Election influence still a possibility

CLEVELAND -- Eight months after Ralph Nader announced his bid for the presidency, touching off a frenzied legal campaign by Democrats to keep him off the ballot in crucial battlegrounds, the third-party candidate is struggling to match his 2000 performance but has secured a slot in enough important states to potentially affect the outcome if there is a close contest on Nov. 2, according to an analysis of the current data and strategists in both parties.

Nader has survived legal battles in Florida, New Mexico, and Wisconsin -- three narrowly divided states, and all in which four years ago he won tens of thousands of votes in races that were decided by a few hundred or thousand votes.

He has been knocked off the ballot in Oregon, with no further chance for an appeal, and is still fighting to stay on the ballot in Pennsylvania and to be guaranteed a spot in Ohio. Overall, he is on the ballot in 35 states and the District of Columbia, down from 43 states last time, making him a weaker factor on the national electoral map. Polling suggests Nader is not drawing the levels of support he did in 2000 in most places, his protest message resonating less at a time when the two major party candidates are presenting sharp differences on the issues.

But in a virtual dead heat, with President Bush and Senator John F. Kerry polling almost evenly in at least a dozen key states, Nader remains one of many incalculable factors -- from hurricane recovery in Florida to potential ballot fraud -- that strategists believe could tip the balance on Election Day. And with neither side taking any piece of the political ground game for granted, Nader is still a worry for Democrats who believe he will draw support away from Kerry if the race turns out to be as close as it looks in the polls.

''There are a few states that need to be watched closely . . . since this is a state-by-state election," said US Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who ran in the Democratic primaries on a progressive platform similar to Nader's but now hopes voters will support Kerry. ''It only takes a shift of 1 percentage point in one state to change the electoral outcome."

There have been some significant developments recently, as state courts have settled the cases brought by Democrats and their allies challenging him on a range of election laws. Only Ohio and Pennsylvania are seriously being pursued. There are still open legal questions in Arizona, Hawaii, and Illinois, but those states are considered to be less in play.

Most significant, after a protracted legal battle that reached the US Supreme Court, Nader's name is not on the ballot in Oregon, where he won 5 percent of the vote four years ago and Bush and Gore drew 48 percent apiece. Oregon state election officials had said he fell short of the 15,000 signatures needed to be on the ballot, because some of those he turned in were flawed. Nader took the case all the way to the highest federal court, asking the judges to block Oregon from printing ballots that did not have his name on them. The justices declined.

In Florida, where Nader won 97,488 votes in the 2000 race -- and where Bush won by just 537 votes -- Nader overcame legal challenges and is on the ballot. Recent polls suggest Nader has garnered 1 percent or 2 percent of the electorate, the same percentage he won four years ago, when both Bush and Gore had 49 percent. In a survey conducted Oct. 2-5 by the American Research Group, voters narrowly picked Kerry over Bush, 47 percent to 45 percent, with 2 percent choosing Nader.

Nader, a pariah among Democrats for running again this time and potentially jeopardizing Kerry, insists he is appealing to both Democrats and Republicans and could just as easily hurt Bush. His supporters are too few and scattered to poll easily, but in some statewide surveys, it does appear that Nader's support splits between the two parties. In the Florida American Research Group poll, when Nader voters were asked their preference in a race between Bush and Kerry only, they appeared just as evenly divided -- with 48 percent picking Kerry and 46 percent picking Bush. Another 6 percent said they were unsure, suggesting Nader is as unpredictable a force as he was in 2000.

Nader is on the ballot in Wisconsin, a state that gave him 94,070 votes in 2000 -- and that Gore won by a mere 5,709. Democrats waged a fierce battle to eliminate Nader from the race there this time, anxious that liberals and progressives in important pockets of the state would pick the third-party candidate. Nader was briefly knocked off the ballot by a circuit court judge, only to be returned to the ballot by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, a development that could have significant ramifications in a state that carries 10 electoral votes and is critical to both campaigns' battle plans.

According to recent Wisconsin polls, Nader is winning anywhere from 1 percent to 6 percent of the state's electorate. But again, the polls do not clearly indicate whether Nader is draining support from Bush or Kerry: In an ABC News poll taken Sept. 16-19, likely voters picked Bush over Kerry, 53 percent to 43 percent, when Nader was in the race, and picked Bush over Kerry, 54 percent to 44 percent, when Nader was not.

In New Mexico, where Nader drew 21,251 votes four years ago, and where Gore won by just 365, a recent poll showed that Nader is still a force, if a lesser one. Nader registered at 4 percent in the 2000 election; he drew 2 percent in an Albuquerque Journal poll taken Oct. 1-4, in which Kerry beat Bush, 46 percent to 43 percent.

And in Iowa, where Gore won by 4,144 votes and Nader drew 29,473 votes -- or 2 percent -- polling data suggest voters are similarly divided this year. In national polls, Nader remains little more than a blip, pulling in 1 percent or less compared with 49 percent apiece for Bush and Kerry.

''You don't hear a lot of people say 'It's the lesser of two evils' anymore," said Democratic pollster Paul Maslin. ''Now you hear, 'That guy's evil; I'm for this guy.' And that's a different kind of response, and so the third guy is irrelevant."

In that sense, Nader is ''dead in the water," Maslin said.

But Democrats working to defeat Nader say there is a type of voter -- economically troubled and unemployed -- who still finds his message appealing and does not necessarily believe a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. A small cluster of such voters could make a difference in Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, or Florida.