The Press TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1972. The United States Presidency

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33067, 7 November 1972, Page 18

The Press TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1972. The United States Presidency

“Mr Truman himself was the only man who really “ believed he could be elected ”, said the “ New “ York Herald-Tribune ” in an editorial the day after the 1948 Presidential election. “ The outstanding “ feature of the surprise result was the courageous “fight waged by one man who, five months ago, “ stood alone, despaired of by his own party, “ practically abandoned, and who had the obstinacy “or temerity or just plain fortitude to go to the " country and take his fight to the people and never “give up”. That editorial might have given some comfort to Senator McGovern during his campaign for the Presidency this year, for he has found little encouragement in the public opinion polls. One of the recent polls showed President Nixon leading Senator McGovern by 59 per cent to 36 per cent. A Gallup poll published on the eve of the 1948 election gave Mr Dewey 49.5 per cent of the vote and Mr Truman per cent; but Mr Truman actually got 50 per cent of the vote and Mr Dewey only 46. The public opinion polls were 4 or 5 per cent in error in their assessments of each candidate’s following—a margin which could have been hidden in the “ don’t knows ” in each poll. Probably not even Senator McGovern believes that the error in all the public opinion polls this year can be of the order of 12 per cent. Furthermore, the 1948 polls were correct in predicting the closest result in 30 years; the 1972 polls indicate one of the largest majorities this century.

The proportion of the popular vote received by the winning candidate always understates by a considerable margin the proportion of the votes he receives in the electoral college, because the candidate who tops the poll in each state gets the whole of that state’s electoral votes. In the 1968 election, when Mr Nixon’s 43.4 per cent of the popular vote topped Mr Humphrey’s by less than 1 per cent, Mr Nixon won 302 electoral votes to Mr Humphrey’s 191. The latest issue of “ Newsweek ” reports a survey by Its correspondents which showed that only the District of Columbia was “solid for “ McGovern ”. Columbia has only three electoral votes, the minimum; but 35 states, with 295 electoral votes, were found to be “ solid for Nixon ”. Only widespread abstentions among Republican voters, it seems, could give Senator McGovern victory. Recent reports have emphasised the confidence felt by Republican Party workers in the outcome of today’s election; and confidence encourages complacency and a slackening of effort to “ get the vote out ”. President Nixon’s leisurely campaigning—mostly from the White House —was stepped up in the last week, when his personal appearances in seven states should have put new heart into party workers. Even in his last-minute campaigning, however, Mr Nixon was able to maintain the style of a President briefly putting aside affairs of state to put down a political adversary. And Senator McGovern’s criticisms of Mr Nixon looked increasingly like the criticisms of the present office-bearer from a contender who had despaired of unseating him.