The survey finds voters split exactly in half on Bush's performance as president - and almost exactly in half on his decision to invade Iraq...

Bush's message is helping him gain ground among lower middle income and less well-educated voters ambivalent about his economic record - but costing him with more affluent and better-educated families that have historically supported Republicans. Strikingly, Bush leads Kerry among lower- and middle-income white voters - but trails the Democrat among whites earning at least $100,000 a year.

Bush also runs best among voters without college degrees, while Kerry leads not only among college-educated women (a traditional Democratic constituency), but among college-educated men - usually one of the most reliably GOP 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 fewer 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.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Labels: bush, iraq