WILLKIE TAKES THE LEAD! The radio says this morning that the citizens of Sharon, New Hampshire, who historically cast their ballots at one minute past midnight each election day, have announced their vote totals. They are -- 24 for Wendell Willkie, and 7 for President Roosevelt. It’s probably not indicative of a trend, though. Four years ago, Sharon went for Alf Landon 13 to 3, and in 1932 gave Herbert Hoover 11 ballots to only one for Roosevelt. It’s a thoroughly Republican hamlet.
Wherever you live, and whether you’re the first or the last to show up at your polling place, get out today and vote!
(For Willkie, that is).
CLOSEST ELECTION SINCE 1916? Gallup’s final survey of the ’40 campaign came out in Monday’s Washington Post, among other places, and indicates the trend toward Willkie is continuing right up to the end. The main question now is whether the Republicans have gained ground fast enough to overcome President Roosevelt’s lead. According to Dr. Gallup, Roosevelt maintains a 52% to 48% advantage in the popular vote. But, as the pollster has said several times now, that’s a dangerously low level of support for a Democrat -- the President will win a number of Southern states with vote totals of 85% to 95%, greatly inflating his popular-vote total nationally without getting him closer to winning in the electoral college.
Gallup points out two historical precedents -- "The Democrat, Grover Cleveland, in 1888 had 51.4 per cent -- a majority -- and yet lost the election to Harrison in the electoral college. In 1916 Wilson had 51.7 per cent and barely won in the electoral college, with only 11 electoral votes to spare."
The final survey shows President Roosevelt continuing to lead in electoral votes, but now with only 276 -- just 10 more than the total needed for victory. (Roosevelt was said to be leading for almost 500 electoral votes a month ago). The big question now, writes Dr. Gallup, is whether the Willkie trend continued "between Sunday noon, when this survey was completed, and Tuesday morning, when the voters go to the polls." Alternately, "will Roosevelt’s Monday night speech pull the election out of the fires as it did in the famous Lehman-Dewey race in New York in 1938?"
I’m starting to smell a come-from-behind Willkie victory. If if happens, and if it is a narrow win, hopefully it’ll be another 1916 instead of an 1888. This is not a typical election year, and America needs a clear-cut winner in both the electoral and popular vote.
THE ITALIANS ARE FALTERING -- FOR NOW. I’m skeptical as to how long the good news will last, but it appears that the second week of the Greek battle may be clarifying the situation in a very welcome way. According to an International News Service dispatch from the region, Mussolini’s invasion has been "gravely threatened" by "a stunning Greek advance in Albania which threatened the city of Koritza with momentary capture." Greek troops have also reportedly administered a bloody defeat on Fascist units which were trying to march on Ioannina, with 2,200 Italian soldiers and officers taken prisoner.
Is it too good to be true? I’ve always been a bit wary of I.N.S. reporting, and they credit this information vaguely to "advices reaching the Yugoslav-Greek frontier." But the latest United Press story from the battlefront has good tidings as well, seconding the I.N.S. reports on a Greek drive to capture Koritza. The U.P. adds that Greek troops are now close to surrounding an entire Italian division, some 15,000 men. It puts the number of Italian prisoners taken by the attacking Greeks so far at only 1,200, but says two generals are among them.
Best sign that things are going sour for this latest Axis aggression -- the U.P. also says that Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano, who has been actively commanding Fascist air forces attacking from Albania, has left the front and hurried to Germany for a hasty conference with Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop. He’s said to be begging for Nazi help, lots of it, in subduing the suddenly-fearsome Greeks.
A SMART PROPOSAL FROM WILLKIE. Philip Kinsley of the Chicago Tribune reports in Monday’s editions that Wendell Willkie has made a dramatic last-minute campaign promise – "that when elected President his first message to Congress will recommend a constitutional amendment limiting the term of any one president to eight years or less." In a way it’s a shame if we’re now forced to codify in law the protections against caesarism that tradition once safeguarded for us. But President Roosevelt’s pledge to not run again in 1944 if he wins a third term today offers a bit of comfort that breaking the custom this time won’t do as much harm as it could. And Willkie’s solution would insure that a Roosevelt victory wouldn’t be used as a precedent to justify a future third-term ruckus.
In the meantime, we’ll have to rely on our votes to keep the two-term principle intact.
