News analysis: In search of the 'values vote'
Much has been made of the 2004 presidential election exit poll in which a plurality of voters revealed “moral issues” were the most influential in determining how they cast their ballots.
The notion of the “values vote,” a new, powerful, downright deterministic electoral contingent moved largely by opposition to abortion and gay marriage, was born–but perhaps prematurely.
Twenty-two percent of all respondents to the 2004 National Election Poll cited “moral issues” as being most salient in deciding their votes. Twenty percent cited economic issues, 19 percent cited terrorism and 15 percent cited the war in Iraq.
Seventy-nine percent of the “moral values” voters cast ballots for Bush, while only 18 percent voted for Kerry. Conversely, 80 percent of those who responded that economic concerns most influenced their votes cast ballots for Kerry, while only 18 percent voted for Bush.
Poll results were widely reported the day after the election, providing a convenient, compelling and memorable news script to cast the relatively close outcome as the product of a sharply polarized electorate (even though it was quietly revised in the press within days).
To complete the red vs. blue culture war narrative, it was reported that 35 percent of self-identified Republicans voted based on “moral values,” while only 10 percent of Democrats did likewise. Regular churchgoers also tended to vote for Bush, while the lower income brackets aligned with Kerry.
Interesting figures, but it’s hardly a revelation that poor people vote Democratic and religious people vote Republican, and therefore no compelling argument for a “values vote” deciding the election for Bush.
“Moral issues” did not move mass numbers of swing voters. Relative to the entire electorate, more “values voters” reported they had already decided one month before the election how they were going to vote.
Neither did “moral issues” drive a significant number of new voters to the polls. Nine percent of “moral issues” voters were first-time voters, compared to 11 percent of all voters. (In comparison, 20 percent of voters who cited education as their paramount concern had not previously voted.)
In states with gay marriage bans on their ballots, voter turnout did not markedly increase relative to other states (just 0.4 percent). Marriage amendments did not automatically color states red, either: Bush’s vote share actually decreased by 0.3 percent from the 2000 election in states voting on gay marriage bans in 2004. Kerry also won Michigan and Oregon even as voters passed “traditional marriage” amendments to their state constitutions.
It is an axiom of electoral politics that party identification is by far the most reliable predictor of how a given person will vote, not specific issue positions. Voters with pre-existing support for other Bush policies–namely, those who thought the war in Iraq was going well and those who reported they were better off financially–were significantly more likely to name “moral values” as the decisive factor in their votes. When the Bush campaign started talking “moral values,” those who already leaned Republican for other reasons adopted the language, and parroted it back to pollsters when asked to rationalize their votes.
“Values voters” were members of the Republican base grounded in money and militarism, not converted swing voters who tipped the electoral scales. If there is any “values vote” to speak of and stump on, it is as a means of mobilizing existing supporters, not inspiring new ones.
Whether the “values vote” exists beyond the 2004 election and can surface to command its alleged clout in future contests remains to be seen, largely thanks to the policies President
Bush has pursued since riding its supposed wave to victory.
Since cutting federal funding for stem cell research and outlawing “partial-birth abortion” in his first term, Bush has done nothing of “valuable” substance. In fact, excepting an occasional passing statement, he has made scant mention of the issues his socially conservative base claims moved it to deliver him the election, even sidestepping them in the midst of the recent Supreme Court battle.
In response, Bush’s base is deserting him. According to an AP/Ispos poll released in October, white evangelicals have lost the most faith–their support for the president’s policy agenda was down 30 percent from November 2004. Support for Bush from Republican women and Southerners also dropped more than 25 percent during the past year. While two-thirds of all Republicans strongly approved of Bush’s performance last year at this time, only half do so currently.
For many longtime supporters, the death knell for Bush’s credibility sounded when he nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. And by failing to nominate overt social conservatives to either vacant seat he has had opportunity to fill, Bush angered and betrayed his allies on the religious right.
Bush’s departures from ideological party lines have also cost him, tossing aside fiscal restraint and integrity for runaway federal spending and executive branch scandal over the CIA leak and the buildup to war in Iraq.
Public opinion of the administration’s mishandling of the war is also a decisive factor, with the majority of the country now, for the first time since the invasion, reporting disapproval of Bush’s Iraq policy.
During his electoral campaigns and during his first term, Bush was able to walk a more moderate line, pleasing his far-right base without unduly riling the center, or the left. In his second term, Bush’s policies have caught up to him, and are now sprouting malcontents across the political landscape.
If Bush stays his present course, it may not matter whether “values” can rise above other concerns to inspire the electorate. With his approval ratings continually descending into unexplored doldrums, if the president and his advisers truly believed “moral issues” had rallying power, one would expect Bush to try and excavate his numbers by renewing calls for the Federal Marriage Amendment, or pushing the Supreme Court to take up “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance or “intelligent design” in public schools.
Instead, Bush started talking terror. He put out a top ten list of “terrorist plots” his administration had allegedly foiled since Sept. 11 (which experts disputed) to offset criticism of his management of the “war on terror.” He set out on a tour preaching to converted military families and staging “conversations” with U.S. troops to offset criticism of his policies in Iraq. He rolled out a $7 billion plan to deal with a hypothetical avian flu pandemic to offset criticism of his and FEMA’s “heck of a job” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Partisan issue positions are splashing outside the clean lines of the red and blue map that has come to symbolize the 2004 presidential race. However enamored they may be of the “culture war” narrative, when 2006 or 2008 rolls around (especially if the latter brings Hillary vs. Condi, in which case all bets are off) politicians and pundits may well find the “values vote” has been selected out of the political gene pool–or, if you prefer, removed by the hand of an intelligent designer–and has left a murky shade of purple in its wake.
