WaPo: Sarah Palin cost John McCain 2 million votes in 2008

[spanone]

Sarah Palin's track record in politics from 2009-on isn't terrible. In the Tea Party wave of 2010, when Palin's popularity among conservatives was near its peak, candidates won in 33 of 64 races where she endorsed. She's had some high-profile wins since and some big losses, including on Donald Trump's current national spokesperson's congressional bid. The value of any one endorsement is often hard to determine, given the number of factors that go into a political campaign, of course.

There was one race in which Palin appears not to have been much help -- and, in fact, hurt the candidate. According to a 2010 study from researchers at Stanford University, noted by Brendan Nyhan, Palin's presence on the 2008 Republican presidential ticket cost John McCain 1.6 percentage points. In an election in which 131 million people voted, that's 2.1 million votes that McCain should have gotten but didn't.

The researchers set out to determine the extent to which voters made up their minds on presidential candidates or on the performance of the party that was currently in office. To answer that question, they tried to figure out how much of an influence the candidates in the election had on moving support one direction or the other.

Part of that process was to look at how candidate favorability ratings changed over the course of the campaign. Below is the chart they created to show Palin's favorability, from the moment she was announced as the vice presidential pick (and introduced to most Americans) to election day.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/19/sarah-palin-cost-john-mccain-2-million-votes-in-2008/

[malaise]

1. Charlie Pierce asked the best question

Who is paying her this time?

[spanone]

4. i really didn't think trump could lower the bar any further....

[malaise]

5. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

You know she sounds the way she looks

The ReTHUG party just split wide open - did you watch Rick Wilson on Chris Hayes discussing the party base :rof:
That should be the tweet of the night

[spanone]

6. gotta catch the rerun!

maybe trump will bring back cheney for his VP choice?

[malaise]

7. Nah - Cheney is history

The party is over - good riddance

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. The cariboupsie kiss of death.

[world wide wally]

9. The Wasilla Wombat

[Takket]

3. 2 million is pretty good but...

she can do better! let's go for 3 million in 2016!

[truebluegreen]

8. And we barely knew her then...nt

[lindysalsagal]

10. Tina Fey just bought a new house.

We're going to be needing her this year!

[CommonSenseDemocrat]

11. This is hogwash speculation. Palin's nomination led to McCain leading in the polls

McCain only fell in the polls because of the Lehman collapse.

Let me preface in my opinion, that if Lehman had not failed (e.g economy not collapsing in September 2008), Obama still would have won, but maybe by not as big of a margin (more like a Jimmy Carter margin against Gerald Ford). We would not have gained as many Senate seats either.

[Mendocino]

12. 33/64 just over half

Wouldn't any random picks produce about the same number in a republican friendly year?