems further out of step than ever.

In all probability, the most frustrating finding for McGovern is that the majority of voters agree with him that Nixon should come out of hiding and participate in a nationally televised debate. Such a confrontation now seems as unlikely as those other developments the McGovern camp was hoping for --major Republican goofs, the explosion of the Watergate scandal, an upheaval in Viet Nam. There are still six weeks left, of course--plenty of time for something major to happen in this already volatile campaign. Polls, it is always necessary to remember, do not predict, they only describe the voters' state of mind at the moment. But if the election were held today, McGovern would join those presidential aspirants buried under the country's historic landslides--Henry Clay, Horace Greeley, Alton Parker, James Cox, Alfred Landon, and of course Barry Goldwater.

Supposing the election were held today, whom would you vote for, Nixon the Republican or McGovern the Democrat?

Nixon McGovern Not sure Nixon's gain (or loss) over first poll

TOTAL 62% 23% 15% 11+

California 59 28 13 9+

Texas 71 18 11 14+

Michigan 65 21 14 +12

Illinois 59 23 18 +3

Ohio 63 23 14 +10

Pennsylvania 61 21 18 +18

New York 57 26 17 +14

Other Nine States 62 22 16 +8

Republican 93 1 6 +8

Democrat 43 40 17 +11

Ind./Other 61 18 21 +6

Male 63 24 13 +7

Female 61 22 17 +13

18-24 Total 46 43 11 + 8+

18-24 College 40 53 7 + 2+

18-24 Non-College 49 34 17 + 5

25-49 65 21 14 +10

50-64 61 21 18 +3

65 & Over 65 19 16 +20

Blacks 20 55 25 +28

Catholic 58 24 18 +10

Protestant 69 18 13 +9

Jewish 32 52 16 -13

Irish 66 20 14 +13

German 66 19 15 -5

East European 46 33 21 0

Italian 68 21 11 +28

Blue Collar 59 23 18 +15

White Collar 69 18 13 +13

Prof./Exec. 65 26 9 -1

Under $7,500 52 30 18 +11

$7,500 to $15,000 63 21 16 +11

Over $15,000 66 22 12 +5

Liberal-Radical 33 54 13 +12

Moderate 65 19 16 +13

Conservative 76 13 11 +10

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