Drift Toward the G.O.P.
By William R. Doerner
The historic 49-state landslide that carried Ronald Reagan into a second term of office nearly a year ago prompted many analysts to speculate that the U.S. body politic was undergoing a fundamental realignment in party identification and loyalty. The President's strong showing among many groups traditionally associated with the Democrats, including blue-collar families and the young, seemed to indicate that Reagan might be forging a new Republican majority, much as Franklin D. Roosevelt had done for the Democrats in the early days of the New Deal. A survey conducted for TIME by Yankelovich, Skelly & White suggests that nothing quite that epochal has occurred in the wake of the Reagan victory.* But the poll did reveal a continuation of a decade-long trend of growing voter identification with the G.O.P. at the expense of the Democratic Party, as well as some more recent Republican gains in voter + confidence in the handling of crucial economic and foreign policy issues.
In the ten years that Yankelovich has been surveying party preferences, voter identification with the Democratic Party has slipped from 51% to 44%, while Republicans have gone up from 22% to 31%. Although many voters have shown independence at the ballot box in recent years, the number who label themselves independents has actually decreased from 23% in 1979 to 17% today.
Despite Reagan's high standing with some identifiable Democrats, the survey did not find that the gradual increase in the number of voters who think of themselves as Republicans came from any particular age or economic group. However, it found that more than half of the voters now say they support candidates from the two parties about equally. Democrats hold the edge among those who continue to vote straight tickets. But with such a large potential swing vote, the study found, the real loyalty gap between the parties is even smaller than the 13% spread indicated by the voter-identification figures.
The Democrats lost voter esteem on major economic and foreign policy issues
(see chart). Only 19% of the survey sample thought they were the better party to deal with the Soviet Union, down five points from 1983, while the Republicans increased their confidence rating from 28% to 35% over the same period. As for the Democrats' ability to keep inflation under control, a mere 16% preferred them, down sharply from 27%, while the G.O.P. rating stood steady at 37%. Voters generally had more confidence in Democrats than in Republicans for dealing with issues involving fairness and equity. Survey respondents picked Democrats as the party more likely to help the poor by nearly 4 to 1, a ratio that has not changed significantly in the past two years.
Reagan's personal popularity remained high. When asked to rate his performance on a 1-to-10 scale, 60% put him in the top half. That was down slightly from the President's highest-ever rating of 67% in July, shortly after he underwent major surgery for colon cancer, but very close to the high standing he has maintained since 1981. Paradoxically, however, the issue of highest concern to Reagan matters less than ever to voters. When asked about the President's tax-reform plan, not even a quarter of the sample professed to be "very" or "fairly" familiar with it, and of those only 41% voiced support for it, a drop of ten points from three months ago.
White House attempts to downplay expectations of any breakthroughs at Reagan's upcoming summit with Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev seem to have succeeded all too well. Only half of those polled claimed to have followed preparations for the Geneva meeting in November, and an overwelming 85% thought there would be "very little" progress in Geneva in relations between the superpowers, or "none at all."
The issue that most concerned voters was the ballooning federal spending deficit, which 59% of the sample said worried them "a lot," up from 55% in July. Other areas of prime concern were the state of the economy (54%), the possibility of nuclear war (44%) and relations between the superpowers (42%). In the wake of the hysteria about the spread of the deadly disease AIDS in some parts of the country, 29% of those polled said they worried a great deal about contracting the illness.
Despite their concerns, 67% said they felt things were going "very well" or "fairly well" in the country at present, continuing the mood of extraordinary buoyancy that has lasted nearly two years. The upbeat spirit is highest among the young (73% of those under 34) and the wealthy (76% of those with incomes above $50,000). Even among those who made $10,000 or less last year, a healthy 54% expressed such optimism. If this feel-good spirit continues across the board, it may not matter much to the Republicans whether a formal party realignment occurs or not.
FOOTNOTE: *The survey polled 1,014 registered voters by telephone Sept. 17-19. The potential sampling error is plus or minus 3%. When compared with the results of previous polls, the potential sampling error is plus or minus 4.5%.
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