Amway vs. Outsourcing: How George Bush won
Looking at exit polls, the most striking thing in all of them is the top issue: Moral values narrowly edged out the economy and terrorism, driving the votes of 22% of the electorate.
Our final tracking poll did show an up-tick for moral values as the top issue, but it was still only ranked number one by a paltry 4% of respondents. In the week before the election, it had only been 2% and even among white evangelicals it only took 6%. Differences in methodology or not, the 22% who said moral values were the top issue tells the story of the election.
One of the first things the Bush campaign did when gearing up for re-election was to build a top-down get-out-the-vote machine, often described as "Amway-like." While the Bush campaign was getting state, regional, county, town and precinct directors in place, Senator Kerry's prospect of winning the Democratic nomination were looking grim. By the time 2004 dawned, the Bush camp had nearly its whole apparatus in place.
Mr. Kerry, on the other hand, did not even win the nomination until March. To his credit, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe compressed the nomination schedule-and got a nominee early. But before anyone had even cast a ballot in the Democratic primary, Americans Coming Together-a 527 consisting of Democratic interest groups-along with the DNC and the major labor unions began setting up the Democratic GOTV operation. By the time Kerry had clinched the nomination, these three groups were in place-but the Kerry campaign was barred by law from coordinating election activities with them. The Kerry GOTV operation had essentially been, in a word, outsourced. The Kerry campaign decided to focus little effort on turnout in noncompetitive states. The other three groups made same determination, focusing their combined resources on the swing states they believed would decide the election.
It was that decision that cost Mr. Kerry the popular vote. The Bush campaign ran up the score in their safe states, and closed the gap in states that were safely Mr. Kerry's. Nationally, Republicans increased their numbers in the electorate, going from comprising 35% in 2000 to 37% in 2004. On the other hand, the Democrats slid back, from 39% of the electorate in 2000 down to 37% in 2004. It was that tie that allowed Mr. Bush to claim victory: He performed slightly better among Republicans than he did in 2000, while Mr. Kerry did slightly better among Democrats and Independents than Vice President Gore did in 2000. Had the breakdown of the electorate matched 2000, Kerry would have narrowly won the popular vote-like Gore before him.
Mr. Bush's campaign-while bringing out more Republicans-got out more conservatives as well. In 2000 conservatives made up 29% of the electorate; this time around they comprised 34%. Mr. Bush only made marginal improvements among moderates and conservatives versus 2000, while Mr. Kerry made slightly larger improvements among liberals and moderates from what Mr. Gore got in 2000. Again, had Mr. Bush not been able to turnout conservatives in mass and making them a significantly larger share of the electorate, Mr. Kerry would have been victorious in the popular vote.
Where this increased Republican turnout had the great impact was the U.S. Senate. Among the open-seat races, eight were in states Bush won in 2000 and one was in a state Gore won in 2000. Both of the seats with highly vulnerable incumbents were in states Bush won in landslides in 2000. Democrats only managed to win two seats-one in Colorado, and an effortless victory in Illinois. In the last-minute-surprise state of Kentucky, a swing of 3% toward Republicans may have been enough to keep the seat in the hands of Senator Jim Bunning. In Louisiana, a 12-point swing toward Republicans helped Congressman David Vitter to because the first Republican elected to the Senate in Louisiana since Reconstruction, and without the need for a runoff.
There were 5-point swings in North Carolina and South Carolina that helped deliver those races to Congressmen Richard Burr and Jim DeMint, respectively. A 12-point swing toward the Republicans in Alaska was critical to keeping Senator Lisa Murkowski in office. In Florida, a 5-point swing narrowly delivered a victory to former HUD secretary Mel Martinez, had the swing been any smaller Betty Castor would have won.
In three states, Mr. Bush's turnout operation didn't affect the race: Oklahoma, South Dakota and Colorado. In Oklahoma, partisan composition of the electorate was nearly unchanged from 2000. Congressman Carson's weak showing among independents and loss of Democrats cost him the race, and delivered it to GOP Congressman Tom Coburn. In South Dakota, Democrats and Republicans both dropped as a portion of the electorate. But Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle lost in the end because he failed to do well enough among Republicans to overcome the lean of the state. And in Colorado, Pete Coors ran way behind Mr. Bush in the state-and failed to top Democratic Attorney General Ken Salazar.
In what proved the most critical state-Ohio-Mr. Bush's team squared off against the groups backing Mr. Kerry. Mr. Bush's team won the turnout game. Mr. Kerry topped Mr. Bush in the persuasion game, but it wasn't enough. Mr. Kerry won Ohio's independent voters by a 19-point margin (59% to 40%); in 2000 Mr. Bush won independents by a 16-point margin. Mr. Bush's team was able to overcome the 35-point swing against him among independents by boosting the number of Republicans showing up at the polls. In 2000, 38% of Ohio's electorate were Democrats while 37% were Republicans, in 2004 it was 40% Republican and 35% Democratic.
Had Ohio's composition been similar to 2000, Mr. Kerry would be President-elect Kerry right now. Had the Democratic ground game even been able to limit the swing to just 3 points toward the Republicans, Mr. Kerry would have also won Ohio-and the White House.
Mr. Bush made slight improvements among some groups, something our polling detected in the last few days. We showed Mr. Bush leading with those over age 65, by a 5-point margin-just like the exit polls. We also showed Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry performing as well with their respective parties as the exit polls. We saw Mr. Kerry narrowly edging out Mr. Bush among independents. Significantly, Mr. Bush also edged out Mr. Kerry among Catholics in our final poll, while our margin among Protestants, 19 points, was identical to the exit polls.
There was good and bad news for both sides in this election. The best news for the Republicans was, obviously, that they won. They put together a top-notch GOTV machine and it won the day, despite an overall softness Mr. Bush's numbers had. The first lesson they should take from this win is, don't expect it to happen like this again. The Republicans were blessed with four years to set up the kind of operation they did, they were also given a gift with the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage-a reason for their conservative supporters to go to the polls.
In 2008 the Republicans will have a contentious primary and likely won't have a nominee any time before March, and even when one does arrive there is unlikely to be anything like the war chest Mr. Bush amassed. Also, if the Bush administration is successful in pushing a strong conservative agenda, the influx of motivated conservatives may have lost a reason to vote. Most importantly, the demographics are moving against them: African Americans are up to 11% of the vote and Hispanics, 8%.
There is some dispute over Hispanics in the exit poll. A separately-commissioned exit poll showed Mr. Kerry winning by a 2-to-1 margin over Mr. Bush, which falls in line with our polling before (61% to 33%) and after (58% to 42%) the election. Both our data and this privately-commissioned exit poll showed Mr. Kerry with larger margins than the National Election Pool exit poll.
The Democrats can take solace in the fact that they did better with independents nationally, edging out Mr. Bush among an important swing group he won in 2000. Democrats performed particularly strong among independents in the battleground states, winning independents in Ohio and Florida by double-digit margins.
But Democrats must deal with the fact that they could not get their troops motivated enough to win, and lost to an incumbent who received low marks: Despite the saturation of the electorate with Bush-friendly conservatives, Mr. Bush's job in office was only approved of by 52%, less than half (49%) thought the country was headed in the right direction, more than half (52%) did not trust Mr. Bush on the economy, and only a slim majority (52%) approved of his decision to invade Iraq.
***Comparison tables to be posted on Monday***
(11/5/2004)