THE WORLD WATCHES AND WAITS. Anne O’Hare McCormick writes in Sunday’s New York Times on the perception -- ballyhooed by the Democrats -- that Europe’s warring powers have taken sides in the presidential election. Whether or not that’s so, she says the important thing is that Americans realize "that both candidates put American interests first." Miss McCormick adds that this loose talk of Nazi and Communist agents helping the Republicans is just so much bosh, even if there is some truth to the Democrats’ charges of who supports whom --
"For the past week or two, despite the thrust into Greece, the major struggle seems to have been held in suspense, almost as if the war were waiting for the result of the election. In the heat of the electoral battle it was charged that the British hope for the re-election of Mr. Roosevelt and the Axis Powers favor Mr. Willkie. If this is true, in each case the preference is based on the fact that both the Germans and the British know the President. Mr. Willkie is an unknown quantity; while he has given every assurance that his foreign policy will be identical with Mr. Roosevelt’s, the Germans may figure that any change would be for the better and the British are quite satisfied with things as they are. True or not, the preference does not affect many voters in this country. As between the two sides of the war, the American preference is solidly and almost unanimously "set." Few oppose helping the British or blocking the Axis. As between the two candidates, however, Americans were never so bent on deciding for themselves, according to their own conception of the national interests."
But Miss McCormick argues this "red-herring issue" does have significance -- "It proves that Tuesday’s balloting is an international event of far-reaching importance. The choice of Mr. Willkie may be taken in Germany as a sign of American unwillingness to enter the war. The choice of Mr. Roosevelt may be interpreted in England as an augury of more active participation. Europe inclines to echo our most contradictory campaign arguments -- that the President will move more rapidly toward intervention than his opponent and that the Republican candidate will put more speed into the building of a war machine."
It’s difficult to figure how either position really benefits Hitler much in the long run, though.
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Sunday, November 3, 1940
THE JAPANESE OPPOSE "DAREDEVIL" ROOSEVELT? Last week President Roosevelt's running mate, Henry Wallace, played in the mud again, accusing "Nazi agents" in America of helping the effort to elect Wendell Willkie. And as reported in a Saturday New York Times story by Russell B. Porter, the President himself is indulging in some ugly talk -- saying that an "unholy alliance" of "extreme reactionary and extreme radical elements" are trying to make Willkie president and turn the U.S. into a dictatorship. Yep, the Republican vote this year is pretty much made up of Communists and Nazis.
In light of all this, it’s funny that the fiercely anti-Roosevelt Chicago Tribune has a story by Tokio correspondent Kimpei Sheba in Saturday’s editions which echoes this Democratic line. It claims in so many words that the Japanese militarists are rooting for Mr. Willkie to win --
"There is a widespread opinion that the reëlection of President Roosevelt will increase the American-Japanese war danger. Inasmuch as it is generally believed that relations between the two countries already are near the breaking point, grave apprehension is felt over the future. Newspapers today played up the prediction of Wendell Willkie that if Mr. Roosevelt is reëlected he would plunge the United States into war in the spring. The Japanese call the President ‘Daredevil Roosevelt,’ because they charge he has taken too many wild chances and likes to play with fire."
I’m less worried about the Roosevelt Administration causing a war than I am about their ability to adequately prepare the nation for a war if it comes. Plus, how can anyone (outside of the Chicago Tribune and their ilk) keep a straight face when Japan accuses another nation of "daredevil" behavior? All they’ve done is conquer Manchukuo, invade northern and coastal China, seize parts of Indo-China, threaten to attack the Dutch East Indies, and sign a pact with Hitler that basically divides up the world among the dictatorships. And all the Roosevelt administration has done in response is employ diplomatic and economic pressure to make Tokio stop. Mr. Willkie has made it clear he would continue this wise policy.
"JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE -- POLLS GO WRONG." An article by Dr. George Gallup in the new Current History and Forum looks back at the biggest debacle in polling history -- the Literary Digest’s prediction of an Alf Landon victory four years ago, a forecast so spectacularly wrong that the Digest went out of business soon thereafter. Gallup notes that although the Digest’s poll was the largest in history, with ten million ballots sent out to surveyants, its lists were compiled from telephone books and records of automobile ownership. Thus, all the "ill-clad, ill-fed, ill-housed" citizens, fully one-third of the nation, who are overwhelmingly pro-New Deal, were omitted from the survey entirely. "Failing to reflect the pro-Roosevelt sentiment at the bottom," explains Dr. Gallup, its figures were naturally overweighted in favor of the Republican Landon."
