[Farai Chideya:] From NPR News, this is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya. Do you remember the last time you voted? The issues that made you turn out to the polls? Well, since today is Election Day, millions of Americans get a chance to have their say. But what issues do voters care about the most? Iraq? Gas prices? National security? For answers, we turn to folks who know a thing or two about the mind of the voter. Kellyanne Conway is CEO and president of The Polling Company, headquartered in Washington. Kellyanne, after so long, it's great to have you on.
[Ms. Kellyanne Conway:] Farai, I was so thrilled to be invited on your show. I can't even tell you. And it's my first election as a New York voter.
[Farai Chideya:] All right, and congratulations on your babies.
[Ms. Kellyanne Conway:] Thank you. Yes, I had twins. They just turned two, a boy and a girl. Thank you.
[Farai Chideya:] And Ron Walters, who is a stalwart for NEWS & NOTES, professor of political science at the University of Maryland, regular guest on our Political Corner. It's great to have you on, too.
[Professor Ron Walters:] Well, Farai, it's good to be with you. This is quite a busy day, and so there's lots of talk about.
[Farai Chideya:] Absolutely. So before I get to both of you, I wanted to play a little bit of tape from an interview we conducted with two voters. One is a 36-year-old African-American woman who lives in L.A. The other is a 30-year-old white male who lives in Decatur, Illinois. So let's take a listen to what motivates them.
[Mr. James Wrigley:] My name is James Wrigley. I live in Decatur, Illinois. I am a police officer. I am married with two children. I wouldn't really say I'm affiliated with one party, but I lean more to the conservative side as opposed to liberal. Security is the main issue for me, especially in my career. You know, after 911, you had pretty much everybody on both sides of the aisle voting for the Patriot Act. But then, when it's about to expire, you have people on the left who no longer is supporting it. Well, what changed in, you know, the four or five years that we no longer need it.
[Ms. Mona Holmes:] My name is Mona Holmes. I live in Los Angeles, California. And I'm co-founder and editor in chief of an online magazine called Shejay.net. I am definitely registered as a Democrat. The issues that come to the forefront of my mind are definitely Iraq, education and the economy. I feel as if our presence in Iraq is hindering our national security than helping it. I think that my senator could have taken a harder line in opposing the war, and if there's anything that I can do to communicate that to her, I'll do it.
[Mr. James Wrigley:] Iraq really isn't that big of an issue to me. I mean because, well, I mean number one, we shouldn't pull out until the job is done. Has there been mistakes in Iraq? Yes, but I don't think that means that we need to leave. I think it would be a major mistake. I'm not giving anybody a free pass. You know, mistakes were made. I still feel that the right decision was made to invade Iraq. However, the end game wasn't very well thought out.
[Ms. Mona Holmes:] You know, I've live in the second in the city with the second largest school district. What I see of the school system here is it's kind of terrible. And I just don't see I see wealthier districts getting better funds, better teachers. My father is a math teacher, actually, for junior high. As a teacher, he comes home pretty stressed from his day, and I know that a lot of it has to do with the funding that's taking place within his district but also within the state of California.
[Farai Chideya:] Kellyanne, I want to start with you. We heard about national security, two different views on the war in Iraq, and education. Do these track with the issues that you find in your polling?
[Ms. Kellyanne Conway:] These are very typical concerns. And among women you find that education, healthcare, prescription drugs tend to have a little bit more primacy in their voting decisions than among men. There's real difference between 2006 and 2004 that we're hearing from voters all across the country. And I believe this is reflected in what at least the woman you spoke with said, Farai, is that in 2004, you had many more national security war on terror voters than you did Iraq voters. Two short years later, you have many more Iraq voters than you do war on terror voters. And even in the most recent ABC poll released this weekend, it tracked very closely with what myself and other private pollsters are finding, which is 31 percent of the people surveyed said Iraq would be the number one issue driving them to the polls, 11 percent said war on terror. And then I think there's frustration among many people right, left and center that some of these so-called second-tier issues have been punted to the back burner in favor of the economy and Iraq. And you have many people out there saying, look, even if the politicians decided to forego some meaningful reform on prescription drugs, healthcare, education and certainly immigration until next Congress, it doesn't mean that I, the voter, are not going to take those concerns and those grievances into the ballot box with me. I think those issues can be a surprise in some races. Iraq is on the ballot in every single race today. But in some of these other contests the second-tier issues, mired in single digits as they are, can spell the difference between victory and defeat for some of this closer elections.
[Farai Chideya:] And, Ron, you know, there are so many different ways that we can talk about ourselves demographically. There's gender, which Kellyanne just spoke about. Then there's race. There's geography. In some regions immigration I'm sure is a huge issue; and in some places it's not. What are you finding out maybe in regards to ethnicity or other factors and how they're breaking down by people's voting attitudes?
