Nader factor ‘marginal’ this time, Democrats say

Democrats say the chance of Ralph Nader’s securing enough votes to swing the presidential election toward President Bush is virtually nonexistent. But Republicans say the consumer advocate still could take enough votes away from Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry in a few battleground states to make a difference, though the Nader campaign contends Mr. Bush isn’t necessarily safe, either.

Democratic strategist Bill Buck said there isn’t a “Nader factor” at all, and even in key swing states, the few who will vote for Mr. Nader are not those who would have voted for Mr. Kerry anyway.

“You see how marginal he is in the polls. He just isn’t registering,” Mr. Buck said of Mr. Nader. “There is not the kind of support he saw four years ago.”

Simon Rosenberg of the New Democrat Network agrees.

“I don’t think he’s going to be a factor,” he said. “Nationally, he’s under 1 percent, or at 1. … He’s out of money.”

Democrats’ assertion that there is no Nader factor is simply “wishful thinking,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. “They are hoping that that’s the case, but none of them really believe it,” he said.

“I agree that [Nader] is significantly weaker than [he was in] 2000, but if a state is incredibly tight, any votes could be decisive,” Mr. Ayres said.

According to RealClearPolitics.com, a political Internet poll clearinghouse, Mr. Nader currently holds an average of 1.3 percent of likely votes, with Mr. Bush pulling in 48.3 percent to Mr. Kerry’s 46.3 percent.

In 2000, Mr. Nader held 4 percent of likely votes nationwide in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released just two days before the election, but Mr. Bush held 48 percent to Vice President Al Gore’s 43 percent. In the end, Mr. Nader captured about 2.7 percent of the nationwide votes.

Since then, Democrats have cited Mr. Nader’s presence, especially in key states such as Florida and New Hampshire, as the reason they lost the White House. He pulled 97,488 votes in hotly contested Florida, which would have been enough for them to carry the state and win the overall election.

This year, the Democrats worked to weaken Mr. Nader and prevent him from getting on the ballot in all of the states, but some Republicans tried to help him. Now he’s on the ballot in only 34 states — including Florida, Wisconsin, New Mexico — and the District, and is still fighting legal battles in a handful of others. In states where he is not on the ballot, except Oklahoma, voters can write him in under an independent-party option.

Nader spokesman Kevin Neese said for all the Democrats’ dismissal of the Nader effect, “they sure are panicking.”

“They sure do have their minions out trying to get us to drop out,” he said.

Mr. Neese said without the backing of the Green Party affiliation they held in 2000, his candidate could be more attractive to a traditionally conservative-leaning base and, therefore, could draw largely from the president’s constituency, not Mr. Kerry’s.

“There are a lot of issues where Bush has undermined conservative values. I think there’s been a perception throughout this campaign that Nader is going to hurt Bush and help Kerry, but we’ll see,” he said.

According to a Oct. 24 Gallup poll, Mr. Neese is correct. The poll found that if Mr. Nader were not the ballot, 52 percent of likely voters would vote for the president compared with 51 percent with Mr. Nader on the ballot.

That he would pull votes from President Bush isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds, said pollster Anna Greenberg.

Because the types of people polling for Mr. Nader tend to be more conservative this time around, they could be drawn from Mr. Bush’s voter base on controversial topics, such as the war in Iraq, and make the small difference Democrats need against the Republican in key states.

“In the past, [votes were] clearly [pulled] very much from Kerry, but one of the things that is coming clearer is that Kerry has improved his position, especially since the debates,” Ms. Greenberg said. “There is certainly some potential for Nader to hurt Bush.”