Because of the Digest polling disaster, there’s a lot more skepticism this year about opinion surveys, such as the sentiment expressed this year by F.D.R.'s former campaign manager, Jim Farley ("Just as you wait and see. Polls go wrong; and that’s all there is to it.").
But Gallup says pollsters have learned an intelligently-chosen survey of as few as 3,000 Americans can produce a sound result, with "an average error of three to four percent in an election forecast." The error is a product of forces outside of a pollster’s control -- "no one can foretell the amount of corruption, ballot box stuffing or deliberate miscounting of returns in an American election. The influence of last minute efforts by a candidate or a party cannot always be measured in a poll. Nor can anyone forecast precisely what effect the weather on election day will have on the turnout of voters."
Indeed, there’s no doubt some pollsters will have a bit of egg on their faces when the election is over – this happens every time out. But I can’t see that a reputable firm would be so careless as to produce a poll nineteen points off from the final result, as the Digest’s survey was.
THE DUNN SURVEY -- "WILLKIE WILL WIN." Current History and Forum also offers the judgements of a pair of opinion surveys on the outcome of the election. Rogers Dunn, the director of the Dunn Survey, says that the surge of support for Wendell Willkie (also noted extensively by Gallup’s polls in the last two weeks or so) will result in clear Republican victory --
"Mr. Willkie will win not fewer than than 27 states with 334 electoral votes. Six Southern states with 59 electoral votes are conceded to Mr. Roosevelt. There are now 15 states with 138 electoral votes in which the findings of the Dunn Survey are incomplete; therefore no forecast has been made....I have full confidence in the soundness of the forecast made, because in addition to having made more early and accurate election forecasts in the 1938 senatorial, congressional, and gubernatorial elections, there have been many congressional by-elections at intervals up to about April, 1940, and most of these were accurately forecast by the Dunn Survey approximately two months before the election."
ANOTHER POLL -- "F.D.R. IN FRONT" (SORT OF). Edward J. Wall, the director of American Opinion Forecasts, Inc., finds as Gallup has that the President moved to a significant lead as of mid-October (55% to 45%). But just as Gallup does, Mr. Wall cautions predicts the two candidates are going to finish neck-and-neck at the end --
"As near as we can determine by the shift method, [Roosevelt’s lead] means a majority in excess of 3,200,000 votes, which at first glance should be sufficient for him to win. However, the solid South and the border states which are safely his account for 2,900,000 of this majority, giving him, on the basis of present indications, a lead of about 300,000 from states having 366 electoral votes. Should Willkie be able to secure 266 of the electoral votes of these states, we would have a condition where the candidate who received the popular vote failed to receive a majority of the electoral votes....This is a possibility. If Willkie is able to win New York and Pennsylvania there is a high degree of certainty to it."
What makes it difficult to predict the outcome, Mr. Wall writes, is the high number of Americans who are as of yet undecided -- "The voters have never before been faced with conditions -- with issues -- similar to those in this campaign. It is therefore not surprising that we find such a large number of voters who are having difficulty in choosing between the candidates. This condition will apparently continue right up to November 5. This is the group, the current ‘Don’t knows’ comprising between four and five million voters, that will in my opinion decide the election."
In light of all this, it’s funny that the fiercely anti-Roosevelt Chicago Tribune has a story by Tokio correspondent Kimpei Sheba in Saturday’s editions which echoes this Democratic line. It claims in so many words that the Japanese militarists are rooting for Mr. Willkie to win --
"There is a widespread opinion that the reëlection of President Roosevelt will increase the American-Japanese war danger. Inasmuch as it is generally believed that relations between the two countries already are near the breaking point, grave apprehension is felt over the future. Newspapers today played up the prediction of Wendell Willkie that if Mr. Roosevelt is reëlected he would plunge the United States into war in the spring. The Japanese call the President ‘Daredevil Roosevelt,’ because they charge he has taken too many wild chances and likes to play with fire."
I’m less worried about the Roosevelt Administration causing a war than I am about their ability to adequately prepare the nation for a war if it comes. Plus, how can anyone (outside of the Chicago Tribune and their ilk) keep a straight face when Japan accuses another nation of "daredevil" behavior? All they’ve done is conquer Manchukuo, invade northern and coastal China, seize parts of Indo-China, threaten to attack the Dutch East Indies, and sign a pact with Hitler that basically divides up the world among the dictatorships. And all the Roosevelt administration has done in response is employ diplomatic and economic pressure to make Tokio stop. Mr. Willkie has made it clear he would continue this wise policy.
"JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE -- POLLS GO WRONG." An article by Dr. George Gallup in the new Current History and Forum looks back at the biggest debacle in polling history -- the Literary Digest’s prediction of an Alf Landon victory four years ago, a forecast so spectacularly wrong that the Digest went out of business soon thereafter. Gallup notes that although the Digest’s poll was the largest in history, with ten million ballots sent out to surveyants, its lists were compiled from telephone books and records of automobile ownership. Thus, all the "ill-clad, ill-fed, ill-housed" citizens, fully one-third of the nation, who are overwhelmingly pro-New Deal, were omitted from the survey entirely. "Failing to reflect the pro-Roosevelt sentiment at the bottom," explains Dr. Gallup, its figures were naturally overweighted in favor of the Republican Landon."
Because of the Digest polling disaster, there’s a lot more skepticism this year about opinion surveys, such as the sentiment expressed this year by F.D.R.'s former campaign manager, Jim Farley ("Just as you wait and see. Polls go wrong; and that’s all there is to it.").
But Gallup says pollsters have learned an intelligently-chosen survey of as few as 3,000 Americans can produce a sound result, with "an average error of three to four percent in an election forecast." The error is a product of forces outside of a pollster’s control -- "no one can foretell the amount of corruption, ballot box stuffing or deliberate miscounting of returns in an American election. The influence of last minute efforts by a candidate or a party cannot always be measured in a poll. Nor can anyone forecast precisely what effect the weather on election day will have on the turnout of voters."
Indeed, there’s no doubt some pollsters will have a bit of egg on their faces when the election is over – this happens every time out. But I can’t see that a reputable firm would be so careless as to produce a poll nineteen points off from the final result, as the Digest’s survey was.
THE DUNN SURVEY -- "WILLKIE WILL WIN." Current History and Forum also offers the judgements of a pair of opinion surveys on the outcome of the election. Rogers Dunn, the director of the Dunn Survey, says that the surge of support for Wendell Willkie (also noted extensively by Gallup’s polls in the last two weeks or so) will result in clear Republican victory --
"Mr. Willkie will win not fewer than than 27 states with 334 electoral votes. Six Southern states with 59 electoral votes are conceded to Mr. Roosevelt. There are now 15 states with 138 electoral votes in which the findings of the Dunn Survey are incomplete; therefore no forecast has been made....I have full confidence in the soundness of the forecast made, because in addition to having made more early and accurate election forecasts in the 1938 senatorial, congressional, and gubernatorial elections, there have been many congressional by-elections at intervals up to about April, 1940, and most of these were accurately forecast by the Dunn Survey approximately two months before the election."
ANOTHER POLL -- "F.D.R. IN FRONT" (SORT OF). Edward J. Wall, the director of American Opinion Forecasts, Inc., finds as Gallup has that the President moved to a significant lead as of mid-October (55% to 45%). But just as Gallup does, Mr. Wall cautions predicts the two candidates are going to finish neck-and-neck at the end --
"As near as we can determine by the shift method, [Roosevelt’s lead] means a majority in excess of 3,200,000 votes, which at first glance should be sufficient for him to win. However, the solid South and the border states which are safely his account for 2,900,000 of this majority, giving him, on the basis of present indications, a lead of about 300,000 from states having 366 electoral votes. Should Willkie be able to secure 266 of the electoral votes of these states, we would have a condition where the candidate who received the popular vote failed to receive a majority of the electoral votes....This is a possibility. If Willkie is able to win New York and Pennsylvania there is a high degree of certainty to it."
What makes it difficult to predict the outcome, Mr. Wall writes, is the high number of Americans who are as of yet undecided -- "The voters have never before been faced with conditions -- with issues -- similar to those in this campaign. It is therefore not surprising that we find such a large number of voters who are having difficulty in choosing between the candidates. This condition will apparently continue right up to November 5. This is the group, the current ‘Don’t knows’ comprising between four and five million voters, that will in my opinion decide the election."
