Lola wrote:McGentrix wrote:If I recall, the numbers of the "religious right" that voted in 2000 and in 2004 remained pretty much the same. I wonder where this sudden idea that they would "reward him with their votes in record numbers." comes from.
McG,
Your claim contradicts the number BBB has posted (thanks BBB, excellent posts). Don't recall, show us where we can read these stats for ourselves.
Exit Polls 2000
Exit Polls 2004
Lola wrote:BBB posted this article, I'm repeating the next to the last paragraph. Show us, McG, don't just tell.
BBB wrote:[election-day exit polling] did reveal that the rate of voters who attended church once a week leapt by 2 points from 2000 and that 64 percent of them voted for Bush.
Couple of things to mention here.
(1) First of all, to start with the basics,
these numbers are incorrect - or incorrectly attributed, in any case. BBB (or rather, the author she quotes) seems to have confused two separate categories: those who attend church "more than weekly" and those who "attend church once a week".
The number of the former did indeed "leap" by 2% - from 14% to 16% of the total number of voters, to be precise. And it is of this group that 64% voted Bush.
The number of the latter, however,
dropped by the very same 2% - from 28% to 26%. Of them, 58% voted for Bush.
Will come back to that later. First, let's continue.
(2) For one, focusing on those who attend church
more than weekly, I'm not sure whether "leapt" is a verb that appropriately fits
an in comparison unremarkable increase of just 2%. On the same count one could submit that the number of female voters "leapt" from 52% to 54% of the whole, that the number of voters between 45-59 and over 60 "leapt" from 28% to 30% and from 22% to 24%, respectively, that the number of those who are not married "leapt" from 35% to 37% - well, et cetera.
This is not just a semantic point I'm making. The point here is that the proportional increase of the most devout voters was of a relatively negligeable scale - or of a small enough scale, in any case, to make it merely one of many comparable elements that tipped the elections to George Bush.
And wait - there's more.
(3) First off, the similar increase of senior voters or of female voters can not just easily be attributed with as decisive an effect just because both groups made a similarly increased relative impact on the vote count. They can in fact be attributed such a role
with much more reason. Because both women and seniors actually
shifted their vote towards Bush to a significant degree. The devoutly Christian, on the other hand, were
pretty much just as likely to vote for Bush this time as last time.
I.e.: in 2000, 43% of women voted for Bush. In 2004, 48% did. In 2000, 47% of seniors voted for Bush. In 2004, 54% did. However, of those who attend religious service more than weekly, 63% already voted for Bush in 2000, and 64% did now. Hardly any change there.
Calculate the effect here for a moment.
In 2000,
women delivered Bush with (43% of 52% makes) 22% of the votes. Now they yielded him (48% of 54% makes) 26% of the votes.
Net gain: 4%, more than his margin of victory this year.
In 2000,
seniors delivered Bush with (47% of 22% makes) 10% of the votes; this time, they yielded him (54% of 24% makes) 13% of the total vote.
Net gain: 3%, exactly the margin of his victory.
I'll add another group:
inhabitants of big cities. In 2000, they made up just 9% of the electorate, and just 26% of 'em voted for Bush. Ergo: Bush voters from large cities made up just 2% of all voters. But in 2004, big city dwellers made up 13% of the electorate, and 39% of them voted for Bush. Ergo, the percentage of Bush voters from big cities more than doubled, to 5% of the electorate.
Net gain: 3%, exactly the margin of his victory.
Now compare those
who go to church more than weekly. In 2000, they delivered Bush with (63% of 14% makes) 9% of the votes; now, they yielded him (64% of 16% makes) 10% of the votes.
Net gain: just 1%.
The most devout voters, in short, did not make the difference in 2004. That is to say: not to any greater degree than they did in 2000.
(4) Finally, to return to my first point re: BBB. Who do we talk about when we talk of the religious mobilisation? BBB referred, be it erroneously, to those who attend church once a week. If instead of looking at those who attend Church
more than once a week, we do indeed take a bigger group - everybody who
at least once a week attends religious service. Then the share of the electorate we are talking about of course more than doubles.
But - if we look at this larger group of the devout, their total share in the electorate did not actually increase since 2000,
at all. After all, as we have seen above, while those who attend religious service more than once a week represented a 2% larger share of the electorate, those who attend service just once a week represented a 2% smaller share. Together, we are talking about 42% of the electorate in 2000 - and also 42% of the electorate in 2004.
What is more, neither of these groups showed any notable change in political inclination. We already saw that Bush increased his support among the most devout by just 1%. Well, among those who attend service
once a week, he also increased it by just 1% - from 57% to 58%.
Taking these two groups together, those who attend religious service once a week or more often this time voted Bush 61% to 39%. In 2000, they voted Bush 59% to 41%. Compare this 2% increase in the Bush vote with the 5% increase among women, the 7% increase among seniors, the 9% increase among Latinos or the 9% and 13% increase among dwellers of small and large cities, respectively, to get it in the right proportions.
Basically,
the larger group of people who go to service once a week or more and voted Bush also increased barely. They went from making up (59% of 42% makes) 25% of the electorate to making up (61% of 42% makes) 26% - a net gain of, again, just 1%.
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In short: McGentrix is considerably more right than BBB was. If with the "religious right" we mean those who attend religious service at least once a week and vote for Bush then McG is right: their numbers remained pretty much the same in 2000 and in 2004. In 2000, they made up 25% of all voters; in 2004, 26%. Same goes for the smaller group of those who attend religious service more often still and vote Republican, as we have seen: their share also grew by just one percent, from 9% to 10% of all voters. In absolutes, their numbers will have increased - but by hardly any more than the number of other (less religious) voters did. Turnout increased among both groups in similar fashion.
Does that mean the "religious right" didn't yield Bush the elections? Well, since Bush won by just a 3% margin,
any group of over 3% of the electorate can of course be said to have yielded Bush the elections. But
whatever role the religious right played in terms of numbers in 2004, it was no different, and no larger a role than it was in 2000.
So if you want to take a look at how devoutly religious Republicans have been making up a quarter of the national vote for at least two Presidential elections, go right ahead. But if you want to find out why Bush won the popular vote in 2004
when he failed to do so in 2000 - if you want to understand the
difference between then and now - then by all means, don't look at the religious Republicans, because they made no different an impact than they did last time.
Instead, look at the voter groups that
did actually vote for Bush in much greater numbers now than then - Latinos, women, big city dwellers and seniors being examples in question. They might not fit the Bush-voter stereotype as well, but
they are the ones that made this year's result different from the 2000 one.
