Riding a Wave Of Good Feeling

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

A TIME poll shows Reagan well ahead at the first turn

Comforting thought for the Republicans gathered in Dallas this week: they have no great need to make their convention a gripping TV show. Unlike the Democrats who met in San Francisco last month, the Republicans need not seize the nation's attention for their ticket and message. Their task is the much easier one of riding along with a remarkably buoyant, upbeat mood in the nation--by some measures, the most euphoric in at least a decade--and doing nothing that might erode the comfortable lead that Ronald Reagan had built before the first delegate arrived in Texas.

These are the findings of a nationwide poll conducted for TIME by Yankelovich, Skelly & White. Some 1,000 voters were questioned by telephone between Aug. 7 and Aug. 9, a time when the Democrats were dominating the TV screens and headlines as they launched their campaign in the glow of a successful convention. Yet 45% of the respondents would vote for the Republican ticket of President Reagan and Vice President George Bush if the election were held now, vs. only 31% for the Democratic nominees, Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro.* Some 24% were undecided, a number that could be crucial. But when those undecided were questioned about which way they were leaning, and their answers factored in, the Republican ticket's lead grew to 15 points, 54% to 39%, with only 7% refusing to make a tentative choice.

Moreover, the detailed breakdowns of voter preferences sketched a picture even more favorable to Reagan. Among the more significant results:

> Mondale's historic choice of a female running mate brought less early support to the ticket than the Democrats might have hoped. Respondents enthusiastically approved the presence of a woman on a national ticket, and gave Ferraro high marks personally; 42% thought she would be a "very good"or "excellent" Vice President. Nonetheless, by a slim 43% to 39%, they believed Bush to be even better.

> Reagan's famed gender-gap problem, which the selection of Ferraro was supposed to intensify, is less a drag on the Reagan-Bush ticket than is often assumed. The Republicans actually led among women, 41% to 32%, although the margin among men was a much greater 21 points. The most striking gap, indeed, was an age division among women rather than a male-female difference. Women 35 or older preferred Reagan by 42% to 29%, a 13-point lead that was close to the President's margin among all people polled. But among women younger than 35, the Mondale-Ferraro ticket managed a 38%-to-38% tie, with 24% undecided. Age made much less difference among male voters: those over 35 chose Reagan by 50% to 26%, and younger men by 48% to 32%.

> Reagan's strongest lead is in the Midwest (46% to 26%) and the South (47% to 28%). His lead is smaller in the Northeast (41% to 35%) and the West (44% to 37%). Reagan holds a 30-point advantage among those making $30,000 or more a year, but trails by two points among those making less than $20,000.

> On key personal qualifications, Reagan clobbered Mondale 2 to 1 or more. Who would exercise more effective leadership? Reagan, said those polled, 58% to 24%. Who would be better in times of crisis? Reagan, 57% to 22%. Who is the more dynamic and exciting candidate? Again, no contest: 52% Reagan, 26% Mondale. Indeed, Mondale has stirred so little personal enthusiasm that his support is largely an "anti" phenomenon. No less than 47% of those who would vote Democratic today say their ballots would really be cast against Reagan rather than for Mondale. By contrast, 61% of those choosing the President say they are indeed "for" Reagan.

> On policy issues, the President's performance was more mixed, but still impressive. Voters judged him better able than Mondale to hold down inflation by 58% to 29%, and thought he would be more effective in reducing unemployment by 46% to 38%. On foreign affairs, respondents preferred Reagan 49% to 34% in dealing with the Soviet Union, but divided about equally on which candidate would be more likely to keep the U.S. out of war. However, 55% thought the U.S. should concentrate on domestic problems, vs. only 26% who gave priority to foreign policy.

None of these findings, of course, necessarily means the election is over before the campaign has fairly begun. Though all the major polls are in rough agreement on the size of Reagan's lead at the moment, they have shown huge variations this year both from month to month and from poll to poll. That is not too surprising, since at the end of the Republican Convention the race will have rounded only the first turn, and relatively few voters have yet firmly made up their minds about whom they favor. In addition to the large undecided percentage, roughly 40% of those who now favor either Reagan or Mondale indicated that they might change their minds before Nov. 6.

Mondale has some pluses too. On a handful of issues--poverty, civil rights, protecting the environment, preserving such benefits as Social Security and health care--poll respondents give him heavy margins over Reagan. More generally, and more important, they think he would do a better job of advancing the interests of the poor (58% to 23%) and of helping the all-important middle class (44% to 34%). Two-thirds of those polled think Reagan would do a better job for the rich, vs. only 7% who say that about Mondale; that, however, is hardly a finding the President would be inclined to trumpet.

