Public Post
Last night, Karl Rove mentioned some interesting numbers... while the media want us to think Obama won by a landslide (and in the electoral college, he did) when you look at popular vote you see that Obama's 52% was:
- 1.3 points higher than Bush in 2004
- 3.5 points higher than Gore in 2000
- 3 points higher than Clinton in 1996
Some other interesting numbers are surfacing a couple days after the election. We were told over and over that it would be earth-shattering voter turnout, with the youth and minorities coming out in droves... so is it true?
Busting the Turnout Myths of Campaign 2008
By Chris Stirewalt - Political Editor | 11/6/08 10:19 AM
The purveyors of conventional wisdom offered two competing assumptions about how voters would behave on Tuesday.
Either Barack Obama would underperform polls because of secret white racism or voters would be so excited about Obama that they would turn out in record numbers and carry him into the electoral stratosphere.
Both theories turned out to be bunkum...
Republicans and Democrats figured that with perhaps 5 million more registered voters and 20 million more residents of these fruited plains, that the record-breaking turnout of 2004 – some 122 million voters – would be itself shattered.
...Republicans were betting that 130 million turnout was the floor. Democrats hinted that they thought it might be much higher as black voters and young people turned out in droves for Obama.
...We won’t know the final total until after they’ve scrounged the last votes...but it looks like turnout was a disappointment.
Political scientists are estimating total voters anywhere from 123 million and 133 million, but with 97 percent of precincts in, there still hadn’t been 121 million votes counted. Their final total will go beyond what we saw for Bush-Kerry, but as a percentage and as compared with expectations it was a flop.
The always imperfect but irresistible exit polls tell us that 13 percent of voters were black as compared with 12 percent in 2004. Young voters accounted for 18 percent of the electorate, as compared with 16 percent last time around.
...So who stayed home?
I suspect that it’s the same people who claimed to be undecided until the final day of the election – who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for either another Republican after the mess of the past eight years or for a 47-year-old former community organizer.
President-elect Obama’s challenge now is to reach out to the missing 10 million voters.
Because they’re the ones who decide elections, even when they don’t vote.
EWA
These numbers inspire me --- they show that it's not doom and gloom for conservatives. It shows me that we have some work to do, but it's not that bad.
1No, it's not that bad. Approximately HALF of all who voted in this country did NOT choose the Democratic candidate. It's always going to lean two or three percentage points in one direction. This by no means indicates to me that conservatives are waaay off base and need to reconsider all their principles. We're in good company.
2Yeah, I definitely think that it's not doom and gloom for conservatives. Hannity has some great stats about that last night, actually. Exit polls on people's feelings toward the Republican party. 9% did not vote Republican because they think that the party is too conservative. Not a large number at all.
I'm really not surprised about the young and black voters. They did turn out in larger numbers, but not like we thought they would.
3My new avi is a depiction of all the undecided voters who never decided, and what they did on election day!
4Those numbers are encouraging to see. It is nice to know that almost half the people who voted did not vote for Obama. I wonder if the liberals who were complaining about the electoral college before the election are still complaining now. Somehow, I doubt it.
I did find it interesting that approximately 87% of the registered voters in my precinct did vote. (2600 out of 3000). So to see that we didn't have a record turnout seems strange.
5So statistically then, the young voters stayed on their growth trend right?
6Those numbers are very positive.
7Thank you for posting this Sy.
I did my part of the youth vote!
8I have to continue to think that we are not alone in our beliefs that Obama is not the man for the job.
9It's interesting that Karl Rove would say that since his guy claimed a mandate with 51% in 2004.
I just read an article about youth turnout. There's a million ways to spin it, but it looks like the spike in Democratic youth turnout was effectively canceled out by the drop in Republican youth turnout.
10TS, the whole point is not to spin, but to show that nearly half the nation did not want to elect BO, but the media are spinning it like we're the most united nation ever.
11Great post Sy. I know that in OH the numbers were overwhelming but only in Columbus, Cincinnati, Athens and Cleveland. Obama one I believe 21 of 88 counties. In my County 65% + voted for McCain.
I think the GOP needs to market to the youngins... The College Students dont you think?
12Obama won* .. Im tired.
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