Under microscope, voters in Fla. difficult to gauge

DAVIE, Fla. -- Allan Migdall is just the kind of man both parties are desperate to win over in this crucial battleground state.

A registered Republican, Migdall likes President Bush on money matters but is worried about his conduct of the war in Iraq. He is considering abandoning Bush, his choice in 2000, for the Democratic candidate, Senator John F. Kerry. But right now, he's waiting for one of the two candidates to persuade him.

"We need a new image out there; we need to start all over again," said the 57-year-old lawyer, sitting in the caf at the David Posnack Jewish Community Center on a recent steamy Sunday afternoon. "I think the world hates Bush. But traditionally, Republicans have a more favorable view of taxes, so I'm undecided."

The fight for voters like Migdall has extra intensity in Florida this year. There are other battleground states -- about a dozen may go either way this November -- but Florida, a major prize with 27 electoral votes, is the state that gave the then-Texas governor a 537-vote margin and the presidency in 2000, after the Supreme Court put an end to a recount.

Four years later, nerves are still raw on both sides. Democratic and Republican lawyers are determined to avoid another recount debacle. Florida voters are more than a little self-conscious about the controversial role their state played last time.

"It's a swing state that's under a microscope this year, because of what happened in 2000," said Terri Fine, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida.

It's a swing state that is also a mini-USA, the most diverse and one of the most rapidly changing of the battlegrounds. Since 2000, Florida's population has grown by 1 million people. Only a third of the state's 17 million residents are Florida natives, many arriving in the last 10 years. Between the evangelical churches of the Panhandle and the nightclubs of South Beach can be found just about all of the nation's cultures.

North Florida is like the South. South Florida is like the North. There are rural towns and metropolises, agriculture and manufacturing, military bases and resort communities. There are sizable black and Hispanic populations, including a large Cuban-American population. There are large swaths of elderly voters and veterans, of Jewish voters and born-again Christians. Every interest group has a voice, and they are working harder to be heard this year, with recent polls showing Bush and Kerry locked in another tight race.

Since 2000, Florida's voter rolls have swelled by 860,000, to 9.7 million, as both parties and groups sympathetic to their causes have launched registration drives. The new voters have added unpredictability to a volatile electorate. In Florida, roots -- and political loyalties -- run shallow. One in five voters has no party affiliation, and of the remainder, Democrats have a slight registration advantage over Republicans.

"Floridians are notorious for jumping from one party to the next," said Richard Scher, professor of political science at the University of Florida. "The Florida voter is a skeptical voter [who] needs to be persuaded to come to the polls."

Even in this mercurial electorate, some reliable trends emerge. Southeastern Florida, with its transplants and snowbirds from New England and New York, leans Democrat. The Panhandle and west coast tilt Republican. The state's center, the region around Interstate 4 that runs from Tampa through Orlando to Daytona Beach, is drawing tens of thousands of new arrivals each year and is considered up for grabs.

Bush has some advantages in Florida. Three recent hurricanes gave the president a chance to pay numerous visits to deliver aid and comfort to storm victims in electorally crucial areas. That pattern is expected to recur after Hurricane Jeanne strikes the state this weekend.

Bush, who speaks Spanish, won 82 percent of the Cuban-American vote four years ago. This year, his appeal is expected to be boosted by the Senate candidacy of his former secretary of housing, Mel Martinez, who could be the first Cuban-American senator.

The president's brother, Jeb Bush, is the state's popular governor.

But Democrats have an army of allies in the state determined to avoid a repeat of 2000. So far, polls show they are holding their own.

All over Florida, voters are concerned about terrorism, the war in Iraq, and the high cost of health care. Other swing states, such as Ohio and Michigan, have been battered by big job losses over the last few years, but Florida's economy, like New Hampshire's, has been relatively healthy, with an unemployment rate lower than the national average. So the economy is not as prominent an issue here as it is in some other states.

The hurricanes will probably worsen the state's unemployment situation temporarily. But when the jobs return, and the last of the debris is swept away, Floridians will weigh their choices in November based largely on foreign affairs rather than domestic issues. Across the state, voters express concern over the high cost of prescription drugs, the future of Social Security, and other domestic issues, but in the end, they say they will decide based on Bush's handling of terrorism and Iraq.

In Plant City, a quaint town off I-4 outside Tampa, many voters said they were sticking with Bush.

"I'm worried about health, Medicare, Social Security, the children, the schools," said Audrey Johnson, 77, a vendor in an antiques mall, and a registered Democrat. "I'm happy with the Bush administration. I will vote for Bush again. I really think it would be a harm for us to change in the middle of the war."

In Jacksonville, home to a large black population, several of the workers eating lunch in Hemming Plaza on a recent Thursday said they, too, would stick with Bush.

"I'm voting for Bush," said Harold Thomas, 41, a dishwasher who voted for Gore in 2000. "Kerry ain't shown me that he's going to do anything better than Bush. I know that sounds strange coming from a black person. I'm worried about terrorism. I think if Kerry gets in there, we're dead."

In Miami's Little Havana, Peter Hernandez, whose family owns Los Pinarenos, a storied juice bar, said he was voting for Bush, not, like many others in Little Havana, because he sees the president as tougher on Fidel Castro, but because he sees him as stronger on terrorism. "For me to put the president of the United States in power has nothing to do with what's going on in Cuba," said Hernandez, 39. "But Bush is tougher on terrorism. He's a fighter. He's almost blinded, in a way."

"And maybe I shouldn't say this," he said, tapping his head a few times, but insisting he meant it as a compliment. "He's denser."

Others who might be natural Bush voters said they were rejecting the Republican because of his conduct of the war in Iraq.

Daniel Morse, a doctor who lives in Hollywood, is gravely concerned about "the whole medical malpractice problem" and believes the Republicans are the only ones who want real tort reform. But he will vote for Kerry in November. "I am very upset with what's happening in Iraq," said Morse, 44. " I don't think I can vote for Bush. I'm going to vote for Kerry, even though I know his party is not looking to help me as a physician."

For other Florida voters, this election is about higher matters than health care and terrorism.

Some said they would vote for Bush because they see the Republican as holding values closer to theirs. Barbara Martin, a Plant City salon owner, said she and everyone in her salon would be voting for Bush because he is against abortion and gay marriage.

Others are determined to cast ballots for Kerry because they are still smarting from 2000, when thousands of votes, particularly those in black communities, were left uncounted.

"It made me mad," said office assistant Carolyn Brown, 50, of first hearing the news that there had been so many problems with black votes across the state, including in her Jacksonville precinct. "It made me feel like not going to vote, like it was wasting my time. . . . I was hoping we came past all this, but it's not getting any better. But then I thought about it and changed my mind. I can't just sit down and we get Bush back in here. I'm not confident my vote would be counted. But I hope it will."

A previous article in this series appeared on Sept. 19.