KERRY 62-37

FROM: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/14/who_reelected_bush/

Among those voters who decided who to vote for during the campaign, Kerry 62-37.

Kerry led by 6 points on those who decided at the last minute.

Among those who were certain who they were voting for early on, Bush won 65-34.

Those numbers are odd, but they're cited by Thomas Oliphant, who's very reputable.

These are very interesting numbers, although I'm interested in seeing these elsewhere and seeing how that brokedown. If I recall, at the start of the campaign, both Bush and Kerry were quite even, so it is striking.

If these figures are true, however, then I think we may be giving the Kerry campaign too much grief. Yes, there were mistakes. But if he really won over this large a percentage of the persuadables, that tells us that he did pretty damn well. The problem is the intractability of some Bush supporters who have a cult-like devotion to their leader.

ie, that the undecideds broke for Bush.

People who decided within the last week of the election went Kerry, except 1% who went for someone else. Between 52% & 55%, depending on when they decided. Nothing in this election makes any sense at all.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

This needs to go over to this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1371524

Among the 47 percent who said they always knew whom they were for, Bush led Kerry by 65-34 percent; among the 43 percent who decided during the campaign, Kerry won by 62-37 percent, and he led by roughly 6 points among the roughly 10 percent who said they decided over the last weekend or on Election Day. That suggests a reelection landscape that favored Bush, but a campaign and an election year that featured a mess in Iraq and economic uncertainty, along with poor responses to each by the president. Things got truly close after Bush's confidence-shaking performance in the three debates, along with Vice President Dick Cheney's inability to appeal to moderate, loosely affiliated voters in his high-ratings debate with John Edwards.

Here is another snippet:

Four years ago, the gender gap was alive. According to the networks' exit poll, Bush beat Gore by 11 points among men and lost to him by 11 points among women (The LA Times's gaps were slightly less). This time around, with a slightly more female electorate, Kerry did the same or a bit better among men, but his margin shrank to at most three points among women.

Bush also can take pride in his higher percentage among Latinos, 5-plus percent of the electorate, where his share of the vote increased from the mid-30s to the low-40s. However, after discounting for the sure-thing states of California and Texas, the actual impact on the results appears largely confined to New Mexico.

And another:

The networks' poll of decisive issues for voters showed that terrorism and the imprecise "moral values" were gigantic Bush pluses, but that Iraq and the economy broke almost as decisively for Kerry.

Terrorism was not the top decisive issue, but it appears to have been so at the margin of victory. To be perverse, you could say that Bush's advantage came from liberal, urban, or suburban prochoice women who think we were wrong to invade Iraq, rarely if ever go to church, are worried about healthcare, and think the economy is in the toilet. Most of the rest came from gay people, 23 percent of whom helped reelect the president. They are all concerned about terrorism and unsure about Kerry. Go figure, but don't talk to me about mandate.

"Among the 47 percent who said they always knew whom they were for, Bush led Kerry by 65-34 percent; among the 43 percent who decided during the campaign, Kerry won by 62-37 percent, and he led by roughly 6 points among the roughly 10 percent who said they decided over the last weekend or on Election Day."

That adds up to a Kerry win, yes? (numbers aren't my strong suit)

All those numbers are based on the same exit polls that predicted a win for Kerry. That's why the numbers calculate in his favor.

"But contrary to first impressions, Bush did less well than he did in 2000 in rural and small town precincts..."

"Two main elements of the initial noise are fading: that crazed Christians driven by hatred of gay people reelected the president (they helped, but they didn't decide it), and that Bush rode a rising tide of rural and small-town voters (he didn't)."

Very odd. I was suspicious of the idea that Bush got the rural and fundie vote out as an explanation for why he won. Now it really makes no sense to me.

So much about these election results invalidate the lessons from previous experience. It is possible, of course, for an election to represent a big turning point, but it is hard to imagine a voter surge for Bush that breaks all previous rules such as Reagan did, for example.

We are either living in a very, very different country than we were a few years ago, or this election is as fraudulent as they come.

When I looked a the CNN exit poll data, I noticed that George Bush's vote percentages increased among voters who earned more money. expecially those making above 100,000. Kerry took the lower economic brackets and as income went up, those voters went to Bush. In Florida, the income-vote correlation was clear. Nationally there were a group of lower middle class workers who went for Bush. I can find the numbers tomorrow when I'm not so tired.

At any rate, the mainstream media has suggested no correlation between income and voting patterns. They instead attribute it to morals and geography--the cultural divide.
If CNN's exit polls are accurate, Democrats could benefit by getting more low income workers to vote.

