No need to move "right": Did people ultimately just vote their pocketbook?

[andym]

I've been trying to understand the election results.  While we
yet may find out that voting fraud played a large role, we can
still start to understand why so many people voted for *.

One of the oldest theories is that people vote their
pocketbook, so let's look over the exit polls (though flawed,
they are still aren't worthless)
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

 Family's Financial Situation:
                 Bush         Kerry
Better (32%)      80           19

Same(39%)         49           50

Worse(28%)        20           79

Around 80% voted for Bush if they were doing better.  79%
voted for Kerry if they were doing worse.  A wash except there
were 4% more people who were doing better (32%) than doing
worse (28%).  If they were doing the same they split their
vote (advantage Kerry by 1%).

It really looks like people voted their pocketbook and the 4%
who were doing better decided it. Bush was an incumant running
on his record.  Unfortunatly enough people thought they were
doing better and voted for him.

If so all the discussions here about moving the party to the
"right" on social issues may not be relevant. 
Economics trumps social issues.  

Thoughts?

[foo_bar]

1. according to those same exit polls, we won

[andym]

2. Yes and No

Yes, initially the exit polls were more favorable to Kerry, though I'm not sure that he ever was carrying the national popular vote poll. However, he was for example carrying Ohio by about 2%, before they were "corrected". Does anyone know if Kerry was ever winning the national exit poll at any time on Tuesday?

These linked exit polls have probably been weighted by the election results/later exit polls(?). If you do the math on the numbers above, Bush does win.

[andym]

3. Democratic Party is the Big Tent party

One last thing to remember is that the Democratic party is a loose coalition of many different points of view. There is little need or utility in making that tent smaller.

[andym]

4. This analysis ignores geography: let's look at the South

I wonder how uniformly across the states:

CNN has regional exit polls (as well as by state).
In the South where Kerry lost big, the pattern changed
somewhat:


Southern States:

Family's Financial Situation:
              Bush  Kerry
Better (36)   87    12
Same (36)     57    42
Worse ( 26)   22    77

Two things.  First if you were doing worse you voted for
Kerry.  So the pocketbook idea still holds.  Second, if you
thought things were the same other factors came into play, and
looking at the numbers factors like Strong Leader, and issues
like Terrorism and Moral Values where Bush cleaned up.

Unbelievably, 
 Kerry's unfavorable rating was 56%!  Bush's favor ability
rating was 59%!!!



 

[RafterMan]

5. Here is the problem

If your message is "vote your pocketbook" and people do, and you lose, then you need a different message. Or a bigger, broader message.

Great find with the stat, though. Very interesting.

[andym]

6. Exactly right,.

Btw, based on the economic self-interest hypothesis, we may have very well won if the election had been held last November (2003), before the economy started to move forward!