The 2004 presidential election: The emergence of a permanent majority?

Political Science Quarterly

Volumn 120, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 33-57

  Abramson, Paul R ^a   Aldrich, John H ^b   Rohde, David W ^a  

^a MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b DUKE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 17644392795     PISSN: 00323195     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/j.1538-165X.2005.tb00537.x     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. These trial heat data are presented in a convenient way, including their overall average view, by James A. Stimson, "Bush v. Kerry Daily Summary of Trial Heat Polls," accessed at http://www.unc.edu/~jstimston/, 25 January 2005.
2. For presidential election results between 1789 and 2000, see CQ Press, Presidential Elections: 1789-2000 (Washington. DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2002).
3. For scores on this measure of "regional voting" between 1944 and 2000, see Paul R. Abramson, John H. Aldrich, and David W. Rohde, Change and Continuity in the 2000 and 2002 Elections (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press. 2003), 109.
4. Bush and Kerry had both decided not to accept federal matching funds for their nomination campaigns and therefore did not have spending limits.
5. See Shanto Iyengar and Donald R. Kinder, News that Matters: Television and American Opinion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
6. These data were collected by students in Duke University's Political Science 101 AS course for a study in preparation by John Aldrich, John Griffin, and Jill Rickershauser. We are grateful to these students for sharing their data with us.
7. Dan Balz and Thomas B. Edsall, "Unprecedented Efforts to Mobilize Voters Begin," Washington Post, 1 November 2004.
8. Vanessa Williams, "Organizing Union Workers to Replace Bush," Washington Post, 23 October 2004.
9. Glenn Justice, "Advocacy Groups Reflect on Their Role in the Election," New York Times, 5 November 2004.
10. I b i d.
11. Elisabeth Bumiller, "Tireless Push to Raise Turnout Was Crucial in G.O.P. Victory," New York Times, 4 November 2004.
12. Pew Research Center, "Religion and the Presidential Vote," accessed at people-press.org, 6 December 2004.
13. Matt Bai, "Who Lost Ohio?," New York Times Magazine, 21 November 2004, 66-74.
14. For example, see U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Bureau of the Census, Projections of the Population of Voting Age, for States, by Race, Hispanic Origin, Sex and Selected Ages, November 7, 2000, Table 1, accessed at landview.census.gov/population/www.socdemo/voting/tabs00, 5 July 2001.
15. Walter Dean Burnham, "The Turnout Problem" in A. James Reichley, ed., Elections: American Style (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1987).
16. Michael P. McDonald and Samuel L. Popkin, "The Myth of the Vanishing Voter," American Political Science Review 95 (December 2001): 963-974.
17. We are grateful to Professor McDonald for providing us with these results. These vote totals are for 19 December 2004.
18. Results for the 2000 election, as well as turnout based upon the voting age population are from Richard M. Scammon, Alice V. McGillivray, and Rhodes Cook, America Votes 24: A Handbook of Contemporary American Election Statistics (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2001), 1, 9.
19. A description of this poll and the sources we use are found in Table 2.
20. Not all the results discussed in this section are presented in Table 2.
21. The 2000 survey was conducted by the Voter News Services and is based upon 13,279 voters leaving 200 polling places on election day. See Marjorie Connelly, "Who Voted: A Portrait of American Politics, 1976-2000," New York Times, 12 November 2000.
22. See Darryl Fears, "Pollsters Debate Hispanics' Presidential Voting," 27 November 2004. Accessed at www.washingtonpost.com, 27 November 2004.
23. Paul R. Abramson, John H. Aldrich, and David W. Ronde, Change and Continuity in the 1980 Elections, revised edition (Washington. DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1983), 290.
24. A poll of 5,154 voters conducted by the Los Angeles Times found that among the approximately 980 single women. 64 percent voted for Kerry. The poll is based on voters sampled at 136 voting places throughout the nation, including fifty polling places in California. About two-thirds of these voters (3,357) came from California. See Rebecca Perry, "Times National Exit Poll Results," Los Angeles Times, accessed at www.latimes.com, 5 November 2004.
25. Philip E. Converse, Angus Campbell, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, "Stability and Change in 1960: A Reinstating Election," American Political Science Review 55 (June 1961): 269-280.
26. Morris P. Fiorina, with Samuel J. Abrams and Jeremy C. Pope, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America (New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005), 69.
27. The most important theoretical discussion remains Morris P. Fiorina, Retrospective Voting in American National Elections (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981).
28. See James E. Campbell, "Introduction - The 2004 Presidential Election Forecasts," PS: Political Science and Politics, 37 (October 2004): 733-735. The forecasts are listed on p. 734. These also may be found at http://www.apsanet.org/ps/oct04/toc.cfm.
29. The question used in 2004 was, "No matter how you voted today, do you usually think of yourself as a Democrat, Republican, Independent, [or] [s]omething else?"
30. Fiorina, Retrospective Voting, 84-105.
31. Donald Green, Bradley Palmquist, and Eric Schickler, Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002).
32. Because this was an exit poll, we can infer that there was an even balance between the two parties among Americans who voted on election day, but we cannot infer that the two parties are evenly balanced in the full electorate.
33. We do not discuss the question asking, "Which one issue mattered most in deciding how you voted for president?" It has been widely noted that 22 percent of the voters chose "moral values" and that 80 percent of the voters choosing this option voted for Bush. As Gary Langer has argued, there are solid reasons to be skeptical about these results, especially when pre-election polls determined that the three most important issues were Iraq, the economy, and terrorism. Langer argues that "moral values" is a "grab bag" that does not belong with the remaining list of specific issues. See Gary Langer, "A Question of Values," New York Times, 6 November 2004. See also Jim Rutenberg, "Poll Question Stirs Debate on Meaning of 'Values,'" New York Times, 6 November 2004.
34. We do not discuss the question asking, "Which one issue mattered most in deciding how you voted for president?" It has been widely noted that 22 percent of the voters chose "moral values" and that 80 percent of the voters choosing this option voted for Bush. As Gary Langer has argued, there are solid reasons to be skeptical about these results, especially when pre-election polls determined that the three most important issues were Iraq, the economy, and terrorism. Langer argues that "moral values" is a "grab bag" that does not belong with the remaining list of specific issues. See Gary Langer, "A Question of Values," New York Times, 6 November 2004. See also Jim Rutenberg, "Poll Question Stirs Debate on Meaning of 'Values,'" New York Times, 6 November 2004.
35. See Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope, Culture War?, 42.
36. For evidence on the 1992, 1996, and 2000 elections, see Abramson, Aldrich, and Rohde, Change and Continuity, 144-146.
37. John H. Aldrich and John D. Griffin, "The Presidency and the Campaign: Creating Voter Priorities in the 2000 Election" in Michael Nelson, ed., The Presidency and the Political System, 7th edition (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2003).
38. We would like to thank Peter Feaver, Christopher Gelpi, and Jason Reifler for sharing these data with us.
39. Steven Kuli, The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters (Program on International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland, 21 October 2004).
40. Poll data accessed at www.latimes.com, 25 October 2004.
41. USA Today, 23 November 2004.
42. Lyn Nofziger, "Bush's Trouble Ahead," New York Times, 1 November 2004.
43. Gary Jacobson compiled the data supporting these statements from the first Gallup poll after the election of every second-term president from Dwight D. Eisenhower through George W. Bush. We are grateful to Professor Jacobson for sharing the data with us and for his permission to cite them.
44. See Richard Fleisher and Jon R. Bond, "The Shrinking Middle in the U.S Congress," British Journal of Political Science 34 (July 2004): 429-451.