More On The Vanishing Middle
by Chris Bowers, Tue Feb 15, 2005 at 10:01:07 AM EST
In the 2004 Presidential Election, very few voters changed their minds. In fact, NAES notes that very few voters who even considered both candidates:
Very few American voters changed their minds during the 2004 presidential campaign, the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election survey shows. Just 16 percent of those who voted for George W. Bush said there was "ever a time" when they thought they would vote for John Kerry. And 15 percent of Kerry voters said there was "ever a time" when they thought they would vote for Bush. Put another way, 84 percent of Bush voters and 85 percent of Kerry voters said they never thought they would vote for the other candidate. While very few considered both, even fewer ever actually changed their minds: According to a study by Draft Inc: The study reveals that only 4.7 percent of voters nationwide switched their choice of candidate during the course of the election. And while a slight majority (59 percent) of those that did switch did so relatively late in the game (from October through Election Day) Another sign of fewer voters changing their minds comes form my work on the Incumbent Rule. Check out the trend among undecideds in polls taken during the final week of recent election cycles:Year Polls Und. Inc. Chal. 1976-88 155 11.8 20% 80% 1994 101 11.2 35% 65% 1998 76 10.1 27% 73% 2000 31 8.6 40% 60% 2002-4 60 7.5 42% 58% Total 451 9.7 28% 72%I have not updated this entirely with all 2004 polls, but still the trendline among undecideds in final polls is obvious. In cycle after cycle, the number of undecideds as a percentage of the electorate during the final week of an election is decreasing. Not only are fewer people changing their minds, fewer and fewer people are even leaving their options open.
Independents Not Turning Out To Vote
Just like they did in 2000, the National Annenberg Election Survey measured partisan self-identification for the 2004 far more comprehensively than any other polling outfit. From their post-election report:
Polling of 67,777 registered voters from October 7, 2003, through November 16, 2004, showed that 31.8 percent called themselves Republicans and 34.6 percent said they were Democrats, a Democratic edge of 2.8 percentage points. The margin of sampling error on those findings was just over one third of one percentage point, up or down. The 2000 National Annenberg election Survey, involving 44,877 registered voters interviewed from December 14, 1999 through January 19, 2001, showed that 29.9 percent called themselves Republicans and 33.7 percent said they were Democrats, a slightly larger Democratic advantage of 3.8 percentage points. The margin of sampling error for the 2000 findings was less than one half of one percentage point, up or down. "We ordinarily do not report tenths of percentage points," said Adam Clymer, political director of the survey, "but with samples this large and sampling errors this small, we feel confident in reporting relatively small changes. Using this information, in conjunction with the overall voter turnout statistics provided by the United States Election Project and the partisan-self identification exit poll information provided by the Roper Center, it is possible to develop an estimation of voter turnout by partisan self-identification:Estimated Turnout by Party ID, Voting Eligible Population
2000 2004
Rep 64.7% 70.6%
Dem 64.0% 64.9%
Ind 39.5% 47.0%
Although the different questions from NAES and the exit polls prevent drawing a more definite conclusion, it still seems pretty clear that self-identifying independents are not turning out to vote at nearly the same rate as self-identifying partisans. It is also particularly disturbing that while both Republican and Independent turnout increased sizably from 2000 to 2004, Democratic turnout remained flat. We may have helped move a lot of unlikely voters, but we did not mobilize our base nearly as well as Republicans did.Equal on hatred, lacking on self-love
In 2004, both Democrats and Republicans recorded record levels of dislike for the nominee of the opposing party. However, while Republicans recorded record levels of excitement about their candidate, Democrats recorded average levels of excitement about theirs. As I already blogged, over at Donkey Rising, David Goodman discussed the findings of the University of Michigan's American National Election Study in support of this conclusion:
Republicans gave Kerry a mean score of 32 - six points worse than the score of 38 McGovern received from GOP identifiers in 1972 - and 14 points worse than the score Gore received from Republicans four years earlier. This is the first example of intensified partisanship, and it provides a more nuanced understanding of Kerry's overall thermometer score - Kerry was the least liked Democrat ever, in the brief history of presidential thermometers, among Republican identifiers. There are some future precincts in New Hampshire and Iowa where that might qualify as a badge of honor.But if Kerry was the least liked Democrat among rival party followers, George W Bush did him one better in 2004. Bush emerged as the least liked opposition-party presidential candidate, ever, of either major party. Democratic identifiers bestowed upon Bush a mean score of 29 - - a full 12 points lower than the score Democrats gave him four years earlier.
The larger story here is that in 2004, Democratic and Republican identifiers appeared more dramatically polarized than at any time in the past 36 years. The normal respect reserved for American leaders of the opposition party seems to have eroded nearly completely among followers of both major parties. What distinguishes this particular circumstance is its partisan symmetry. Hostility toward the leader of the opposition party is mutually shared by Democrats and Republicans alike. The implications are also magnified by the nearly identical sizes of these blocs of partisan voters (48% Democratic, 47% Republican).
The final bit of data that goes some distance toward explaining Bush's relative advantage over Kerry in terms is also unprecedented. Of all the candidates who secured their parties' nominations since 1968, George W Bush was the candidate most revered by his own party. His mean score of 84 surpassed even Reagan's 1984 thermometer of 78 among Republican identifiers. And in so doing, Bush also bested the previous high rating for candidates from their partisan followers, Bill Clinton's mark of 80 from Democrats in 1996. In 2004, Kerry attained ratings from Democrats that were typical. Bush generated ratings from Republicans that set records.
Click here to read the already lengthy discussion of this study.Conclusion
All of these studies point both to an increasingly polarized electorate with a small and dwindling block of swing voters, and to an insufficiently motivated Democratic base. I agree with New Donkey that every demographic is really a swing demographic, because a shift of just a few percentage points in your favor among any demographic, whether it is solid pro-Bush, solid pro-Kerry or somewhere in between, would have dramatically changed the outcome of the election. However, while we should scrap for every vote possible, being all things to all people at all times cause you to be not much to pretty much everyone, it would also appear that more votes are to be found by motivating the base than anywhere else. As fewer and fewer people even consider switching to the opposition, much less actually changing their minds, Republican turnout is increasing and Democratic turnout is static. Further, Republicans love their leadership while Democrats only like theirs. There might be something to the idea of expanding the base by exiting the unaffiliated and independents with your message since they seem generally disaffected right now, but that isn't going to happen unless you start to actually articulate your message.
I do not know for certain whether or not the Rockridge Institute's philosophy on swing voters is correct, but I do know that it seems to be the only one that addresses the situation that the numbers laid out in this post present. As a result of increasing polarization and comparatively high Republican self-love, we need to excite our base and articulate our agenda or else we are going to keep losing close elections as a result of low turnout. I do not know if it will work for certain, but considering the failure of other strategies of late, we need to at least give it a try. I certainly hope that in 2008, "electability" arguments center around concepts like "who is best able to articulate the Democratic agenda and bring reformer appeal to the electorate," rather than the schlock we had in 2004, "who can appeal to southerners and who has military cred." Of course, since doing so would require the MSM to stop parroting the bad advice the Noise Machine gives to Democrats on how to win elections, any such transformation will be extremely difficult.
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