As we entered October, I asked a series of questions that I said would go a long way towards determining the winner of the presidential election. Now that results are in, it is worth taking a look at these questions yet again to try and determine what happened over the past month. Yesterday’s question concerned the Palin factor. Today we will combine two questions (will African-American voters make up a greater share of the electorate? will first time voters show up?) into one: How did changes in turnout affect the race?
From the very first days of the general election, we knew the biggest challenge the GOP was facing was the electorate’s transformation. With Democrats making up an increasingly large portion of registered voters, McCain faced a very difficult task at hand in putting together a winning coalition: Sweep registered Republicans while gaining an edge among independents and capturing a substantial share of the Democratic vote.
Some Republicans protested that polls were getting it wrong: Democrats could not possibly outnumber Republicans by a significant margin after two cycles in which the country was equally divided. Pollsters like John Zogby agreed and decided to impose a tight weight on the partisan breakdown.
Unfortunately for the GOP, the exit polls ended up confirming that Republicans were facing an uphill climb: 39% of the electorate was made up of Democrats and 32% of Republicans. That’s a significant shift from 2004 (and it corresponds to the partisan weights used by Rasmussen).
I wrote in June that Obama could put the election out of reach by solidifying his support among registered Democrats - and that is exactly what happened. As the general election progressed, Obama increased his support from his party’s base and the election became practically unwinnable for the Arizona Senator: with the two candidates enjoying the same level of party loyalty, McCain needed to win independents by double-digits to erase the Democrats’ 7% advantage in partisan identification advantage! Instead, he lost that constituency by 8%.
We can pinpoint to two distinct factors to explain the Democrats’ partisan breakdown advantage. First, the last four years brought about a shift in voter identification. During Bush’s second term, a number of independent voters came to think of themselves as Democrats, while a number of Republicans shied away from their party label. This is a trend we also observed in 2006.
The second factor is the much-discussed enthusiasm gap. Despite predictions of a huge increase in the total number of voters, the turnout rate stayed at the level it was at four years ago, but that is not to say that some constituencies did not participate at an historic pace: Rather, Democratic-leaning voters were mobilized while Republican turnout was depressed. (Election expert Curtis Gans backs this up with a detailed look at turnout data in his analysis of Tuesday’s election.)
It might have been even more so without Sarah Palin’s pick, but after two terms of the widely unpopular Bush (whom many Republicans now also distrust), it was too much to ask of any Republican to energize the base. For a politician like McCain whom conservatives never trusted, it was almost an impossible mission, as he had to ensure that Republicans voted in high numbers while simultaneously appealing to independents.
On the other hand, Obama turned out Democratic-leaning constituencies and had success mobilizing sporadic voters in states in which he concentrated. The difference might not have been felt that dramatically in, say, Ohio and Florida where the Kerry campaign invested a lot of time as well, but it dramatically altered turnout patterns in places like Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina. Obama’s success first and foremost came from maximizing the Democratic vote.
In particular, Obama managed to increase the share of the black vote. He predicted a year ago that a boost in African-American turnout would put Southern states, and there is little doubt that this was a significant factor in Tuesday’s results. Early voting provided the first hints of such a dynamic, and the final exit polls confirm it: 23% of North Carolina voters and 30% of Georgia voters were African-American (compared to 19% and 26% in 2004).
While Obama’s prediction that states like Mississippi would be competitive did not come to pass, it is unlikely Obama could have edged out McCain in the Tar Heel state or that Saxby Chambliss would have been held under 50% without this boost in black turnout.
It looks like Democratic turnout in Alaska fell and that is what gave Stevens victory. Remember Alaska didn`t matter in the Presidential vote and most people thought Stevens would lose by double digits so they didn`t come out to make sure.
Steve Schmidt (McCain’s campaign manager) will probably never be hired again as he messed up big time. There was no overarching narrative or reason to vote FOR McCain. He kept attacking Obama with new stuff rather than stick to one or two main arguments (experience etc). He made McCain choose Palin which undercut the celebrity and experience argument. I doubt he is a Karl Rove protege because Rove had a good play book against Kerry - although I wanted Kerry to win Rove ran an effective campaign (if winning is your goal).
The increased turnout in the AA and youth vote did affect the race but the Hispanic, college educated and suburban increases were just as important.
The Democrates did not so much win the race as the Republicans lost due to a decrease in the turnout of their base and rejection of the independent voters.
Curtis Gans analysis is interesting and I took note of his chart on partisan voting over the last half centuary. It shows a steady increase in the Democratic vote since 1980 (22. 4% - 31.3%) over the last eight elections while the Republician vote has see-sawed in a eratic manner over the same period I don’t know why this is so but the steady Democrate trend line seems the better one going forward.