One of the most interesting factoids gleaned from the exit poll data now available is getting very little attention, at least to my knowledge. Given that during this campaign we heard a lot about taxes, "spreading the wealth", and so forth, this exit poll factoid may point to a shift in American politics that could be quite important in economic and tax policy going forward.
In the extended text below, I've compared the CNN exit poll numbers from Kerry in '04 and Obama in '08 based on income level. The results are quite surprising and counter-intuitive.
The chart below shows how well each candidate did in the '04 and '08 election in terms of raw percentages, and the margin of victory within each group. The "Margin Shift" category indicates the vote shift from 2004 to 2008 (e.g. a 21-point margin increase going from D+27 to D+48 means that the Democrat gained on average +10.5 points and the Republican lost -10.5 points).
Clearly, Obama did better in each income group than Kerry -- not surprising, since he did better than Kerry among voters overall (about 5 points better, on average). However, there are a couple of clear outliers here, in the very lowest and very highest income brackets.
The +10.5 point shift among those making less than $15,000 is not too surprising, since many of these are likely students or otherwise previously unregistered low-income voters that the Obama campaign targeted. But notice the overall trend here -- as you move up the income ladder, Obama did better and better in comparison to Kerry in '04. It culminates in a +17 point shift among the richest ($200K+) voters. Obama actually won a majority of these voters, whereas Kerry lost them 35%-63%. I find this remarkable.
This is made all the more remarkable when you consider that Obama made no secret that he expects more of the tax burden to be shouldered by those making more than $250,000 (as Republicans would argue, he would "spread their wealth around").
Indeed, you might argue that Obama made the most gains among people who will gain the least from his tax plan and the fewest gains among those who will benefit the most. Many (though not necessarily "most") of those in the lowest income bracket are likely either students, seniors, or unemployed individuals who will see little or no tax cut. Those in the $200+ bracket will see a tax increase. Those squarely in the "middle class" would see most of the gain, and yet Obama made fewer gains in this group.
This is not to say that Obama did not do well among "middle-class" voters. In fact, he did better than Kerry with this group. But given that Obama stressed the middle class whereas Republicans claimed Obama was a "socialist" Robin Hood who would take from the rich, you would expect Obama's gains (as compared to Kerry) to be concentrated in the middle income brackets. Yet the opposite occurred. It might be accurate to state that the richer one is, the more likely you were to switch from Bush in 2004 to the allegedly "socialist, redistributionist" Obama in 2008.
I wonder if this marks (as I suggested above) an important shift in American politics going forward. Is it the case that the Republicans' emphasis on taxes just doesn't fly as such a critical issue anymore? Do wealthy Americans really buy into the idea (stated during the campaign I believe by Biden and maybe Obama as well) that they have a patriotic duty to pay more taxes? Or are taxes still an issue for them, but the salience of the issue is now so low (compared to other issues) for them that they are willing to vote for a candidate who promises to tax them more heavily?
I ask these questions because I have no idea, and it would be interesting to hear what everyone here thinks. I find the above exit poll results really interesting, and it suggests to me that perhaps tax reform in a progressive direction will face considerably less resistance than in the past.