Only seven percent of all likely voters say the arrest raises serious concern in their minds about whether Bush is qualified to be president, and virtually all of them favor Gore anyway. Indeed, only 16 percent of Gore supporters say so. Similarly, just five percent of all likely voters say the report of Bush's 1976 arrest makes them much less likely to support him, again including one solitary Bush supporter. About as many likely voters, four percent, say it makes them much more likely to vote for him. But again they're almost all Gore supporters, and thus predisposed against Bush.
Few people tend to be concerned with misdeeds that occurred long ago and involved personal behavior.
What tends to matter far more are current actions, especially ones that involve professional malfeasance. That falls to six percent of independents and two percent of Republicans. The results have a four-point error margin. Erin Fehlau is the local television reporter who broke George W. Bush's 24 year old DUI story. George W. Bush likes to say he'll do for the rest of the country what he has done in Texas.