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Subject: Poll Finds 'Family Gap' in Clinton Vote;Young Married Parents Favored Bush
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 04:45:04 EST
Message-ID: <45.1992Nov25.044505@AmeriCast.com>
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Poll Finds 'Family Gap' in Clinton Vote;Young Married Parents
Favored Bush While Singles Backed Change<By Barbara
Vobejda<Washington Post Staff Writer< A well-defined "family gap"
divided young Americans in this year's presidential election,
with married voters choosing President Bush while single voters
overwhelmingly favored President-elect Clinton, according to a
post-election poll released yesterday.

The poll, conducted by Republican pollster Richard B. Wirthlin,
showed that among married voters 18 to 34 years old with chil-
dren, 48 percent cast their ballot for Bush, compared with 29
percent for Clinton and 22 percent for Perot.

Among singles of that age group, Clinton drew 58 percent of the
vote, compared with 20 percent for Bush and 19 percent for Perot.

Clinton won the election despite the family gap because the Bush
advantage among families virtually disappeared among Americans 35
and older. And singles in that age group, like their younger
counterparts, overwhelmingly supported Clinton.

The poll, released by the conservative Family Research Council,
also showed that most Americans rate greater parental involvement
as more important to children than more government services. In
addition, those polled ranked churches, youth organizations and
schools as more positive influences on children than the federal
government.

The combination of those findings, said Gary L. Bauer, president
of the Family Research Council, signal that the election "is not
a mandate for radical social policy."

Bauer acknowledged that Clinton ran as a moderate, and billed
himself as a "new Democrat" rather than a traditional liberal.
But Bauer said, "there were major elements of the Democratic
coalition" that advocated new government bureaucracies over em-
ploying private organizations to solve social problems.

"A liberal party got its president elected with the vote of peo-
ple who remain relatively traditional," said Bauer. "The real
mandate for the new administration is really not the mandate that
some pundits believe."

Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the Amer-
ican Electorate, agreed that election results show a family gap,
but argued that Bauer's organization may be going too far in
drawing conclusions about Clinton's mandate.

"There was no content to this mandate other than against Bush,
for change and wanting to do something about the economy," he
said.

Gans also argued that comparing the public's rating of the
federal government with that of other institutions in terms of
their influence on children could be misleading. The survey con-
ducted by a Republican pollster found that Bush tied Clinton
among baby boomers.<

> Schools outranked government, for example, but government is
intimately involved in schools, he said.

Also, the federal government may become more involved with youth
if Clinton institutes a youth service program that he advocated
during the campaign, Gans said.

Wirthlin polls conducted before the election suggested that a
critical voting bloc of American families with children - 57 per-
cent of the population over age 25 falls in that category - could
swing the election. That group accounts for 92 million Americans,
compared with 21 million Americans over 25 who are single and 13
million who are married couples without children.

The Wirthlin poll, conducted in the days after the Nov. 3 elec-
tion among 1,075 adults (786 of whom said they voted in that
election), indicated that the economy, not family issues, was the
driving force behind Clinton's victory. Nearly half of voters
said the economy was most important in their choice, compared
with 6 percent who said "family values" was their most important
concern.

Domestic issues, including health care, education and crime, were
critical to 9 percent; the issue of the candidates' character was
listed as most important by 8 percent; while 6 percent said abor-
tion was most important.

The poll also found that among baby boomers - Americans born from
1946 through 1964 - Bush tied Clinton with 37 percent of the
vote, with Perot winning 23 percent.<02:33 11-25C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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