Before Nobel Award, Limited Support for Gore Candidacy

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- Former Vice President Al Gore can now add the Nobel Peace Prize to the collection of awards he has won this year, which also includes an Academy Award and an Emmy. Speculation about his presidential intentions will only increase following his Nobel win until he officially rules out a bid or officially enters the race.

A review of Gallup polling on Gore shows that U.S. public opinion of him prior to the Nobel announcement was slightly more positive than negative. There has not been a large groundswell of support for him to run for president to this point, and if he were to enter the Democratic primaries, he would place no better than third nationally in the polls. In fact, the most recent 2008 Democratic presidential nomination trial heat showed Gore at just 10%, his worst showing this year.

Overall Opinions of Gore

In Gallup's most recent reading of the public's basic opinions of Gore, conducted Aug. 13-16, 50% of Americans said they have a favorable opinion of him and 42% an unfavorable opinion. Gore's favorable rating has been around 50% most of the year, although his ratings rose to the mid-50% range for a brief period following his Academy Award victory.

Gallup has tracked opinions of Gore since 1992, and his favorable rating peaked at 64% on two occasions -- immediately following the Democratic National Conventions in 2000 (at which he was nominated for president) and 1992 (at which he was nominated for vice president). Gore's highest unfavorable rating was 52% in December 2000, when he was challenging the Florida presidential election results in the courts.

Democrats have very positive views of Gore, but his pre-Nobel favorable rating was no better than that of Sen. Barack Obama or former Sen. John Edwards, and lower than Democrats' ratings of Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Gore for President?

Polling data to this point has not shown widespread sentiment in favor of a Gore presidential campaign, even among Democrats. In March, at a time when Gore's popularity was at its high point for the year, just 38% of Americans said they would like to see him run for president. Only a bare majority of Democrats, 54%, favored a Gore presidential bid. As one would expect, Republicans (21% in favor) and independents (37%) were mostly opposed to Gore running for president.

Democrats do seem willing to accept Gore as their candidate should he capture the nomination, however. In June, 72% of Democrats and Democratic leaners said that Gore would be an acceptable presidential nominee for the party. While a high level of support, Gore still trailed the leading Democrats -- Clinton (82%), Obama (78%), and Edwards (77%) -- on this measure.

When Gore is included in the list of potential Democrats running for the presidential nomination in Gallup's trial heats, only 10% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents select him as their first choice. That ties him with Edwards for third place, but he remains well behind Clinton (43%) and Obama (24%). These results are based on Gallup's latest survey, conducted Oct. 4-7.

Since February, when the Democratic field largely took shape, Gore has never placed higher than third in any of the Gallup Democratic nomination preference polls. His support had been around 15% from February through September, with a high of 18% in several polls. The most recent poll marks his worst showing thus far, at 10%. That drop may be attributable to his not formally entering the race, which shifts media attention in the campaign to Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. Gore's standing may well receive a boost from his Nobel Prize win.

When asked about their willingness to vote for Gore should he become a candidate, two polls conducted this spring found close to half of registered voters saying they would not consider voting for him. Clinton performed better than Gore in the Pew Research Center poll, with 43% of registered voters saying there was no chance they would vote for her. So even if Gore were to enter the race and win the Democratic nomination, he would start out with a substantial level of committed opposition.

Survey Methods

These results are based on telephone interviews with randomly selected national samples of approximately 1,000 adults, aged 18 and older, conducted in 2007. For results based on these samples, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±3 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 488 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents from the Oct. 4-7, 2007, poll, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±5 percentage points.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Al Gore