September 22, 2008
Panagakis: The Hillary Clinton Cross-over Vote
Nick Panagakis is president of Market Shares Corporation, a marketing and public opinion research firm headquartered in Arlington Heights, Ill.
Some polls are reporting the cross-over Clinton voters; i.e., the percentage of Clinton primary/caucus voters who tell pollsters they would vote for McCain in November. In the first half of September this was reported by CBS, ABC, Pew, and Quinnipiac polls. Results ranged from 12% to 25%with an average of 19%.
While the numbers are interesting, how will they affect the November election? The findings are in need of some context if you are willing to accept some assumptions
First consider how many votes Clinton won in state primaries and caucuses. According to realclearpolitics.com she won 18 million votes after including Michigan and state caucus estimates. Assuming they all vote in the general election, multiply 18 million by the 19% average above and you get 3.4 million November voters who say they will vote for McCain.
What percentage of the general election vote will they represent? Assuming turnout will be near the record 122 million votes cast in 2004 (source: FEC), those 3.4 million Clinton cross-over voters represent 2.8% of all voters. If similar magnitudes of Clinton voters make good on their intentions in states that prove to be battlegrounds, this could make the difference in a close election.
This year the Democratic primary remained a tight contest much longer keeping many Clinton voter hopes alive so similar cross-over data from past elections may not be useful.
Another benchmark would be cross-over Democratic voters voting for any Republican candidate in past exit polls. The New York Times "Super Table" of past exit poll results provides answers. 1992 to 2004 exit polls show 10% or 11% of Democrats voting for the Republican candidate. (Earlier years are much higher due to Reagan Democrats, not likely based on pre-election polls this year.)
In three of those last four elections Democrats won the popular vote overcoming the 10%-11% Democratic cross-overs who voted for the Republican. So the question becomes: will that 2.8% of Clinton cross-over voters add to those numbers or be mostly included in those numbers?
By Guest Pollster on September 22, 2008 2:18 PM | Permalink
Comments
@Tybo-
Totally disagree. The Republican party wanted Hillary at the top of the ticket, and if not there, then on the ticket. Nothing gets the right-wingnuts to open their checkbook like mentioning Hillary. And while I am a Hillary fan as well, I suspect there would be new scandals related to Bill's financial activities abroad that would have hurt the ticket.
I think Obama does better with a clean ticket and let the scandals fall on Palin.
And you are assuming Hillary even wanted the VP slot.
Bottom line, if Clinton was on the ticket at all, I think McCain could have picked a Romney and had a good shot at raising money against the Clinton name. By not putting her on the ticket, the Dems forced McCain to get desperate, and the Palin thing is what is going to kill him.
What's so strange about 3.4 million Democratic primary voters crossing over in the general election??? Seriously.
In states like Kentucky, West Virginia, and even Oklahoma where Democrats out number Republicans by a mile, candidates like Kerry had virtually no appeal and experienced crossover of around 25% to 30% in these states. You see this all over Appalachia and the South.
Hillary ran the type of campaign that appeals more to Republican-types. It was hard hitting and bullying, a real display of testosterone. It makes sense that she would be popular with the registered Democrats that were regularly crossing-over in the general election. Being that she is associated with Bill, she surely would have had more strength in places like AR and WV, but she wasn't as popular in the West and Upper Midwest.
If Hillary had won you likely would be talking about the lost opportunity of increased AA turnout that Obama would have brought, or the lost opportunity in the youth vote.
I've always thought this was a non-issue. No one ever appeals to all voters. Obama had more cross-over appeal with Republicans (until Operation Chaos) and Independents, and that counts more than some conservative Democrats that are used to voting for Republicans anyway.
These numbers also assume (falsely, in my view) that all 18 million Clinton voters were Democrats who would have voted for the ticket anyway. Since so many independents and even Republicans were allowed to vote in Democratic primaries, especially later on when the GOP race was over, I think it's fair to assume that there were a lot of people who weren't going to vote Democrat anyway who are included in Clinton's total.
Clinton as VP would have done the same thing to Obama as Palin is doing to McCain - overshadow him so much in the media that it's even harder to get his message out.
Remember how, after Obama locked up the nomination in May/June, for weeks the media was still going on and on and on about HILLARY CLINTON at every possible opportunity? And notice how even now every time something even remotely having to do with HILLARY CLINTON happens it makes a flood of headlines? For some reason the media loves to talk about Hillary, and having her on the ticket would have just brought in more pointless drama that would have been yet another impediment to getting media coverage of Obama talking about the issues (where he wins every time).
Nearly a third of Hillary's 18 million primary votes came in states where Democrats have no chance in the general election anyway. Heck, she got 1.5 million votes in Texas alone, or almost 8% of her national vote total. But 9% of the voters in the Texas Democratic primary were self-identified Republicans, and 22% were self-identified conservatives. How many of those Texas Republican and conservative "clinton voters" do you think will vote for McCain over Obama in November? Like, all of them? How many of those Texas Republican and conservative "Clinton voters" would have voted for McCain over Hillary had she been the Democratic nominee? Like, all of them? How much difference will their "crossing over" to vote for McCain make in the general election? Like, none at all, since Texas will go Republican with our without them?
A huge number of those who voted for Clinton favored McCain over Clinton according to primary exit polls. In other words, their candidate preferences were (1) McCain, (2) Clinton, (3) Obama. So, it's hardly surprising that these voters intend to vote for McCain over Obama. Obviously, these voters fall into the traditional cross over voters. Of course, there were huge numbers of Clinton voters in the primaries who are really Limbaugh Republicans who voted Clinton just to screw things up. No surprise that they will vote for McCain.
Now since the Hillary likely cross overs are 19% on average why does the article seem to conclude they will be the only cross overs.
Those who vote in the general may follow the same pattern of choice and thus the total cross over vote would be massive compared to the number allowed here.
Also exit polls are losing their validity. Each year more and more people vote in early voting and are not available to be in the pool of people to select from for exit poll input.
That partly explains the differences between the much touted Kerry exit polls and the actual vote tally results.
Most of these people were not voting for Hillary in the primaries in the first place, but rather voting against Obama.
Especially in the Deep South and Applachia.
Those people weren't going to vote for Obama in the GE just because Hillary was on the ticket.
You're making an apples to oranges comparison. The number of Hillary primary voters who may vote for McCain are not comparable to past votes by Democrats for Republican candidates. Bonzi has it exactly right. The party switching is just as likely to have happened in the primary as in the general election. Hillary's 18 million included a lot of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who wanted to weaken Obama's candidacy and had no intention of voting for a Democrat in the general election. The exit polling internals for Ohio, Texas and Mississippi, for example, showed Hillary getting a higher proportion of Republican crossover votes after she had been eliminated from any realistic chance of winning than before.
How many times do they vote DEM in the primary, in KY for example..then vote REPUBLICAN in the presidential poll. This Hillary argument is CLOSED as Obama leads in just about EVERY SINGLE National poll and McCain is in deep trouble in Colorado, and possibly VA.
Clarification: The numbers don't "assume all 18 million Clinton voters were Democrats". I think we all agree that most were.
The closing paragraphs may be confusing.
They mean that in the absence of comparable losing primary candidate cross-overs from past pre-election polls, we should look for any increase of Democratic cross-overs; i.e., above the 10%-11% "benchmark" in the last four elections.
If obama was a thinking man he could have had all those voters, and the election would not even be close.
Posted on September 22, 2008 2:35 PM