The notion of the “values vote,” a new, powerful, downright deterministic electoral contingent moved largely by opposition to abortion and gay marriage, was born–but perhaps prematurely.
Twenty-two percent of all respondents to the 2004 National Election Poll cited “moral issues” as being most salient in deciding their votes. Twenty percent cited economic issues, 19 percent cited terrorism and 15 percent cited the war in Iraq.
Seventy-nine percent of the “moral values” voters cast ballots for Bush, while only 18 percent voted for Kerry. Conversely, 80 percent of those who responded that economic concerns most influenced their votes cast ballots for Kerry, while only 18 percent voted for Bush.
Poll results were widely reported the day after the election, providing a convenient, compelling and memorable news script to cast the relatively close outcome as the product of a sharply polarized electorate (even though it was quietly revised in the press within days).
To complete the red vs. blue culture war narrative, it was reported that 35 percent of self-identified Republicans voted based on “moral values,” while only 10 percent of Democrats did likewise. Regular churchgoers also tended to vote for Bush, while the lower income brackets aligned with Kerry.
Interesting figures, but it’s hardly a revelation that poor people vote Democratic and religious people vote Republican, and therefore no compelling argument for a “values vote” deciding the election for Bush.
“Moral issues” did not move mass numbers of swing voters. Relative to the entire electorate, more “values voters” reported they had already decided one month before the election how they were going to vote.
Neither did “moral issues” drive a significant number of new voters to the polls. Nine percent of “moral issues” voters were first-time voters, compared to 11 percent of all voters. (In comparison, 20 percent of voters who cited education as their paramount concern had not previously voted.)
In states with gay marriage bans on their ballots, voter turnout did not markedly increase relative to other states (just 0.4 percent). Marriage amendments did not automatically color states red, either: Bush’s vote share actually decreased by 0.3 percent from the 2000 election in states voting on gay marriage bans in 2004. Kerry also won Michigan and Oregon even as voters passed “traditional marriage” amendments to their state constitutions.
It is an axiom of electoral politics that party identification is by far the most reliable predictor of how a given person will vote, not specific issue positions. Voters with pre-existing support for other Bush policies–namely, those who thought the war in Iraq was going well and those who reported they were better off financially–were significantly more likely to name “moral values” as the decisive factor in their votes. When the Bush campaign started talking “moral values,” those who already leaned Republican for other reasons adopted the language, and parroted it back to pollsters when asked to rationalize their votes.
“Values voters” were members of the Republican base grounded in money and militarism, not converted swing voters who tipped the electoral scales. If there is any “values vote” to speak of and stump on, it is as a means of mobilizing existing supporters, not inspiring new ones.
Whether the “values vote” exists beyond the 2004 election and can surface to command its alleged clout in future contests remains to be seen, largely thanks to the policies President
Bush has pursued since riding its supposed wave to victory.
Since cutting federal funding for stem cell research and outlawing “partial-birth abortion” in his first term, Bush has done nothing of “valuable” substance. In fact, excepting an occasional passing statement, he has made scant mention of the issues his socially conservative base claims moved it to deliver him the election, even sidestepping them in the midst of the recent Supreme Court battle.
In response, Bush’s base is deserting him. According to an AP/Ispos poll released in October, white evangelicals have lost the most faith–their support for the president’s policy agenda was down 30 percent from November 2004. Support for Bush from Republican women and Southerners also dropped more than 25 percent during the past year. While two-thirds of all Republicans strongly approved of Bush’s performance last year at this time, only half do so currently.
For many longtime supporters, the death knell for Bush’s credibility sounded when he nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. And by failing to nominate overt social conservatives to either vacant seat he has had opportunity to fill, Bush angered and betrayed his allies on the religious right.
Bush’s departures from ideological party lines have also cost him, tossing aside fiscal restraint and integrity for runaway federal spending and executive branch scandal over the CIA leak and the buildup to war in Iraq.
Public opinion of the administration’s mishandling of the war is also a decisive factor, with the majority of the country now, for the first time since the invasion, reporting disapproval of Bush’s Iraq policy.
During his electoral campaigns and during his first term, Bush was able to walk a more moderate line, pleasing his far-right base without unduly riling the center, or the left. In his second term, Bush’s policies have caught up to him, and are now sprouting malcontents across the political landscape.
If Bush stays his present course, it may not matter whether “values” can rise above other concerns to inspire the electorate. With his approval ratings continually descending into unexplored doldrums, if the president and his advisers truly believed “moral issues” had rallying power, one would expect Bush to try and excavate his numbers by renewing calls for the Federal Marriage Amendment, or pushing the Supreme Court to take up “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance or “intelligent design” in public schools.
Instead, Bush started talking terror. He put out a top ten list of “terrorist plots” his administration had allegedly foiled since Sept. 11 (which experts disputed) to offset criticism of his management of the “war on terror.” He set out on a tour preaching to converted military families and staging “conversations” with U.S. troops to offset criticism of his policies in Iraq. He rolled out a $7 billion plan to deal with a hypothetical avian flu pandemic to offset criticism of his and FEMA’s “heck of a job” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Partisan issue positions are splashing outside the clean lines of the red and blue map that has come to symbolize the 2004 presidential race. However enamored they may be of the “culture war” narrative, when 2006 or 2008 rolls around (especially if the latter brings Hillary vs. Condi, in which case all bets are off) politicians and pundits may well find the “values vote” has been selected out of the political gene pool–or, if you prefer, removed by the hand of an intelligent designer–and has left a murky shade of purple in its wake.
posted by Holly at 8:29 PM
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