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>Although voters believe Nixon is capable of underhandedness to achieve reelection, they seem to think him more honest than McGovern. Presented a statement saying, "Recent attempts to bug the Democratic headquarters show Nixon will stop at nothing to get re-elected," 21% agreed fully and 12% partly. Yet, asked who "will do more to have an open and trustworthy Administration," two voters picked Nixon for every one who chose McGovern.
Such results seem to fly in the face of logic. McGovern the tax reformer is given no credit for his promise to close loopholes. McGovern the peace candidate is thought less apt to bring peace than Nixon, who has failed to do so in his first term. McGovern the prairie populist is thought less likely to pay attention to the needs of the little man than Richard Nixon, who a majority of voters suspect is too close to big business. These responses suggest that the voters have turned against McGovern for intuitive, seat-of-the-pants reasons having more to do with personality than issues, and that they now rationalize their choice by giving Nixon the benefit of the doubt on issues.
Yankelovich calls this the "halo effect," and believes it colors almost all the answers related to issues. One month ago, voters claimed, by a margin of 45 % to 28%, that McGovern would do more to see that minorities are treated "fairly." Now they have neatly flip-flopped on the issues, although nothing concrete has happened in the campaign to cause such a change: 42% now see Nixon as best able to deal with minorities, v. 31 % for McGovern. This makes little empirical sense, but for that very reason it bodes ill for McGovern. More and more, Nixon is gaining momentum as the man who can do no wrong.
The change has affected virtually every geographic and demographic category, as the chart on this page shows. Thus Nixon has increased his lead in every age bracket. For example, one month ago TIME'S poll showed McGovern leading by 5 percentage points among the 18-to 24-year-old voters. Now Nixon holds the edge—3 percentage points. Even more ominous, 21% of the college youth and 26% of non-college youth view McGovern less favorably now than a month ago.
In the first TIME poll, McGovern led among Jews by a mere 7 percentage points. Making headway in his effort to overcome his problem with Jews, he has increased that margin to 20 points, presumably a sign that Jews are lining up along more classic liberal and economic issue lines. This seems so because when it comes to who can deal more fairly with Israel, Jewish voters still prefer Nixon 36% to 23%. The change among black voters is perhaps the most startling. In the first TIME poll, McGovern's lead among blacks was 73% to 10%. Now it stands at 55% to 20%, a loss of 28 in the spread.