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Early Birds Offer Election Insight

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By BAIRD HELGESON

bhelgeson@tampatrib.com

Published: November 2, 2008

Updated: 11/02/2008 12:13 am

TAMPA - Ernest Brown voted for Barack Obama, in part, because he likes the Democrat's plan to rebuild the economy. Ed Trego voted for Republican John McCain because of his experience.

How these two men chose their candidate mirrors the results of an exit survey of early voters conducted by The Tampa Tribune.

Given five options, 67 percent of the early Obama voters listed the economy as their top reason, compared with 20 percent of McCain backers. The top reason people voted for McCain was experience - 57 percent, compared with 4 percent among Obama voters.

The Tribune surveyed 330 voters outside the polling areas Wednesday and Thursday in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties. They are part of what election officials predict will be record turnout among early voters in Florida, perhaps 35 percent of all voters.

The phenomenon has helped make for a thrilling and unpredictable election, said Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political scientist.

"There are all kinds of new people in the mix," MacManus said. "The polls are all over the place."

The Tribune's survey is not a scientific poll and does necessarily reflect how all early voters cast their ballots, nor does it provide a prediction of the election's outcome.

But early voter Brown spoke for many of those interviewed when he said the next president needs to focus on the middle class.

"If the middle class prospers, then the nation prospers," said Brown, 44, a salesman who lives in central Tampa. "They'll buy cars and buy homes. We've gotten away from that."

McCain's long history as a leader won over Trego, a retiree who voted in Land O' Lakes. "It's particularly important this year, where there's a guy that has no experience at all, that I wouldn't hire to run my McDonald's franchise if I had one."

Here's a breakdown of other top reasons early Bay area voters chose a candidate: Iraq, 18 percent for Obama compared with 16 percent for McCain; 17 percent chose Obama because he's "inspiring" compared with 8 percent for McCain; and 8 percent chose McCain because of his vice presidential pick compared with 6 percent for Obama.

Liotta Dowdy said she feels more passion about voting for Obama than she has felt for candidates in past elections. Obama's steady opposition to the war in Iraq won her vote.

She said she voted early because she wanted to be sure her ballot counted, and to avoid long lines.

"This is a monumental election," said Dowdy, a graduate student who lives in South Tampa. "Everybody seems to have a lot of enthusiasm for their candidate, whoever it is. And that's a good thing."

Among those interviewed by the Tribune, 70 percent voted for Obama and 29 percent for McCain; 1 percent voted for another candidate.

The survey doesn't include absentee ballots, which historically favor Republicans. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll released last week gave McCain a 49 percent to 45 percent lead over Obama among Floridians who had already voted.

In the Tribune survey, Bay area Republicans more often broke ranks to vote for Obama than Democrats did for McCain. Nineteen percent of Republicans cast ballots for Obama, compared with just 3 percent of Democrats voting for McCain.

Among Independents, 75 percent cast ballots for Obama, compared with 20 percent for McCain. Independents accounted for 13 percent of all voters surveyed.

Most of those surveyed said they chose Florida's early voting option for convenience. That answer accounted for 46 percent of the total, with fear of long lines on Election Day this Tuesday the No. 2 reason at 34 percent. A few, 7 percent, said they voted early because they thought their vote is more likely to count.

The survey also showed that Democrats' registration efforts did not bring a deluge of new voters to early polling sites. Less than 8 percent of those surveyed said they were first-time voters. Of those, 89 percent said they voted for Obama.

Florida began using early voting in 2002, in part to help ease technical problems and long lines on election days. More than 30 states have some form of early voting.

From Oct. 20 through Friday, 127,028 Hillsborough County voters cast their ballots at early voting sites, 18 percent of the total registered in the county with one day left to count, far ahead of the 83,000 who voted early in the 2004 presidential election.

Early voting pushes by the campaigns appear to have succeeded.

McCain's chief pollster, Bill McInturff, released a memo Tuesday on what early voting could mean.

"I now believe turn-out will begin to approach levels not seen since other comparable presidential campaigns in 1960 and 1968," McInturff wrote. "In today's terms, that could mean breaking the barrier of 130 million voters! There is simply no model that begins to know or predict the composition of the electorate at this level of turn-out."

Said USF's MacManus: "You see passion in people. For others, this has been a two-year campaign and they want some closure. They think that maybe by voting it will get them off the candidate's call lists."

Reporter Baird Helgeson can be reached at (813) 259-7668. Contributors: Kevin Brady, Janine Dorsey, Geoff Fox, Steven Girardi, Dennis Joyce, Laura Kinsler, Courtney Cairns Pastor, Vidisha Priyanka, Jeff Scullin, Stephen Thompson, Judy Wade, Kevin Wiatrows

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