Kansas City, Mo. — With notable consistency across gender, income and age groups, Kansans translated their satisfaction with President Bush and the decision for war with Iraq into votes for the Republican incumbent Tuesday.
Republicans made up about half of those who went to the polls, and Bush captured all but a handful of their votes. He and Democrat John Kerry split the votes of the roughly one-fifth who called themselves independent or members of other parties.
Tell us about your own voting experience todayBush even took about one in five votes cast by Democrats, who accounted for less than a third of all Kansas voters.
The president's margins mirrored Kansans' comfort with his job performance and their ratings of their own financial situations. About two-thirds of all voters said they approve of the way he is handling his job, and the same proportion approve of the U.S. decision to go to war.
Most also said their families' financial situations were unchanged or had improved from four years ago, according to the poll of 654 Kansas voters conducted for AP and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. Results were subject to sampling error of plus or minus 6 percentage points, higher for subgroups.
"I feel he's done a fairly good job up to this point," said Bush voter Joshua Cathey, 22, who is studying physics and German at Washburn University in Topeka. "I just feel more comfortable with him."
His fellow Democrats aside, Kerry prevailed with just one other group -- the roughly one-fourth of voters whose financial situations have worsened since 2000.
"I'm worse off than I was four years ago. I think I should give someone else a chance," said Diane Macheda, 52, a tax examiner from Overland Park. "Some of the things this administration has done have scared me."
The prospect of change -- rather than support for the Democratic challenger -- drove a majority of those who voted for Kerry. Just one-fourth of Kerry's voters said they voted mainly for the Massachusetts senator, while more than half said they were voting against Bush.
"We need a change. I don't like the way things are going," said Topeka voter Margaret Dahlstrom, a 78-year-old retired nurse. "I don't like our tax structure. I don't like the war situation. I don't like the unemployment that's prevalent in the country."
Bush's slimmest margin among various age groups was with those 65 and older, who favored him only slightly over Kerry. But the two largest age groups -- 30 through 44, and 45 through 59 -- handed him decisive majorities.
Without having campaigned in the state, the president also captured overwhelming proportions of two other influential groups: the roughly one-fourth who describe themselves as Protestant conservatives, and the slightly larger contingent made up of white, evangelical/born-again Christians.
Joyce Ruge, a Bush voter from Belle Plaine, said her opposition to abortion was the critical issue.
"I feel if I vote pro-life, God will take care of the rest," she said.
Whatever their party affiliations, self-described moderates made up the largest group -- nearly half -- of those who voted Tuesday, and Bush won more than half their votes. The four in 10 who called themselves conservatives went overwhelmingly for Bush, while Kerry captured the roughly one in 10 self-described liberals.
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