NEWSPAPER EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS PREDICT BUSH VICTORY Bush
Also Wins Newspaper Endorsement Race
Greg
Mitchell
Editor
& Publisher - November 2,
2000
George W. Bush is heading for a surprisingly comfortable
win in Tuesday's presidential election, according to a new E&P/TIPP
survey of the nation's newspaper editors and publishers, completed Tuesday.
The editors and publishers named the candidate they believe
is winning in their home states - and these results give Bush 301 electoral
votes with Al Gore gaining 237.
At the same time, the survey revealed that the nation's
newspapers have endorsed Bush over Gore by a better than 2-1 margin.
The exclusive Editor & Publisher/TIPP poll was weighted
to reflect the overall national percentage of small, medium and large
daily papers, with nearly 200 editors and publishers taking part. TIPP,
the polling partner of Editor & Publisher, is a unit of TechnoMetrica
Market Intelligence based in Oradell, N.J.
Key swing states that Bush will carry, according to the
Editor & Publisher/TIPP poll, include Florida, Pennsylvania, and Oregon
- and Gore's home state of Tennessee. Gore will hold California.
Asked to predict who would win the election nationally,
if it were held today, the editors and publishers felt even more certain
of a Bush win - with an astonishing 55% naming Bush and just 14% predicting
Gore (the rest were not sure).
The Editor & Publisher/TIPP poll also asked who the editors
and publishers plan to vote for themselves next week. In another surprise,
those willing to reveal their vote named Bush by a 2-1 margin. Publishers
will vote for Bush at a 3-1 ratio, with editors favoring the Texas Governor
by a narrow margin. Even those who plan to vote for Gore name Bush as
the likely winner of the election.
Asked whether they felt that newspapers have provided
biased coverage of the presidential race this year, 25% said yes. Nearly
4 out of 5 who said that newspapers favored one candidate named Al Gore
as the beneficiary. The vast majority of this group, however, are Bush
backers.
Nevertheless, more than 60% of the editors and publishers
rated overall newspaper coverage of the campaign as 'good' or 'excellent.'
The margin of error for this survey was 7.5%.
For further information, contact Greg Mitchell, Editor
& Publisher features editor, in New York City at (646) 654-5282, or
by e-mail at epic1934@aol.com.
Election 2000 data