"Democrats could benefit by getting more low income workers to vote."

Man, they were standing in line for 8-10 hours in working class neighborhoods! How many more could we get out?

"He carried high income voters."

See, that puzzles me too, since the gap betwen rich and poor has grown wider, and the wealth is more concentrated in fewer hands. That would seem to mitigate against the idea of hordes of newly rich people turning out to vote for Bush and giving him a margin of victory.

Right, but what struck me as odd--but not to others more informed in voting patterns--is that high income voters make up a far greater chunk of the electorate than their numbers in the population.
Of course the way Supervisors of Elections offices are run is key. Low income precincts were allocated fewer voting machines. As evidently was the case at college campuses.
Democratic strategy has got to start with getting Democrats in the offices of Secretary of State and Supervisors of Elections. In Palm Beach county, thankfully Madame Butterfly LaPore was voted out, so we'll have a better shot in the next election. Nationwide Republican control of voting offices still remains a very strong concern.

The chart I pasted is a bit hard to read, but the link is also below.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html
Vote by income
BUSH KERRY NADER

Under $15,000 (8%) 36% n/a 63% 0%

$15-30,000 (15%) 42% n/a 57% 0%

$30-50,000 (22%) 49% n/a 50% 0%

$50-75,000 (23%) 56% n/a 43% 0%

$75-100,000 (14%) 55% n/a 45% 0%

$100-150,000 (11%) 57% n/a 42% 1%

$150-200,000 (4%) 58% n/a 42% *

$200,000 or More (3%) 63% n/a 35%

0.47*0.34+0.43*0.62+0.10*0.53=0.4794 for Kerry.

o.47*0.65+0.43*0.37+0.10*0.47=0.5115 for Bush.

However, these totals are presumably weighted to reflect the actual vote count, so that doesn't really mean anything. The methodology of exit polls requires it to come out that way.

it's not really surprising. Kerry would have HAD to win over most of his supporters during the campaign as he wasn't known nationally as bush was.

bush being an incumbant helped him, especially in a time of war where they can play the fear card by trying to claim Kerry would not protect them.

that the combination of the terra and "moral" values issues was decisive.

And if that is the case, I'm not sure how Kerry could have won this election.

because Kerry DID get a large turnout and the numbers were good. but i think if they had kept in mind that republicans were working on their turnout since right after 2000 elections they would have done a bit more to make sure they could have got more turnout to exceed that just in case.

republicans started their GOTV after 2000 elections. we started ours just this year after the primary.

i do agree about the combination of terror and moral values hurt him since there was some graph showing how support for the anti gay amendments correlated with LACK of support for Kerry. and of course we had the bin laden video out. and that missing iraq explosives story actually HELPED BUSH because the media did not report it in a way to show he should be accountable. they just reported it and people would get scared and those types usually vote republican.

the case, the Dems needed to start yesterday.

One of my three Republican Catholic brothers wrote a LTTE of my western Ohio hometown newspaper and he pulled out all, and I mean all the lies about Kerry and his "Taxachusetts" link to gay marriage and abortion, even mentioning the "Big Dig"! He pointed out that "We don't want Ohio like this", and ended with this question: "If Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein or the North Korean dictator could vote November 2, who do you think they would choose?" That rural, white county went 70/30 to the Cheerleader-in-Chief, and I can't begin to guess where that 30% for Kerry came from. I mean, Talabama ain't got nuthin' on my redneck corner of God's green.

So I don't doubt for a millisecond that fear and hatred of gays and Muslims wasn't a huge factor.

was view Florida and many other close states as states they had LOST. and they went to work based on that. remember how on du we would always do electoral predictions by assuming the gore states on our side ? but people forget that the 2000 elections were very close and many states required an automatic recount because it was so close. a small change could easily have swung the state to the other candidate.

another thing is the bush popular vote which was mostly gained from solid red states in red areas. all they did was increase turnout in places which republicans always win.

also, there was the whole church GOTV thing. they got lists of churches whose leaders views were right wing. and used them to help get out the vote for bush. many of these religious people were openly speaking out against kerry saying things like they will go to hell if they vote for kerry . and they focused a lot on gay marriage and abortion.

the good news is that considering all the work republicans did for years they only came out ahead with about 3 million votes and a small electoral lead. Kerry camp started just this year and after he had the nomination wrappped up. and kerry only focused on swing states. a little money towards solid red and blue states to just get out the democratic vote would have cut or exceeded bush's popular vote lead.

california and new york had record level LOW turnout. this really hurt us with popular vote.