Executive Summary

Democracy Corps shows a continuing consolidation of Democrats, union households, and minority voters behind Kerry after the debates. In addition, he has moved ahead with new registrants and young voters, independents and moderates, and Kerry is now clearly ahead of Bush in the battleground states where it matters. There is plenty of evidence of the fruits of progressive activity over the past year.

But the big story in this election is the Education Gap, which is greatly impacting who are the targets in the coming week, and will impact and be the story of the election afterwards. While the Gender Gap has diminished since 2000, the Education Gap has expanded significantly, and is now slightly larger than the division along gender lines. Gender Gap, meet the Education Gap.

In 2000, there was only a 2-point education gap, with Gore and Bush running dead even among college graduates and Bush winning by just 2 points among the non-college educated voters. The result was a 2-point education gap. But not so in 2004. Today, there is now a 12-point education gap. Kerry is winning college educated voters by 10 points but losing the non-college graduates by 2 points. This emergence of the Education Gap is the new story of this election.

Methodology
This is a report based on a survey of 1015 likely voters, conducted October 20-21, 2004.

Key Findings

• Kerry leads Bush (53%-43%) among college graduates, opening a new education gap.
• Kerry maintains a gender gap, leading Bush by 8 points among women (53%-45%)
• Older non-college educated women are very open to the issues that Kerry and the Democrats are advancing, despite the culture war waged by Bush.