The Vanishing Voter project has tracked public interest in the campaign with a "voter involvement index," which combines the percentage of respondents who say they are interested in the race and who have talked, thought or read a news story about the campaign in the past week.

As of March 5, the index stood at 38 percent, a tie for the highest figure to date. Interest rose sharply after New Year's and began climbing steadily before the New Hampshire primary and then before Super Tuesday.

But Kalb expects the index to fall in the coming weeks.

"The fact that the numbers seem to correlate so closely with a single personality suggests that the American people were and now once again are essentially detaching themselves from the presidential campaign," he said. "It may induce a very low turnout in November, which I suspect is going to be the case."

The Vanishing Voter project is an unprecedented effort to track voter engagement--a yearlong series of weekly nationwide polls. Kalb said that no such project has ever been undertaken.

"What we are attempting to do is to put a stethoscope on the popular pulse," he said.

Buhr said the Shorenstein Center plans invite party leaders and the media to a conference in April to discuss the results of the study and issue possible recommendations for the 2004 campaign.