Monday, October 31, 2016
Thursday, October 31, 1940
DID HITLER O.K. THE ATTACK ON GREECE? I don’t believe it for a second, but Russell Hill reports from Bulgaria in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune on a remarkable belief held by some Balkan diplomats – that Mussolini’s invasion of Greece "was undertaken without the knowledge or against the wishes of his Axis partner." It’s true that the German press has been surprisingly mum about the Duce’s latest offensive, and the Herald Tribune story puts forth the theory that Hitler is looking for "ways of ending the conflict with a compromise -- Greece to make certain concessions to Italy and Italy to agree not to violate the independent status of Greece. Der Fuehrer, it is said, is not anxious to see all of Greece occupied by Italian troops, and is not yet ready to begin a large-scale campaign in the Mediterranean and the Near East."
But that doesn’t jibe with what the Associated Press reported yesterday, namely that a semiofficial German commentary "intimated" that Turkey may soon receive an ultimatum similar to the one the Greeks received just hours before the invasion. Things like that don’t show up in the Nazi press by chance. In any event, the theory offered in a United Press dispatch sounds much more credible -- German troops are about to go through Spain to seize the British fortress of Gibraltar, "as part an impending Axis ‘nutcracker’ offensive at both ends of the Mediterranean." The Italians would attack at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the Germans at the western end, and the British would be caught in the middle. Or so the U.P. says. Makes sense to me.
NOTHING CLEAR YET IN GREECE. This morning’s radio news passes along a Greek claim that they’ve hurled back Italian troops at the center of the front, and even taken Italian forts inside Albania. But New York Times Rome correspondent Camille M. Cianfarra writes in Wednesday’s editions that Italy claims to have penetrated forty miles into Greek territory. Not so, say the Greeks -- the line is holding at every point. What seems to be clear is that the Italians are attacking by land at three mountain passes, with Salonika in north-central Greece as their initial objective. Also, there’s a race between Italian and British naval forces to take the island of Corfu.
It sounds so far much like the first few days of Poland or Finland -- a slew of confusing claims and counterclaims. But in both of those earlier battles we got a much sharper idea by the second week of just how well, or how badly, the defenders were faring.
"REAL RISKS" TO ITALY IN THE GREEK WAR. Washington Post columnist Barnet Nover notes Wednesday that Mussolini "has always been finicky" in choosing countries to invade, preferring victims who are "weak and helpless." Greece seems at a glance to match that description, but Mr. Nover warns the Duce that Italy’s newest aggression is not without risks --
"In the first place, Italy must now more than ever reckon with the British fleet. Through the occupation of Greek coastal points and Greek islands, most notably Crete, the British will be in a far better position than they have been to attack the Italian mainland, Italian supply lines in the eastern Mediterranean, and Italian concentrations in Libya and western Egypt. There is also the possibility that the fires of conflict now raging on the Greek peninsula may spread to other areas of the Balkans. This possibility is, at the moment, remote. Behind Italy stands Germany with her enormous army. Part of that army is in Rumania, whence it might move from through Bulgaria to Turkey. Part of the German forces are on the frontiers of Yugoslavia and thus likely to intimidate that nation into inactivity. And as long as Russia shows no signs of opposing the Axis in the Balkans the possibility that Turkey will join the fray is limited. But if the Greeks manage to put up a successful resistance for any reasonable length of the time the Balkan picture might undergo a decided change. For in that case the British will have had a chance fully to establish themselves at strategic points in the Greek area and Greece’s Balkan neighbors will be less fearful than they appear today of the might of the Axis."
GALLUP GIVES WILLKIE AN "EVEN CHANCE." Republican pulses no doubt quickened a little after reading Dr. Gallup’s latest article in Wednesday’s Washington Post, saying that the trend toward Willkie continues "at an accelerated pace" in the presidential campaign’s final week. In Gallup’s own words, "Willkie has whittled down the President’s popular vote lead this month, and in survey returns tabulated up to the time this message was telegraphed, shows an upsurge in popularity reminiscent of his dramatic gain on the eve of the Republican convention last summer."
Specifically, President Roosevelt’s lead over Willkie has narrowed to 53% to 47%, an increase of a percentage point-and-a-half for Willkie since the last Gallup poll -- "narrowing the contest down to the point where he is now within easy striking distance of victory if nothing happens to upset the trend." Even more heartening, the interviewing for this latest survey was done before John L. Lewis’s dramatic speech endorsing Willkie before a nationwide radio audience last Friday night. Gallup even predicts that the company’s final survey of electoral votes will show Willkie even with the President or slightly ahead, given that Republican gains have been so widespread.
