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Presidential Debate Online Focus Group:
Republicans Exhibit Stronger Party Loyalty Than Democrats, Independents Track With Republicans

ST. LOUIS, MO - October 18, 2000 - In the third and final presidential debate, Republicans who participated in the Fox News Channel/SpeakOut.com "Rate the Debate" program last night rated Governor Bush significantly higher than Democrats rated Vice President Gore. Independents and other party affiliations tracked closely with Republicans in their ratings of both candidates.

Participants in the moment-to-moment response survey moved a 0-to-100 point dial with their mouse, with high scores indicating approval, low scores disapproval and 50 indicating a neutral response.

Bush's average score for all voting groups for the full debate was 65 and Gore's average score was 43. Bush held a 10- to 15-point lead from voters from Independent/other party affiliations throughout the debate.

Men and Women scored both candidates similarly, while Bush's response to questions about military spending and capital punishment revealed slightly higher scores at times from men than women and Gore's statements on Middle-East policy resulted in slightly higher scores from men than women.

Gore received his highest marks from Independents and other party affiliations on his response to a question on capital punishment (52) and his lowest score from the same group came in response to his closing statement (26). Bush's highest ratings from this group came when he answered a question on media's affect on society (75) and his lowest score (65) came when he answered a question on how to improve public schools.

The largest scoring gap between Republican and Democratic participants occurred when the candidates gave their closing statements, with Bush scoring 82 from his party and 47 from Democrats and Gore scoring 64 from his party and 17 from Republicans. The smallest scoring gap between Republicans and Democrats for Bush was in response to his answer to a question about Health Maintenance Organizations. Gore's answers on questions about tax cuts and capital punishment resulted in the greatest agreement between the two parties.

Gore's lowest overall scores came in response to his closing statement (38), and Bush's lowest overall scores were in response to his answer on improving the public school system (61). Gore got his highest overall scores on his response to a question on capital punishment (55), and Bush's highest overall numbers came from his answer to a question on military spending (69).

From his own party, Bush's highest scores came in response to his answers to questions on the Middle East (83), media quality (82), and his closing statement (82). His lowest scores from Republicans came in response to his answers on health maintenance organizations (73).

Gore's highest scores from Democrats came in response to his answers on health care policy (64); military spending (64) and his closing statement (64). His lowest scores from his own party came in response to his answers about tax cuts (52).

Approximately 3300 people participated in tonight's online focus group with 1700 simultaneous participants during the course of the debate. A higher number of Republicans participated than Democrats, which is consistent with Internet demographics.

The results reflect the average opinion of debate watchers who chose to participate in the online research project. Although the group is not a scientific sample of all American voters, the average results were weighted to reflect the national party identification and gender of all voters.

"Rate the Debate" is an interactive web initiative that records television viewers' responses to the candidates' performances during the debates. Internet users connect to FOXNEWS.com and post instantaneous reactions to the candidates' answers. The opinions of the online participants, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, are compiled and analyzed, providing immediate feedback of the candidates' responses and performance.

Detailed results charts and graphs are available online at www.SpeakOut.com.

About SpeakOut.com

Based in Washington, DC, SpeakOut.com (www.speakout.com) is America's leading non-partisan Internet activism Web site and online opinion research company. SpeakOut.com, recently named by Forbes Magazine as one of the Top 10 political Web sites, invites users to participate in surveys and market research through its patent-pending Ntercept^TM research technology. Ntercept^TM provides real time, second-by-second analysis and allows for larger panels of respondents than ever before, with lower cost and greater speed.

About Fox News Channel

FOX News Channel is a general news service covering breaking news as well as sports, entertainment and business news. FNC is available in more than 54 million homes and is owned by News Corp.

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