TIMES MIRROR POLL: THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN : 83% Say Domestic Issues Are Key for 1992 Race

WASHINGTON —  Democrats, already encouraged by polls showing that Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction under President Bush, can take heart from a new poll showing that voters--by a whopping margin of 83% to 15%--want presidential candidates to concentrate on domestic issues, not foreign affairs.

And, reflecting that sentiment, the new poll--conducted by the Times Mirror Center for People and the Press--shows that Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), a Vietnam War hero who lost part of a leg in combat, has surged out front and holds a significant lead over the other four announced Democratic candidates.

Kerrey, a Medal of Honor winner, was favored by 21% of those responding, compared to 15% for Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, 14% for Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, 13% for Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and 9% for former Sen. Paul E. Tsongas of Massachusetts.

Because the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points, the differences in the levels of support for Wilder, Clinton and Harkin are insignificant.

Bush, although still popular and at this stage a heavy favorite to win reelection, has been widely criticized for focusing much more heavily on international issues than on the nation’s pressing economic problems and other domestic issues. And recent polls show that Americans disapprove of the President’s handling of the economy.

Democratic Chairman Ron Brown said that he knows of no other Democrats planning to enter the race and stressed that “it is important to have a completed field as soon as possible so the voters can concentrate on our announced candidates.”

However, former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. is expected to announce his candidacy later this month.

Political observers have frequently mentioned Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson as possible late entries in the field. But Brown said he knows of no plans by Jackson to run and takes Cuomo at his word that he has “no plans to run and no plans to make plans.”

Although all of the Democratic candidates except Tsongas have only recently announced their candidacies, interest in the contest for the nomination is about at the level it was at this time four years ago, when the field was crowded with early entrants. About 12% of the public have been paying very close attention to news about the Democratic race and about 26% have been following the story fairly closely. In October, 1987, 15% were following the race very closely and 28% fairly closely.

The latest poll, Brown said, “confirms my belief that the 1992 presidential election is going to be decided on basic kitchen-table and economic issues and it is going to be a tough, closely contested election. In fact, George Bush is very vulnerable, and our Democratic nominee will have a real shot at the presidency.”

However, Republican Chairman Clayton K. Yeutter declared that the poll’s numbers “underestimate the importance of foreign affairs and overestimate the part domestic issues will play in the election.”

Sixty-six percent of the respondents said they were more interested in the state of the economy than any other potential issue in the 1992 election campaign. Eighty percent said they would like to see more media coverage of candidates discussing their positions on domestic issues, including unemployment, the “overall condition of the economy and the budget deficit, as well as education, abortion, health care and homelessness.”

Yeutter said the American people are focusing on the economy now because “we’re still in a recession, consumer confidence is down and people are frustrated. And we’re bouncing along on the bottom of the recession and nobody knows when the recovery will take place. But we’ll surely be in a recovery phase in a few months from now and certainly by November.”

All major voting groups focused on the economy--Republicans, 69%; Democrats, 67%; whites, 66%; blacks, 63%; men, 69%, and women, 62%.

The nationwide survey of 1,211 adults, 18 years of age or older, during the period Oct. 3-6, also showed Bush’s approval rating dropping sharply from 77% in May to 61% in the first week of October. At the same time, the poll showed that registered voters favor Bush by 54% to 39% to defeat any Democratic candidate.

However, only 28% of the respondents said they had firmly made up their minds to support the President, and 22% said they had firmly decided to support the Democratic nominee.

That would appear to leave at least half of the voters undecided.

Nevertheless, 76% of those surveyed said they expect Bush to be reelected. Only 12% said they think the Democratic nominee will win. The pessimism about the Democrats’ chances is even deeper than it was in the final days of the 1988 campaign, when a Gallup Organization poll found that 68% of Americans thought Bush would win and only 14% believed that Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis would be elected.

Moreover, the poll spotlighted the Democratic Party’s traditional difficulty--as compared to the Republican Party--in energizing and motivating voters in a presidential election. Among people who say that they have already decided to vote Democratic, only 70% say they care who wins the election. Among those who have pretty much made up their minds to vote for Bush, 81% said they care who wins.

Even among weak or soft Bush supporters, 72% said they care who wins, but only 66% of weak Democratic supporters said they do.

Bush’s performance ratings in the poll--with 61% approving and 28% disapproving--were about the same as they had been just before the Persian Gulf War.

Since May, the President’s approval rating has declined most sharply among groups that traditionally support the Democratic Party but which had been showing unusually high levels of support for Bush. His ratings have fallen most among blacks, older voters and the less educated. The steepest decline was among blacks, where Bush’s ratings dropped from 58% to 28%.

A recent ABC poll showed that 67% of the public said the country was headed in the wrong direction and 60% said they disapproved of Bush’s handling of the economy.

So far, the public gives the press good marks for its coverage of the 1992 presidential campaign, with 58% saying that the amount is just about right. Four years ago at this stage of the 1988 campaign, 59% thought the campaign was being over-covered. Of course, the coverage has been much lighter this year because the Democrats have been slow to field candidates.

Also, the public wants the press to concentrate more on the candidates’ qualifications and stands on issues than on their personal characters. Forty-six percent of the respondents want to see the candidates’ stands on issues emphasized and 42% want to see the candidates’ experiences or qualifications stressed, but only 7% want to see character emphasized.

A suggestion by a Harvard media group that the major presidential candidates appear on television one evening a week for each of the nine weeks leading up to the general election was endorsed as a good idea by 77% of the respondents. The so-called “Nine Sundays” idea would call for the candidates to debate one another and discuss and answer questions about their policies.