[Professor Ron Walters:] Well, when you look at the overall picture, it's very interesting because political scientists like to look at the wrong track, right track. And right now 60 percent of the American people say we are on the wrong track. And then when you ask a question why and I'm looking at the last Washington PostABC News poll they say Iraq again, as Ms. Conway said. The second-tier issue here was the economy, and that's interesting because African-Americans, Hispanics looking at immigration issues, the economy is playing out very strongly in those communities. In a state like Ohio that gets to be very critical because, although Iraq is again the number one issue in that race, people have moved I think largely because of the state of Ohio's economy. And the fact that jobs are being outsourced and you've had the auto industry, a secondary tertiary industries in Ohio to the auto industry collapsing. And so there'a lot of pain in that state, and I think that tracks in a lot of places where, despite what looks to be a booming economy, there are a lot of these communities have not benefited from it. And the middle class, lower-income classes are now beginning to vote with their feet.
[Farai Chideya:] Kellyanne and then Ron, both of you. How does issue-based voting affect people's behavior? Are people more likely to vote against something than for something they believe in, or do people care less about issues than politicians? How does that work? Kellyanne and then Ron.
[Ms. Kellyanne Conway:] Yes, it's very typical that the primary motivating factor to get people to the polls is out of frustration, angst, anger, fear. And it's much easier to say I'm against something because I fear that it could happen or it could continue in this case, and therefore I need to feel energized and engaged about that issue. Asking people to go out and just pull a lever or push a button as a way to say, atta'boy, keep on going, is far less compelling to people. Then why bother waiting in line? Why bother taking time away from your sleep, your family, your work or your peace of mind on some random Tuesday in November. So this is why negative campaigning exists; there's a market for it, frankly. This is why parties out of power and challengers sometimes often have a cash disadvantage and a name recognition disadvantage, but often have advantages with respect to being able to say, look, you, the voters, demand and deserve change and reform. And you should shake yourself out of this status and that is very natural to Americans and pull a lever, push a button as a way to express that change.
[Professor Ron Walters:] Well, yes. Well, since 911 and Ms. Conway talked about fear -I think that that's been the critical dimension in American politics. Because the politics of fear has been the stuff of which, particularly the Republican Party, has sort of focused this campaigning. That has been important in security issues, has been important also to women because they are the largest part of the electorate. And so to the extent that they have changed their mind with respect to the priority of Iraq as opposed to security and [unintelligible] privileged Iraq, that shift has been like a seismic quake in the electoral system. And so what it means is that the politics of fear here is less and less an issue when it comes to American security than it was before.
[Farai Chideya:] Briefly both of you. Kellyanne, what issues help Republicans the most? And, Ron, what issues help Democrats the most do you think?
[Ms. Kellyanne Conway:] Security definitely is an issue. But I think the Republican Party could have done a slightly better job in recognizing that security is also kitchen table economics security and health security and freedom from fear as well as it is national security and homeland security. But the other issue that seems to help Republicans, in most places anyway, is this matter of affordability. You do hear Americans, even though every leading economic indicator would show that this economy is doing well, people are nervous out there. They've overextended their personal debt in their households; they believe they got a right to buy three lattes a day for five bucks a pop, and they think that the economy's not going well if they can't do that. But there are people out there who do feel economically squeezed who are talking about affordability. And I think that's why the president in his 10-city tour this last weekend did talk an awful lot about the economic agenda and reminded people that it's a risk to vote for people who are currently not in charge, because the affordability that you question long term may be that much more compromised if people come into office and raise taxes who are a little bit more profligate with spending.
[Farai Chideya:] I have to give the last word to Ron.
[Professor Ron Walters:] Well, Nancy Pelosi wrote out a campaign agenda for the Democrats in the House. And one of the issues of course had to do with environment, another, health, obviously the economy. Strikingly, public opinion polls are saying that Democrats now are more favored people are more confident that they can deal with taxes. So these are some of the issues that they have rolled out. And this governing agenda is okay except that African-Americans have a slightly different one, Katrina is on there, jobs, low-income wages, minimum wage, some of these other things which have to do with the bottom half of the economy that they want fixed. So, yes, the Democrats do have sort of a weak governing agenda going in. But their objective really is to tee these things up as the governing party in the House for the 2008 elections.
[Farai Chideya:] All right. Well, that's a great place to leave it because this is in some ways a staging ground for 2008. Ron Walters is a professor of political science at the University of Maryland. And Kellyanne Conway is CEO and president of The Polling Company. Thank you both so much.
[Ms. Kellyanne Conway:] Thank you.
[Professor Ron Walters:] Thank you.
[Farai Chideya:] Coming up, this Election Day Republicans and Democrats are ready to watch the ballot box. And are workplaces war zones? We'll discuss these topics and more on our Roundtable next.