Still, the poll clearly delineates how great are the obstacles that Mondale must surmount if he is to cut significantly into Reagan's lead. By far the biggest reason for that lead is that Americans simply feel good about the nation, the economy and their own prospects for the immediate future.

Two-thirds of all those polled believe that the nation's affairs at least for the moment are going either "fairly well" or "very well." That 67% matches a February sounding for the most optimistic reading in seven years; as recently as December 1982 the figure was only 35%. Indeed, the improvement is so great that 51 % now consider the state of the nation to be generally "good." While that might seem a rather lukewarm endorsement, it ties February for the highest degree of satisfaction expressed by poll respondents in Yankelovich soundings for TIME going back to May 1974.

A prime reason for this mellow mood is clearly the growth that the nation's economy is currently enjoying. Some 63% of respondents are satisfied with Reagan's progress in holding down inflation, and 53% are pleased by reductions achieved by the President so far in unemployment.

Americans might wish the benefits of the boom were spread more evenly; most respondents believe the rich have gained more than the poor and the middle class. Nevertheless, 37% report that their own standard of living has improved in the past year or so, vs. 23% who say it has become worse. And a clear majority of 53% expect their own economic lives to get better in the next year or two, while a mere 10% fear they will be worse off.

Not surprisingly, in view of all this, a thumping 61% of those polled give Reagan a favorable job rating on his performance as President. His support extends to some traditionally Democratic groups: Catholics right now would vote for Reagan 41% to 30%, and even in union households about as many voters choose Reagan as Mondale. In fact, among all demographic groups, only non-whites register a solid majority (60%) for the Democrats.

To be sure, there are doubts and worries that Mondale eventually might be able to exploit. Half of those polled fear the economic recovery will be "only temporary," vs. 39% who view it as lasting. Some 28% think the rate of inflation will go up again in the near future; only 15% believe it will continue to decline.

One likely reason for both beliefs is deep concern about budget deficits. No less than 84% of all those polled rate the deficits as a "serious" problem; 25% judge them "more serious than anything else." Three-quarters say Americans will have to make major sacrifices to bring the red ink under control.

But the poll indicates that Mondale will find it difficult to make much political hay out of what should be his best issues. On the all-important budget question, for example, public thinking is more than a little confused. To begin with, most poll respondents think blame for the red ink must be widely shared: 84% fault "Reagan and his Administration," but almost as many point a finger at "President Carter and Democrats before this Administration," and even more, 91%, carp at Congress. Two-thirds blame "the American public," presumably including themselves. On the question of what to do about it, for all their expressed belief in the need to sacrifice, the largest number, 51%, choose the course that would entail the least pain for themselves: cutting defense spending. Strangely, however, though Reagan favors bigger military budgets than Mondale does, poll respondents split about evenly on who would do a better job of handling defense spending.

On the larger question of who would be better able to lower the deficits, those polled choose Reagan by a slim but genuine lead, 41% to 35%.

Similarly, Mondale apparently has gained little or nothing out of all the TV time and newspaper space he has won by contrasting his own forthright pledge to raise taxes with what he contends is a "secret" Reagan plan to do the same thing. Only 27% of the people polled by Yankelovich approve of tax increases as a way to reduce the budget deficit. Despite--or perhaps because of--what is frequently seen as Reagan's waffling on the subject, respondents rate the President as the candidate who would do the better job on taxes by a significant 48% to 34%. Another Mondale theme is the danger of an accelerating nuclear arms race. But poll respondents think Reagan better able to control nuclear weapons by 45% to 38%.

In any case, some Americans are losing interest in the election. The number of those who express less interest in this campaign than in previous ones has climbed from 6% last September to 13% now. Growing numbers of citizens no longer expect the election to have much effect on the mood of the country, the health of the economy or the standing of the U.S. in the world. Though majorities ranging from 52% to 66% still believe that who is elected "makes a big difference" in these matters, those percentages are all down by 13 or 14 points since February. One reason may be that to a surprisingly large majority of voters, the campaign appears to be a cut-and-dried affair. However they intend to cast their own ballots, 7 out of 10 of those polled for TIME expect Reagan to win. --By George J. Church

*The potential sampling error is plus or minus 3%. When these results are compared with the results of previous polls, the potential sampling error is plus or minus 4.5%.