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IT'S BUSH IN A LANDSLIDE among middle class Americans. He also crushes Kerry among married voters. Unfortunately, Kerry does very well among the very rich and the very poor -- and he kills Bush among voters who aren't married. So how does it come out in the wash? The new LA Times poll has it 49-48 Bush over Kerry. Quotable:

Bush's message, which stresses his national security record and his commitment to conservative cultural values, is helping him gain ground among lower middle-income and less-educated voters ambivalent about his economic record. Conversely, the message is costing him with more affluent and better-educated families that have historically supported Republicans.

Strikingly, Bush leads Kerry in the poll among lower and middle-income white voters, but trails his rival among whites earning at least $100,000 per year. Bush also runs best among voters without college degrees, whereas Kerry leads not only among college-educated women, but among college-educated men — usually one of the electorate's most reliably Republican groups in the electorate.

Consistently in the poll, cultural indicators prove more powerful predictors of candidate support than economic status. Although the differences in support for Bush and Kerry among men and women each is within the survey's margin of error, the poll finds a huge "marriage gap." Married voters, who traditionally take more conservative positions on social issues, give Bush a 12 percentage-point lead, whereas singles (usually more liberal on social and economic issues) prefer Kerry by 20 points.

Nearly two-thirds of likely voters who attend a house of worship at least weekly said they would vote for Bush; among whites who attend that often, Bush's support soared to nearly three-fourths .. But Kerry draws three-fifths of those who attend a house of worship less often, including 55% of whites. Some of these voters recoil against Bush's heavy use of religious imagery ..

Bush is backed in the poll by just more than three-fifths of Americans who own a gun; among those who don't, just less than three-fifths prefer Kerry. The Democrat is supported by almost two-thirds of urban voters, Bush by nearly three-fifths of rural and small-town voters, with suburbanites split almost in half.

The new poll finds that voters do not divide as predictably along lines of economic class. For all the Democratic promises to protect the middle-class — despite the traditional GOP identification as the party of the rich — Bush runs best among voters clustered around the nation's median income of roughly $43,000 per household, and Kerry is strongest among the least affluent and the most comfortable, the survey finds.

This pattern is vividly illustrated when minority voters, who tend to vote heavily Democratic, are separated from the results. The president dominates among white voters earning from $40,000 to $100,000 a year, winning about three-fifths of that group. Whites earning $40,000 a year or less split closely between Kerry (46%) and Bush (50%). Among white voters, Kerry leads only among those earning at least $100,000 per year — who prefer him over Bush, 52% to 45%.

Instant reaction to the Times poll: "Another Bogus Media Poll .. Wonder how much they oversampled the Dems to get the final results? .. it shows that Bush leads among women, and Kerry among men, which is different than nearly every other poll done in months .. " Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack