Four Years Ago
I know a lot of Obama supporters who are refusing to let themselves get too optimistic about the outcome in November. What’s interesting is that one reason I often hear cited for this refusal to get too optimistic is that a lot of Obama supporters who were Kerry supporters seem to have convinced themselves that Kerry, too, looked very likely to win at this stage in the game and then unexpectedly lost on Election Day. The thing is, as Ezra Klein reminded us yesterday, Kerry’s defeat was actually predicted by the opinion polls. It’s true that Bush was leading in August, but he was clearly leading — albeit fairly narrowly — throughout September and October:
What’s interesting is that a lot of liberals got into some esoteric ideas about Kerry winning. As Ezra says:
Back then, I remember Democrats staying glued to Ruy Teixera’s blog as he explained, day after day, why the latest poll showing Kerry behind was really flawed and actually suggested the possibility of a lead.
I read that stuff, too, and it kept me from being totally despondent about Kerry’s chances. But I recall that on Election Day we did a poll at the office and I was the only one predicting a Bush victory even though the polls had Bush leading. The other factor, of course, is that the bad leaked exit polls that afternoon convincing a lot of people — this time including me — that Kerry was going to win after all. But none of that changes the fact that the Bush-Kerry race was just another example of the candidate who seemed to be winning going on to win.
50 Responses to “Four Years Ago”
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October 9th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Good point, but epic fail on the link, Matt.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Liberals had Ruy Texiera. Conservatives have fever dreams about the Bradley Effect. Click through the comments on any conservative horse race blog and it’s assertion after assertion that Obama will lose unless he’s leading by 10 points on election day, because of all those lying white voters who secretly hate him.
How they could believe this after a year of news stories in which whites (in Appalachia, mostly) openly declare their refusal to vote for a black, well, it’s beyond me.
Also popular in these blogs is the assertion that Kerry was winning in October last year. They’re idiots, basically.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I think you meant “It is true that KERRY was leading in August.”
October 9th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Kerry in October of 2004 had a vastly better chance to win than McCain in October of 2008. That is all.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I don’t care how stupid it makes me seem, I won’t believe Obama can win/has won until January 20.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I recall finding awfully persuasive some argument–probably Texiera’s, but I don’t remember–that none of the polls really mattered, what counted was George Bush’s favorability ratings, and if he didn’t have 50% favorables, he’d lose. I remember repeating that like a mantra, and being the only person in my office completely unsurprised by those early exit poll results.
and I remember my utterly epic hangover the next day.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I think if you’ll remember back, Kerry came within vote-fraud range in Ohio and New Mexico. To say this kind of thing suggests you think voting in Ohio was free and fair in 2004. If so, I got this bridge to nowhere I’d like to sell you.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Why did so many of us Democrats convince ourselves that Kerry was going to win?
Well, some of it was wishful thinking. The polls were undersampling Democrats! They were undersampling young voters! They were undersampling because of the cell phone effect! And nobody was taking into account Kerry’s awesome ground game!
So we’d sit glued to Ruy Teixeira’s blog, and we’d cling to every fifth poll — the one showing Kerry with a 1 or 2 point lead — and ignore all the ones with Bush leads of 2-5 points in most of the others.
Of course, it wasn’t entirely irrational to think Kerry would win, for a couple of reasons. After the debates, Kerry’s favorables shot up tremendously. Bush got hit by a big wave of bad news stories. In October, all the stories of “Kerry’s campaign in disarray” disappeared. From the press coverage, it really looked like Bush was on the defensive and Kerry was surging.
And what really made most of us think that Kerry would win was that — although the numbers bounced around — if I recall correctly, Kerry was polling much better in Ohio (and even in Florida) than the national numbers. That’s why numerous pundits, including Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato, Will Saletan, Ken Rudin, and I believe even Chuck Todd predicted on election day that Kerry would win. I seem to recall that the CW was that Bush would win the popular vote but that Kerry would win the Electoral Vote.
As for me, I really thought Kerry would win Ohio. I figured the electoral vote count would be either 272-266 or 279-259 (depending on Iowa). I was actually more worried that Kerry would win Ohio but lose Wisconsin. If he lost New Mexico (which looked likely), Iowa AND Wisconsin, Bush would have won 276-262 even without Ohio.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Man, look at the spike on September 1. What happened? Why dont I remember?
October 9th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
dan — I too remember that argument. As it turned out, Bush’s approval rating on Nov. 2, according to Gallup, was actually 51%, which is exactly what he got.
I think a lot of the Kerry campaign’s strategy was based on Stan Greenberg’s advice that if the incumbent’s approval ratings were low, all the challenger had to do was project an optimistic image and they’d cross the favorability threshold.
The problem was Bush’s approval ratings were not that low. They were sort of unprecedented for an incumbent president at reelection, most of whom have either very solid approval ratings or terrible ones. Bush split the country nearly in half. There simply wasn’t enough dissatisfaction with Bush to push Kerry over the top. He might still have won absent a few mistakes here and there, but Bush was probably always the favorite in hindsight.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
EP – probably a switch to likely voter model.
Interesting history. Like four years ago I am still in wishful thinking mode, but this time I am hoping for 60 Senate seats. Reverse Bradley Effect!
October 9th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
EP, I think it was the Republican National Convention. The Dick accepted re-nomination and attacked Kerry.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
But I recall that on Election Day we did a poll at the office and I was the only one predicting a Bush victory even though the polls had Bush leading.
did garance accuse you of not being a team player at that point???
October 9th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Man, look at the spike on September 1. What happened? Why dont I remember?
Republican National Convention was the first week of September. The spike at end of September/beginning October was the effect of the debates.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I have very clear memories of election day as well. All through the day, Wonkette (back when Wonkette was Wonkette) kept releasing numbers from “a little bird.”
That night was crushing, I’m it has a very real effect on my ability to be optimistic now.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Everyone I know realized it was going to be a close election and constantly worried. I don’t know anyone who thought Kerry was definitely going to win, only that he could win based on youth turnout and how the undecided might break. That did not pan out.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I went to the Springsteen/REM Vote for Change Tour show in Orlando on October 8, 2004. I remember feeling like I was going to an Irish wake for the Kerry campaign, his chances were so miserable.
There was a debate that night. Kerry killed. Favorables bounced up. Kerry seemed like he was back in the game. But he wasn’t. There were little moments like that throughout October that made it seem like he had a chance, enough to make us fool ourselves.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Michael Moore’s new movie, Slacker Uprising, continually displays poll numbers by date throughout the movie of Kerry’s lead, up to the night before the election. Were those just Zogby numbers????
October 9th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I’m surprised that it took until comment 7 for someone to bring up Diebold.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
The thing is, as Ezra Klein reminded us yesterday, Kerry’s defeat was actually predicted by the opinion polls…
And by common sense, and history. IMO it’s essentially impossible to defeat an incumbent president during the middle of an economic expansion. By my reckoning the last time it was done (if you don’t count George H.W. Bush, who faced the voters very early in an expansion) was 1912, and even then there were special circumstances. By November of 2004, the economy had been growing for nearly forty months.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
That night was crushing, I’m [sure] it has a very real effect on my ability to be optimistic now.
Me, too.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
“It’s true that Bush was leading in August, but he was clearly leading — albeit fairly narrowly — throughout September and October:”
I think you meant: “It’s true that Bush was LOSING in August, but….”
The typos have become quintessential Matt, but sometimes they really do make understanding the point of a post a difficult task.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I think, in 2004, it was less about paying attention to what the polls were saying and more not believing that the country could possibly vote for this guy after the previous four years. It seemed inconceivable, which is also how I felt living in Austin when Bush beat Ann Richards. It didn’t seem possible, it was a joke. But to be honest, I’m still kind of reeling from 2000. After that, I can’t ever go into an election feeling optimistic. My psyche won’t let me get crushed like that again.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I’m an Obama supporter and the reason that I’m quite sure that John McCain is going to win is because of the Bradley effect.
I’ve read the previous replies in this thread poo pooing this, but it’s real and only going to be *more* in evidence after this election because at least no one thought that Tom Bradley was a Muslim, unpatriotic because he didn’t wear a flag lapel pin, palled around with unrepentant terrorists, etc.
The amount that Obama is ahead in the polls is well within the margin that can be negated by the Bradley effect.
Ask yourself this, are the voters that thought Kerry was a “flip flopper”, effete, etc. going to vote for Obama? Are the guys driving around in their Silverado with a gun rack in the back and sporting a confederate flag going to vote for Obama? Are the people who thought George Bush would be a great guy to have a beer with (even though he’s a dry drunk) going to vote for Obama?
No? That’s why McCain’s going to win. Has nothing to do with ignoring that Kerry was behind in the polls going into election day.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
’ve read the previous replies in this thread poo pooing this, but it’s real and only going to be *more* in evidence after this election because at least no one thought that Tom Bradley was a Muslim, unpatriotic because he didn’t wear a flag lapel pin, palled around with unrepentant terrorists, etc.
Maybe you missed those threads discussing how the Bradley effect has been proven to no longer exist. If there is any racism on the part of voters, they don’t disguise it by lying to pollsters about who they’re voting for. Consider that this is pretty solid evidence. Nobody would be talking about the ‘Bradley effect’ if it weren’t for an election that suggested otherwise. But in more recent elections, the effect is no longer present.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Are the people who thought George Bush would be a great guy to have a beer with (even though he’s a dry drunk) going to vote for Obama?
A few percent of them will, a few more percent of them will stay home, a few more percent have died and have been replaced by young Democratic voters. Add in greater Democratic turnout and you have a major defeat for the Republicans.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
The so-called ‘bradley’ effect happened in what, 2 elections in all of our electoral history? And those elections came 20 years ago?
In any event, those instances came from electorates where the Democratic party had a dominating electoral advantage. This made it very difficult for whites to plausibly tell pollsters that they weren’t backing the black candidate because of his race. This lead to a whole lot of lying. The nation as a whole is not dominated by Democrats. If someone wants to pull a reason not to support Obama out of their ass so they can pretend it’s not racial, they can say it’s about experience, or Obama’s treatment of women, or his ‘communism’ or some other load of BS. They don’t have to pretend to back him or seem racist. There’s plenty to hang their hats on if they want to.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Yes, they will. One word: jobs. Bush isn’t making them, McCain has not distanced himself from Bush and the GOP, he’s going to lose. The Bradley effect disappeared in the mid-90s. All your reasons why people won’t vote for Obama completely fail to explain why they would then go ahead and tell pollsters that they would. It was a weird phenomenon in the first place, and it has now disappeared. The racist vote is being counted, and Obama is winning anyway.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
“This made it very difficult for whites to plausibly tell pollsters that they weren’t backing the black candidate because of his race. This lead to a whole lot of lying.”
What’s funny is that we are rapidly approaching the situation where it would be embarrassing for an independent to tell a pollster he supports McCain. We may well see the effect reduce an 10 point polling lead on Nov 3rd to a 7 point win.
Which I’m completely fine with.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Kerry would have won if Osama Bin Laden hadn’t popped his momentum bubble on the final weekend. The trend was breaking toward Kerry until that weekend, and then Kerry’s numbers flatlined.
Consider this a warning. OBL is much more effective and efficient than McCain at beating Democrats.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
God, that graph is sad and disgusting. From August to mid-September the line goes steadily down. The Kerry campaign was on vacation, and Kerry went sailboarding. That’s when the Swiftboat attacks came out, which the Kerry campaign ignored. It was beneath them to bother to defend themselves or counterattack. There was a little recovery in October, but it was too late.
People on the internet were screaming at them to wake up, but they were too fine a class of people to pay any attention to lowlifes like us. Jesus, I hate those Kerry people. At least the Clintons can run a campaign.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
The popular vote is rigged. Watch the electoral college.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
The popular vote is rigged.
Watch the electoral college.
Looks like riots either way.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Was the 2004 Election Stolen? “Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted — enough to have put John Kerry in the White House”
October 9th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
A quick skim of the thread and I haven’t seen the real reason why people were predicting a Kerry win. Bush was an incumbent who had approval ratings around 50%, and poll numbers lower than 50%, all through the race. In that environment the assumption was that the undecideds would break to the challenger. Zogby who had correctly predicted a Gore popular vote victory in 2000 was picking Kerry on these grounds all the way through.
Bush in 2004 became the only incumbent president in the history of Gallup polling to win with a vote total higher than his approval rating, and I think the only winner with sub-50% poll numbers. It really was remarkable, too–before inauguration his approval honeymoon had worn off and he was back to sub-50 approval.
2008 is an open election, obviously so it’s a different kind of dynamic. Undecideds are not people who broke away from an incumbent and therefore are more likely to move to the challenger. Favoring Kerry 2004 was not merely wishful thinking.
My very unpopular theory as to why Kerry lost: not Swift-Boat (which mainly appealed to the right-wing base), not OBL’s tape. It was the fact that Kerry went over the top trying to prove his national security credentials, trying to out-bellicose the GOP in the convention, and they probably didn;t attack Bush enough at the DNC (something I was wrong about then). The result was an unusually weak gender gap for the Dems, a gap driven by issues having to do with the use of force and concern for the weak. The Dems gave up on those issues trying to prove themselves on terrorism.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Re: no one thought that Tom Bradley was a Muslim, unpatriotic because he didn’t wear a flag lapel pin, palled around with unrepentant terrorists, etc.
The only people who think that are people who would not vote for a Democrat if Jesus Christ were at the head of the ticket. The Republicans (and yes, Hillary and her people at least in regards to Rev Wright) have been throwing that mud at Obama for months. It didn’t help Hillary and I can’t see any evidence it’s helping McCain. To the extent that McCain and Palin becomes associated with stupid, angry, racist trailer trash types it’s going to backfire on them. Moreover, unlike Kerry who was utterly dumbfounded by the Swiftboaters, Obama and his campaign have responded promptly even pre-emptively to the latest attacks.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
“I know a lot of Obama supporters who are refusing to let themselves get too optimistic about the outcome in November.”
This seems to be a liberal thing. Many of the liberals I know are very affected, emotionally, by their worries about their side losing. One coping mechanism is not getting their hopes up, or even mourning in advance. I teach politics, so I have friends and family always asking me to reassure them about Obama’s chances (or Kerry’s chances, in 2004). I know one liberal who annoys everyone she knows by going on and on about Americans are stupid they’ll never vote for Obama, we’re headed for McCain and war with Iran, etc. etc. Conservatives, on the other hand, seem to get as much enjoyment hating liberals as actually seeing conservative policies enacted, which may be why they face the election of an alleged Muslim anti-American black radical with a lot more equanimity.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:26 am
I’m with Colatina on this one. I remember reading and hearing–incessantly, really–that Bush’s number as an incumbent was 50%. Anything lower and a lead meant nothing. With Bush not breaking that boundary, all seemed to be well.
To this day I don’t get excited about polls that show Obama with even a big lead unless it’s above the 50% mark. And I won’t rest easy until the election is done & over with.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:13 am
I followed the polls in 2004 pretty closely, and it is clear that Kerry was chasing Bush down pretty well in the run-up to election day. RCP and electoral-vote.com have their 2004 charts on display (you do not show the full RCP chart above – it was closer just before election day).
It was possible in 2004 to believe that Kerry would just stagger over the line marginally ahead. But it was Bush who just got his nose in front at the line.
Sometimes I think that if Kerry had an extra week, he would have pulled it out of the bag. But I get irritated to hear people talk as if he got a whupping. In the scale of elections since 1900 it was one of the closest … possibly the closest after 2000, though 1960 was narrow too.
Bush won his elections by two of the narrowest margins in history. Luck? Maybe luck, down and dirty campaigning or electoral fraud.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:09 am
You are being unfair to those of us who were wrong wrong wrong and predicted Kerry was going to win. The logic wasn’t that the polls were flawed, but that they reported that some voters were undecided. Historically, more than half of undecided voters vote against the incumbent. In exit polls, more than half of people who said they decided on election day also said they voted for Kerry. Also the election was close, very close.
Now there is no incumbent. Also we may fear the Bradley Wilder effect. Finally we may fear that Osama will push McCain over the top with a terrorist attack (see your post above).
I personally am attempting to never ever make a prediction ever again. Now I can’t help myself, so I predict that I won’t keep my promise to myself and will make some prediction some time in the future. Oh and here’s another one. I won’t make a prediction as to who will win this election.
I don’t believe in jinxs but I’m sure that jinx’s don’t believe in me.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I think that one big albatross around Kerry’s neck was that his promises on Iraq seemed like fantasy. “We’ll bring European allies in to help us!” I’m sure that many voters were thinking “Okay, so say I’m Gerhard Shröder. John Kerry says ‘I know we screwed up on this whole Iraq thing, but can you help us… uh, fix it somehow, by putting some of your troops in Iraq so that they can get their arms blown off by IEDs?’ Why the heck would I-as-Shröder do that?” Bush’s policy in Iraq was already moderately unpopular by that point, and voters generally disliked it, but at least it didn’t seem like absurdist fantasy like Kerry’s.
Obama, on the other hand, has a clear position that’s imminently viable in reality: get out. That’s also a popular position. It wouldn’t have been as popular in 2004 as it is today, and I don’t even know if it would have been any better than Kerry’s “let’s do it right this time” position. I’m not sure what the right thing to say on Iraq in 2004 was, politically, but certainly the Kerry position wasn’t impressive by any stretch.
And there’s the financial crisis, etc.
I think that, overall, McCain is a better candidate that Bush, and Obama is a better candidate than Kerry (notwithstanding some aspects that will lose him a percentage point or two here and there, like his name, skin color, pastor, etc. Sorry — there was no perfect candidate with all of Obama’s advantages but none of his disadvantages.). Maybe if a 2008 version of Obama had run against 2004 Bush, he might have won. Now both parties have better candidates than Bush or Kerry, in the form of McCain and Obama, but structural factors are much more anti-Republican.
October 12th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
The Bradley Effect was worth maybe 2 points. People forget that Mayor Brdley’s actions on guns cost him that election. The entire swing is chalked up to race, but there was a decision on guns he made immediately before the election, and it swung rural voters hard away from Bradley. With Wilder, he had a 4-5 point lead headed in and won by 1 point. Bad GOTV can certainly cause a 3 point swing.
Polls have been done on whether Obama’s race changes peoples votes. Those polls determined that 6% of the population is less likely to vote for Obama because he’s black; but 9% is MORE likely to vote for Obama because he’s black. I suspect it’ll end up being a wash. The Maryland 2006 Senate and Governor’s elections were a good test of that. The Republican nominee for Governor was a white male incumbent running for re-election; the nominee for Senate was the sitting Lieutenant Governor, an African American. There was a two point difference between the two men. That difference can be solely explained by Baltimore County (Gov. Ehrlich was from Baltimore County, as was Ben Cardin, the Democratic Nominee for Senate). If you exclude Baltimore County, the two candidates ran roughly equal throughout the state. In some of the more rural, western areas, Steele actually outran Ehrlich.
This suggests that very few people vote based on race. I did some quick math on it and found that only .3% of the vote could be explained by race. The Harvard Study done since then comes to a similar conclusion. I think the race factor is overblown. But I also think people are paying lots of attention to it because it is new and it has never happened before.
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