ACT Does Does Post Election Poll & Analysis, Busts Myths

[jamboi]

Though I didn't like the title and first paragraphs it improves and provides some post exit poll polls to check against.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2942242

OK, we lost Ohio — but why?
Separating myth from the reality
By STEVE ROSENTHAL

When it came to getting out the Democratic vote in Ohio during the presidential election, we hit our target numbers. My organization, America Coming Together, along with our 32 America Votes partner organizations, the Democratic National Committee and the Kerry-Edwards campaign not only exceeded our turnout goals for the Buckeye State, but far exceeded anything the Democrats have done in the past.

(snip)

Since then my colleagues and I have gone back to answer a nagging question: Who were all those Bush voters? Though much has been made of the Republican grass-roots effort in Ohio and elsewhere, we did not see the sort of Republican organization that seems necessary to produce that many new votes. Where did they come from?

We've done a post-election poll of 1,400 rural and exurban voters in Ohio counties that Bush won by an average of 17 percentage points. Their answers, and a closer look at other poll data, explode a few widely held theories about what happened.

The first myth: Many more churchgoing voters flocked to the polls this year, driven by the Bush "moral values" and the gay marriage referendum.

(more myth-busting follows)

[crispini]

1. They don't provide nearly enough detail on their second "myth" for me.

Second myth: The Bush campaign won by mobilizing GOP strongholds and suppressing turnout in Democratic areas.

Reality: Turnout in Democratic-leaning counties in Ohio was up 8.7 percent while turnout in Republican-leaning counties was up slightly less, at 6.3 percent. John Kerry bested Bush in Cuyahoga County (home of Cleveland) by 218,000 votes — an increase of 42,497 over Gore's 2000 effort. In Stark County (Canton) — a bellwether lost by Gore — Kerry won by 4,354.

--> Sure, turnout was up. And turnout would have been up EVEN MORE if there hadn't been FIVE and EIGHT hour waits to vote! :mad:

[Wordie]

2. Very interesting. Watching a CSPAN replay of many of the Repub's 527 ads

today makes me even more inclined to believe this. It makes sense just in terms of the Repubs own stated goals for their advertising during the campaign. One guy representing the "Progress for America Voter Fund" went into a lot of detail about that ad featuring the girl whose mother died in the WTC attack and later went to a Bush rally and got a hug. Remember that one? And the girl says something about how Bush cares about her and is making her safer? The speaker said that they even held that ad back until the very end, as they knew that it would be so powerful. And I think that's right. It was.

For quite a while before the election all the pundits said that the only issue that Bush had going for him was terrorism. And then ObL went on our national tv just days before the election (an intense reminder of 9/11 and the threat of terror), and yet we hear NO discussion in liberal circles after the election about the effect of the ObL tape, or the legitimacy of a presidency that depended on votes cast in fear?

And nary a word from the Repubs about this, either. Why would they not want to discuss it? Do Repubs know that we are still at risk for attack, and so they want to distract us from holding Bush responsible if a new attack occurs? After all, maybe they realized that their attempt to paint Bush and the Republicans as the American saviors, the only ones who could protect us from attack, would backfire should an attack actually occur over the next four years.

Is it better somehow for both sides to pretend it was about "moral values"? There are lots of questions around this issue.

(Edited for clarity and typo correction.)

[Wordie]

3. Kick: this was posted so late last night that it was overlooked this AM.nt