How did Kerry lose the popular vote?

[liberalpragmatist]

The electoral vote doesn't really surprise me when you take into account the evangelical voters. And I realize that the red states got redder. But I would've thought that would've been offset by the blue states getting bluer. California gave Gore his popular vote win. What happened to us in the popular vote? How did Bush get 3.5 million more votes than Kerry?

And frankly, I'm not interested in conspiracy theories. I'm really curious to know what the data says. Was our margin in California smaller? If so, why?

[Steelangel]

1. Read this articles

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2596524&mesg_id=2596524 and http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2596312

That's how and what happen :/ grr.

[wysi]

2. If the data...

... are flawed by likely conspiracies (see the excellent discussions that are already taking place - lots of statistical anomalies) then you will need to take these into account in any attempt to understand what happened. You can't simply ignore conspiracy theories.

[BayStateBoy]

3. Electronic Voting is one reason he lost

[LTRS]

4. I would chalk it up to ignorance and fear

[sandnsea]

5. Oregon, up only 8%

Seems like that's what I saw. We only had an 8% increase in voters overall. That's horrible. L.A. did not even go blue, lots of illegal migrant problems there. The Democratic Party has problems and we aren't going to solve them by blaming ALL of it on machines or dumb people.

[Politicub]

Los Angeles?

It went way blue. Something like a margin of 800,000 for Kerry.

[sandnsea]

Not by county

On the county map I saw, the only blue in S. Cal looked like Santa Barbara area.

[sandnsea]

11. Not by county

On the county map I saw, the only blue in S. Cal looked like Santa Barbara area.

[Abelman]

16. I agree

We need to look at the lack of effective leadership in our party, and the poor campaigning we do.

[Retrograde]

21. maybe showing up in CA

instead of taking the vote for granted and treating California as little more than a money source....

Hindsight's great. I don't understand the relatively low vote for Kerry (or should I say the higher than expected vote for Bush) either. I hope someone in the Democratic party is trying to figure this out - that's the first step in solving the problem.

[bagnana]

28. Well, but Bush didn't have to show up in Texas

But he still kicked ass over there.

[aquart]

6. He didn't. The vote was stolen in the machines.

If you call it a conspiracy theory you are buying Bushit wholesale. That's what they're counting on.

WE did nothing wrong. The people of America voted Bush out. Bush lost vast popular support even from the little he originally had.

Up until FOUR years ago, exit polling was always accurate. Then, suddenly, it was so inaccurate in ONE place, that the polling organization was abolished. That one place was Florida which directed your eye to the chads while stealing the vote on the computerized machines. Then the Republicans rammed thru legislation forcing the computerized machines on the entire nation.

This year, exit polling was, as usual, accurate and reliable, except wherever there was no paper trail.

Calling it a conspiracy theory doesn't mean there wasn't a conspiracy.
Refusing to believe there was a conspiracy is called NAIVE. GULLIBLE.

[Cha]

30. I agree with you!

Just because "conspiracy theories" exit that aren't true doesn't mean there aren't any! Especially with the fucking fascist wing in Power!

[Thegonagle]

7. I too think it was rigged. Also,

I think the right wingers on the radio were making extremely strong appeals to GOTV to their listeners in the end days, "because he's behind in the polls, but he can and will win if YOU get out and vote for him." Unfortunately, it worked.

We so need our nation-wide media ownership caps back in place. Damn you, Bill Clinton! (For signing the Telecom Act of '96. How the hell did Clinton not see what would happen?)

[Politicub]

8. He wasn't running a race to get the popular vote

The campaign's eyes were on the electoral prize. If Kerry was angling for the popular vote, he would have spent his resources campaigning in urban areas, especially those on the east and West coasts.

If the president were elected by a popular vote, Dems would win handily. Sadly, campaigns are run for electoral votes so you have to have a message that appeals to idiots in Ohio.

[Nederland]

9. More people voted for Bush than Kerry

simple.

[KittyWampus]

26. Only Using Paperless E-Voting Machines

[tandot]

10. Rove frightened the shit out of the right-wing fundamentalist base

insinuating that Kerry is out to turn their beloved children into homosexuals and that Kerry would make owning a bible a crime.

They would do anything to get people to vote for him. His right-wing conservative base was all out in force to get people to vote. Lies don't matter to them, as long as Bush gets elected.

Every ignorant right-wing fundie was out voting. Huge turnout. He has a mandate from them, not from the average American.

I saw a poll on NBC nightly news showing that the turn out of young voters remained about the same as compared to 2000. I'll try to find a link.

on edit:
I am not sure about the percentage of young voters. I think I saw 17% in 2000 and 2004...but I might not remember it correctly. I saw it on TV.

[LittleClarkie]

13. Remember

That's 17% of a much higher turnout. More young people voted than in 2000, but they were still equalled the same piece of pie. It was just a bigger pie.

I feel like we let Kerry down.

[tandot]

14. It is hard to imagine that so many young people didn't go vote

But I also applaud all those young people who voted and encouraged others to vote.

[LittleClarkie]

20. Also, I've found here that the children of freepers

tend to be freepers themselves.

I had a six-year-old kid look up at my button, and say "Kerry?! You're not voting for HIM are you?" You know that sentiment didn't come from him.

[HereSince1628]

12. For possible psychological dimensions see...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2596849

[oscar111]

15. Racism, Hate Radio, not eno AAR, no Pet Goat ad, Diebold BBV

in roughly that order.

Racism elected RR before the other factors existed, and is still huge.

[HereSince1628]

18. Well, I can tell you didn't read my post...

I thought acrimony was the OTHER GD forum...

[leftofthedial]

17. not all the votes have been counted

what conspiracy theories disinterest you?

[d_b]

19. I don't think we lost the popular vote.

[justgamma]

22. The right wing pundits said that

4,000,000 evangelicals didn't vote last time. So I guess this time they ALL came out.

[baldguy]

24. the American Taliban came out in force

They've declared a fatwa against evil gays.

[leftyandproud]

23. How did he lose? BADLY.

[dignan27]

29. aww look there's Travis county in Texas

that one lonely little guy in the middle where I voted. poor fella all alone in a sea of red, couldn't even make a break for it to mexico or the gulf if he wanted like the other blue counties.

[pstokely]

25. large turnouts in red states

like Kansas

[GreenPartyVoter]

27. Fraud, fraud, fraud!

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