Bush won, no question. Which brings analysts to mull over the next issue: "How did he do it?" And in a presidential race as close as this one–with the margin of victory in some states as small as 10,000 votes–a spectrum of demographic groups, from Cuban-Americans in southern Florida to Arab-Americans in southeast Michigan, may well claim responsibility for helping tip the scales. "I fully expect every demographic group in the United States who votes for the winner to claim that it's because of their support that the winner won," says Republican pollster Whit Ayres.
But for all the talk this year about blocs of up-for-grabs swing voters, Tuesday's exit polls (if they can be believed) suggest that most demographic groups exhibited familiar voting patterns. And a widely anticipated surge in newly registered voters sympathetic to Sen. John Kerry appeared to be countered by an uptick in rural, suburban, and religious voters largely allied with President George W. Bush. "We know there are X number of people" that vote solidly with one party or the other, says GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio, "so you have to change the equation through the turnout game."
For the Bush team, that meant mobilizing a base of religious voters, with White House political director Karl Rove vowing to turn out 4 million more evangelical voters this year than in 2000. More than 1 in 5 of yesterday's voters identified as evangelical, with a full 75 percent supporting Bush. Among the 21 percent of voters who said "moral values" were their top priority (compared with 20 percent who said terrorism, 19 percent who said economy/jobs, and 15 percent who said Iraq), Bush received a whopping 79 percent support. Exit polls showed that 56 percent of Protestants backed Bush, the same margin as in 2000, while Catholics split evenly between the candidates, as they did four years ago. Among voters who attend religious services weekly, 60 percent supported Bush. Despite some speculation that Bush's strong support of Israel would peel off traditionally Democratic Jewish votes, 21 percent of Jews supported Bush, mirroring 2000's numbers.
Another sign of Bush's success among so-called values voters, and in turning so-called soccer moms into security moms, may have been his success with married voters and married-with-children voters (though women with children generally were split between the candidates). While the gender gap that has long marked the American electorate narrowed yesterday–with Bush making slight gains among women and Kerry picking up more votes from men than Gore did–the gulf between married and single Americans widened, with Bush scoring 9-point leads among married voters and those who are married with children. Single voters, meanwhile, supported Kerry by 61 percent to 38 percent over Bush.
With so-called 527 groups like American Coming Together and Acorn signing up new voters by the hundreds of thousands, Democrats were banking on a flood of first timers to put them over the top. But according to exit polls, the ranks of new voters grew only slightly from 2000, from 9 to 11 percent, while the proportion of 18-to-29-year-old voters–expected to constitute a big chunk of new voters–accounted for17 percent of the electorate, the same proportion as four years ago. Young voters went to Kerry by significantly wider margins than in 2000, but new voters went to Kerry by roughly the same margins as they went for Gore in 2000. While the Kerry team was counting on disillusionment over Iraq to propel hordes of new and young voters to the polls, exit polls found that only 15 percent of voters said Iraq was their top priority in the voting booth, compared with 21 percent of voters who said moral values, 20 percent who said terrorism, and 19 percent who said economy/jobs. Voters who did identify Iraq as their top issue went to Kerry over Bush by 74 percent to 25 percent.
Among racial groups, Bush made strides with Hispanic voters. Spending at least double as much on Spanish-language TV ads as he did in the 2000 campaign, Bush snagged 41 percent of Hispanic voters, up from 35 percent in 2000. Hispanics make up 17 percent or more of the population in four key swing states–Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico–that appear to be won by Bush, though New Mexico still seems up for grabs. While a widely publicized poll conducted shortly before Election Day forecast major gains for Bush among African-American voters, 90 percent backed Kerry.
College-educated voters, meanwhile, went to Bush by a narrow margin four years ago but backed Kerry this time. "It has a lot to do with communication," says Fabrizio. "The president talks about winning the war on terror in stark terms–there is a bright yellow line between right and wrong." That style, Fabrizio says, resonated with less educated voters who "are not great news consumers and have more visceral reactions to issues." Kerry, by contrast, offfered more complexity, which appealed to those with more education." Indeed, the electorate at large in Tuesday's election embraced bright yellow lines.
