Florida Matters
Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 04:24:29 AM PDT
The Obama campaign is having fun with Hillary’s victory in Florida, calling it a tie in the delegate count: Obama 0, Clinton 0. Was Florida just a beauty contest?
The first four major contests—Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina—were all about retail politics—voter Q&A’s, town hall meetings, lunch at local diners. The next seven days leading up to Super Tuesday are going to be completely different. The campaign will appear more like a general election campaign with large rallies scattered across the country and heavy advertising. Voters will be relying on free and paid media to make their decisions, much like Florida. Florida voters had to rely on the internet and TV news to learn about the candidates, as all of the democratic candidates had signed a pledge not to campaign there. There was no retail politicking, and Florida voters went overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton.
UPDATE: I forgot to point out that in addition to defeating Barack Obama, Hillary also beat John Edwards.
Despite the tough news cycle Hillary has faced the last few days, with Obama trouncing her in the South Carolina primary, the media criticizing her husband’s role in his campaign, and Obama receiving the endorsements of Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, Hillary handily won the Florida primary, and according to the exit polls, she also won among voters who made their decision the day of the primary, 34% to 30%. Obama won among those who decided within the previous three days, 46% to 38%. Only 26% of Florida voters said that the Kennedy endorsement was very important and they went for Obama 59% to 31%.
What about Obama’s big multi-racial coalition? The white vote went for Hillary 53% to 23%, as did the Latino vote 59% to 30%. The black vote went for Obama 73% to 25%.
And for all that has been made about Clinton’s campaign tactics, views on the fairness of the negative attacks were similar among Florida and South Carolina voters. When South Carolina voters were asked which candidate had attacked unfairly, 19% said "Only Clinton," 6% said "Only Obama," 51% said "Both," and 21% said "Neither." When Florida voters were asked the same question, 19% said "Only Clinton," 5% said "Only Obama," 45% said "Both," and 26% said "Neither."
Perhaps all of the Obama's supporters stayed home? There’s no way to know this for sure. There are a few things to consider here. First, even though the Hispanic population outnumbers the black population, black voters made up a greater percentage of voters, 19% to 12%. Second, neither campaign had an organization in Florida to conduct a Get Out The Vote campaign. You can argue that Obama would have done much better if he had been able to conduct his much vaunted GOTV efforts. Yet, neither did Hillary and her GOTV efforts were important in her victory in New Hampshire. Third, if Obama’s supporters had stayed home, then you would have expected to see major differences in views of Hillary Clinton and her tactics. As noted above, primary voters in South Carolina and Florida viewed those tactics similarly.
Fourth, the news over the last few days has heavily favored Obama. Clinton’s so-called negative tactics. Obama’s big victory in South Carolina. The Kennedy endorsements. His voters should have been pumped and ready to turn out. Why would they stay at home? Finally, if having the delegates stripped made Florida meaningless, then why did voters turn out in record numbers? Hillary Clinton won more than 840,000 votes, that is more than the 780,000 votes that were cast in the 2004 primary for all candidates combined. By the time the Florida primary was held in 2004, John Kerry had already clinched the nomination and John Edwards had already dropped out of the race. In 2008, Floridians were told that their votes were meaningless, but they showed up in even greater numbers.
There was a constitutional amendment on property taxes on the ballot, but it is not clear that it would have drawn out supporters for any particular candidate. Obama has done better among younger voters than Hillary, and younger voters would be less likely to own property, but Obama has also done better than Hillary among more affluent voters who would be more likely to own property.
It’s too early to determine who will ultimately become the nominee. Thursday’s debate will be important and it will be interesting to see who Edwards decides in pick on. In New Hampshire, it was Hillary, but in South Carolina, it was Obama. Voters also haven’t had much of a chance to digest the Kennedy endorsements and those could have a greater impact once Teddy hits the campaign trail.
Nonetheless, what happened last night was not meaningless. There is no evidence that Obama supporters disproportionately stayed home, but more importantly, this is the United States of America, and in our democracy, voting always matters.
Permalink | 117 comments