3 in 4 voters think it'll be 'President Bush' New poll shows just 15% expect Gore to be inaugurated Jan. 20

© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Three out of four American voters believe George W. Bush will take office as their next president, compared with just 15 percent who think it will be President Gore on Jan. 20, according to a new Portrait of America poll.

As to the unending recounts and legal challenges, 58 percent of voters think it's time for Al Gore to drop all of his legal challenges and concede the election. Fifty-seven percent of voters think George W. Bush actually won the election.

The POA telephone survey conducted Tuesday night, Nov. 28, also found that 56 percent of voters are "somewhat" or "very confident" the election will be settled in a fair and reasonable manner now that the U.S. Supreme Court is involved, while 40 percent are "not very confident" or "not at all confident" in such an outcome.

On the explosive issue of vote fraud, 3 out of 5 Americans say voter fraud and illegal activities played a role in Election 2000. The WND/Rasmussen survey found only 1 in 5 voters that disagree. Some 67 percent of Republicans see fraud, compared with 58 percent of Democrats.

How about the once-boring but now fascinating subject of the Electoral College? Fully 74 percent of American voters claim to understand how it works, but most of them don't like it. Some 61 percent would like to see the president and vice president elected by nationwide popular vote only, while just 33 percent prefer to have the Electoral College elect the president.

The news media, which took major lumps on election night for its premature calls and wild swings, received mixed reviews from voters in another POA poll.

Nine out of 10 American voters have "very closely" or "somewhat closely" followed stories about the recounts and legal issues since Nov. 7 -- good for ratings. But what about credibility? Thirty-four percent believe the major TV networks were trying to influence the election by calling Florida for Gore early in the evening on election day, while 55 percent believe the miscall was just a mistake.

Although 34 percent of Americans believe election night coverage was biased to help Gore, slightly more, 36 percent, say it was fair and unbiased. In fact, 19 percent say media coverage was biased in Bush's favor.

But overwhelmingly -- 83 percent -- voters oppose the practice of calling winners before the final results are tabulated. Almost 3 out of 5 feel political polls released prematurely influenced this election's results.

Rasmussen Research conducted the telephone survey on the role of the media in covering elections on Nov. 21, surveying 991 adults. The margin of sampling error was +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000