ELECTION 2004

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A contest that neither man ever firmly controlled finally depends on which side best understood the changing demographics of America.

There was a reason Kerry held rallies with rock icon Bruce Springsteen on college campuses just before the election, and why Bush was showing up in Pennsylvania's Amish country.

Both sides are using the latest demographic information and cutting-edge technology for appearances designed to raise turnout among their supporters or touch the few remaining persuadable voters. The focus is often on first-time or transplanted voters.

The methodology explains why Bush was in the exurbs - not the suburbs - of Philadelphia the week before the election.

And it explains why, in the campaign's waning hours, both candidates scheduled visits to very different places in swing-state Ohio.

Kerry plans to rally supporters in the Democratic bastion of Cleveland tonight, while Bush was in Cincinnati on Sunday night.

Very much in doubt

At least 10 states could end up going to either Bush or Kerry. A new USA Today-CNN-Gallup Poll released Sunday night indicated the race is tied nationally.

That leaves the outcome up to individual swing states, and in those, it's still very much in doubt.

Of six states polled Oct. 29-31, Kerry was slightly ahead in three: Ohio, Florida and Minnesota.

Bush had slight leads in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa, although a Des Moines Register poll released Sunday had Kerry up slightly in Iowa.

And other polls released over the weekend showed Kerry ahead in Pennsylvania and Bush ahead in Florida.

In all six states, terrorism or the war in Iraq were named by at least half of prospective voters as their primary concern.

About four out of 10 voters listed the economy or health care as their No. 1 worries.

Some states have joined the spotlight late: Al Gore and other Democrats and Vice President Dick Cheney rushed to Hawaii over the final weekend after polls there showed it too close to call.

Fundamentally, the winner will be the man who was best able to survive a season of campaign wounds.

Both Bush and Kerry go into Tuesday with the heavy weight of negatives around their candidacies. Rising doubts about the war in Iraq, personified anew by the death of nine Marines there Saturday, have hurt Bush. This fall, he has struggled to maintain a job-approval rating above 50 percent, the normal threshold of re-election.

But doubts about Kerry's leadership persist. A Pennsylvania poll released Sunday by the Philadelphia Inquirer put it in a nutshell: Kerry was slightly ahead, but he also had treacherously high negative personal and leadership ratings for a challenger.

Trolling for votes

Both sides are doing everything possible to energize core supporters.

When Kerry rallied Thursday at the University of Wisconsin, the target was students and younger voters, the wireless generation that some strategists think is underrepresented in many polls because they have cell phones. Polls have shown younger voters split between Kerry and Bush, but Democrats see an opportunity.

"The number of people who aren't being picked up in these polls - people that registered but did not vote before, people who have cell phones and don't have hard lines - (will be) one of the untold stories going into election night," Kerry adviser Doug Sosnik said.

It is a story, he predicted, that reporters "are going to spend a lot of time talking about after the election."

Midweek, Bush talked to 20,000 supporters in Lancaster, Pa., the center of rapidly growing Amish country.

Lancaster represents a key demographic area Bush has tried to target throughout the campaign: GOP-leaning and growing rapidly from rural to urban.

This "exurban" strategy is part of Bush's attempt to offset ramped-up get-out-the-vote operations in urban communities that have long voted for Democrats.

Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman refers to them as "fortress areas, with big growth."

The population of Lancaster County, Pa., has grown 15 percent since 1990, and new construction is intruding on the bucolic landscape.

Presidential campaign signs are prolific, with Bush posters outpacing Kerry signs by at least 5 to 1.

"It is a huge growth area, a fortress area where Republicans do well, but where there are a whole lot of new people," Mehlman said. "Which is why we are going there (late in the campaign). Because those new people have not necessarily been touched by the president. The one thing we know is the longer you stay in a community, the more you are likely to vote."

The goal for Bush: Raise his margin over Kerry in areas like Lancaster County to higher levels than he held over Gore in 2000, in order to counter anticipated turnout rises in Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia, 65 miles east. It was no coincidence that Kerry chose downtown Philadelphia as the first campaign stop for former President Clinton after Clinton's open-heart surgery. Clinton remains popular among blacks and other urban residents, a key Kerry target in 2004.

Republicans think their exurban strategy is inherently better because they are concentrating on growth areas, while they say Democrats are more focused on areas that aren't growing.

Lancaster County's 15 percent growth since 1990 has boosted its population to just under 500,000 people. But Philadelphia County, which includes the city, lost 7 percent, and now has slightly less than 1.5 million people.