HOW BUSH WON THE ELECTION by Kevin Drum....So what really made the difference in this election? Most of the attention has been on "moral values" and terrorism, and I was curious to see what the exit poll results showed. So I decided to take a look at the 2004 exit polls and compare them to the 2000 exit polls.
Details are below -- and there's a bonus issue at the end that might actually be the most important of all in Bush's victory. But first a caveat: this is just a suggestive, rough cut summary. I'm trying to get some idea of what happened, but I'm certainly not trying to pretend that anything I say here is conclusive. Serious analysts will be going through this stuff with a fine tooth comb later, but in the meantime take this for what it's worth.
First off, George Bush won 48% of the vote in 2000 and 51% this year, meaning his overall support increased by 3%. So what I'm looking for are areas where his support was significantly higher or lower than +3%. Here are the things that stood out:
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Bush's support among women increased by 5%. This isn't an awful lot higher than his overall 3% gain, but I'm including it because women make up 54% of the voting population, which makes this important even if the gain is small.
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Bush's support went up by 9 points among Latinos.
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His support was up 7 points among those 60 and older. Apparently the Medicare boondoggle didn't hurt him much.
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His support was up an astonishing 10 points among those with no high school education, a traditional Democratic stronghold.
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His support was down 2 points among gays and lesbians. No surprise there.
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Among those who think government should do more to solve problems, Bush's support was up 10 points. I'm not really sure what to make of this, but I guess it means that Bush really is perceived as a big government conservative.
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Finally, his support was up by 10 points in urban areas and down by 2 points in rural communities, including a surprising 9 point decrease from residents of small towns. This goes against a whole bunch of conventional wisdom (including mine) about the growing urban/rural divide in America. If anything, it seems to have narrowed in this election.
So: support was up among Latinos, the elderly, and high school dropouts. Support was down in the gay community and in small towns. Trying to weave some kind of coherent story around this data is more than I can manage, I'm afraid.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_11/005117.php