Republicans have made a special effort to mobilize social and religious conservatives. Rove has said that there are potentially 4 million such voters who did not turn out in 2000 who should be recruited this year, but some doubt the reliability of that figure.
John C. Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, said he and two colleagues from other universities examined exit polls and other data to try to determine whether the 4-million estimate is plausible. "We couldn't figure out where it comes from," he said.
Four years ago, white evangelicals voted at about the same proportion as the overall population. To increase that vote, Republicans have built a program for targeting social conservatives that goes far beyond the days of dropping literature about the candidates' positions at churches -- the outreach is now handled by the Bush-Cheney operation in a much more systemic way, which includes phone banks and direct mail. "That whole church-based lit drop is so Moral Majority, 1980s," one Bush adviser said.
After looking at the Bush campaign voter mobilization in Ohio, Green said: "If effort counts, turnout among white evangelicals in the battleground states ought to go up." Just how much is the question.
On the Democratic side, black and Latino votes are as critical, perhaps more so, as social conservatives are to Republicans. A recent poll for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies showed Bush receiving 18 percent of the black vote, double his share in 2000.
That spells trouble for Kerry, if it holds true on Election Day, but no one in either party believes it is likely. Some national polls that show a close race may be understating the share of the black vote Kerry will receive, which could affect his overall vote by a full percentage point.
Still, Democrats are concerned about the lack of enthusiasm for Kerry among black voters and have launched efforts to boost turnout. That is particularly true in Wisconsin, where Democrats have targeted blacks in Milwaukee for special attention.
Both parties have competed for a Latino vote that could grow in line with population increases, with the Republicans trying to gain a larger share than the 35 percent Bush received in 2000. But Democratic groups such as the New Democrat Network have spent millions of dollars on Spanish-language ads in battleground states, designed to boost Democratic turnout among Hispanics.
Gauging the impact of newly registered voters, sporadic voters and the relatively few undecided voters is equally difficult. Some polls suggest that newly registered voters of all ages favor Kerry, but who knows how many will vote. "When you start talking about new voters, historically you're talking about people whose intentions are better than their performance," Gans said, "but this year that may not be true."
Many infrequent voters are unmarried men or unmarried women. Unmarried women vote strongly Democratic, when they cast ballots, but four years ago, unmarried men split almost evenly between Bush and Gore. In Iowa, America Coming Together has put much of its effort into identifying and turning out citizens who have voted infrequently, and the Democratic National Committee has targeted these voters in battleground states.
Undecided voters, while fewer than in the past, are still numerous enough to make a difference in a close election. Historically, undecided voters break against an incumbent president, and Kerry advisers say their analysis suggests that those voters are eager for a change of direction and will side with Kerry. But Bush advisers say these voters are lukewarm toward Kerry -- something Democrats privately confirm -- and believe Bush has a chance to win a bigger than normal share of them.
Finally, there is another oddity in some polling this year. In many national polls, Kerry runs better in a subsample of voters in battleground states than he does overall, suggesting that the electorate that has been bombarded by television ads and courted with numerous visits by the candidates may see Bush and Kerry differently than do other voters.
Matthew Dowd, senior strategist for the Bush-Cheney campaign, disagrees, saying his analysis shows that the battleground states generally track national polls. Kerry strategists believe that battleground voters view Bush more negatively than the overall electorate and that that gives Kerry an important advantage.
Ultimately, the election will test the president's strategy of creating a new GOP electorate and Rove's bet that the key to victory is an energized GOP base. But Democratic pollster Peter Hart, noting the enthusiasm among Democrats, said Rove's calculations may not be taking into consideration an outpouring of anti-Bush votes. "Karl Rove may be energizing too small a percentage" of the electorate.
As the campaigns gear up their final get-out-the-vote operations, they know that is something that can be answered only on Election Day.