And once more, the pollster reminds us that 53% is in fact a dangerously low level of support for Roosevelt -- "actually the equivalent of a neck-and-neck race because, owing to surplus Democratic majorities in the South, a Democratic President normally requires about 52 per cent in the Nation to win."
But that doesn’t jibe with what the Associated Press reported yesterday, namely that a semiofficial German commentary "intimated" that Turkey may soon receive an ultimatum similar to the one the Greeks received just hours before the invasion. Things like that don’t show up in the Nazi press by chance. In any event, the theory offered in a United Press dispatch sounds much more credible -- German troops are about to go through Spain to seize the British fortress of Gibraltar, "as part an impending Axis ‘nutcracker’ offensive at both ends of the Mediterranean." The Italians would attack at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the Germans at the western end, and the British would be caught in the middle. Or so the U.P. says. Makes sense to me.
NOTHING CLEAR YET IN GREECE. This morning’s radio news passes along a Greek claim that they’ve hurled back Italian troops at the center of the front, and even taken Italian forts inside Albania. But New York Times Rome correspondent Camille M. Cianfarra writes in Wednesday’s editions that Italy claims to have penetrated forty miles into Greek territory. Not so, say the Greeks -- the line is holding at every point. What seems to be clear is that the Italians are attacking by land at three mountain passes, with Salonika in north-central Greece as their initial objective. Also, there’s a race between Italian and British naval forces to take the island of Corfu.
It sounds so far much like the first few days of Poland or Finland -- a slew of confusing claims and counterclaims. But in both of those earlier battles we got a much sharper idea by the second week of just how well, or how badly, the defenders were faring.
"REAL RISKS" TO ITALY IN THE GREEK WAR. Washington Post columnist Barnet Nover notes Wednesday that Mussolini "has always been finicky" in choosing countries to invade, preferring victims who are "weak and helpless." Greece seems at a glance to match that description, but Mr. Nover warns the Duce that Italy’s newest aggression is not without risks --
"In the first place, Italy must now more than ever reckon with the British fleet. Through the occupation of Greek coastal points and Greek islands, most notably Crete, the British will be in a far better position than they have been to attack the Italian mainland, Italian supply lines in the eastern Mediterranean, and Italian concentrations in Libya and western Egypt. There is also the possibility that the fires of conflict now raging on the Greek peninsula may spread to other areas of the Balkans. This possibility is, at the moment, remote. Behind Italy stands Germany with her enormous army. Part of that army is in Rumania, whence it might move from through Bulgaria to Turkey. Part of the German forces are on the frontiers of Yugoslavia and thus likely to intimidate that nation into inactivity. And as long as Russia shows no signs of opposing the Axis in the Balkans the possibility that Turkey will join the fray is limited. But if the Greeks manage to put up a successful resistance for any reasonable length of the time the Balkan picture might undergo a decided change. For in that case the British will have had a chance fully to establish themselves at strategic points in the Greek area and Greece’s Balkan neighbors will be less fearful than they appear today of the might of the Axis."
GALLUP GIVES WILLKIE AN "EVEN CHANCE." Republican pulses no doubt quickened a little after reading Dr. Gallup’s latest article in Wednesday’s Washington Post, saying that the trend toward Willkie continues "at an accelerated pace" in the presidential campaign’s final week. In Gallup’s own words, "Willkie has whittled down the President’s popular vote lead this month, and in survey returns tabulated up to the time this message was telegraphed, shows an upsurge in popularity reminiscent of his dramatic gain on the eve of the Republican convention last summer."
Specifically, President Roosevelt’s lead over Willkie has narrowed to 53% to 47%, an increase of a percentage point-and-a-half for Willkie since the last Gallup poll -- "narrowing the contest down to the point where he is now within easy striking distance of victory if nothing happens to upset the trend." Even more heartening, the interviewing for this latest survey was done before John L. Lewis’s dramatic speech endorsing Willkie before a nationwide radio audience last Friday night. Gallup even predicts that the company’s final survey of electoral votes will show Willkie even with the President or slightly ahead, given that Republican gains have been so widespread.
And once more, the pollster reminds us that 53% is in fact a dangerously low level of support for Roosevelt -- "actually the equivalent of a neck-and-neck race because, owing to surplus Democratic majorities in the South, a Democratic President normally requires about 52 per cent in the Nation to win."
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