Here are full exit poll results. Go read them, they are very instructive and interesting. Note: these results were calibrated to the actual vote count so the numbers should be of good quality.
"Most important issue" is what everyone is focusing on:
Taxes (5%) 57% 43%
issue (how many said most imp.) Bush Kerry
Education (4%) 26% 73%
Iraq (15%) 26% 73%
Terrorism (19%) 86% 14%
Economy/Jobs (20%) 18% 80%
Moral Values (22%) 80% 18%
Health Care (8%) 23% 77%
Fully 18% (80% of 22%) of the electorate voted for Bush because "moral values" are more important than ANYTHING ELSE (including terrorism). More people chose "moral values" than any other issue as the most important. That is just astonishing.
If you take the "moral values" people out, Bush loses the election by 14%. Moral values, of course, is code for evangelical Christian, and in many cases no doubt is code for anti-gay-union. All the other "most important issue" responses can map to any number of voting blocs, but "moral values" -- the most important issue to the most people -- maps to only one voting bloc.
This is a major trend in the electorate and it cannot be ignored. I'm not saying whether it should be combated, co-opted, reframed, or what, but it obviously cannot be ignored.
Here's one other piece of information that I found interesting, because it's something I looked at specifically the day before the election:
Presidential Vote in 2000
Did not vote (17%) 45% 54%
Gore (37%) 10% 90%
Bush (43%) 91% 9%
Nader (3%) 21% 71%
Kerry cleaned up among new voters, and more or less held his own among vote switchers. Taken by itself, that sentence adds up to a Kerry win. Except that 6% of Gore voters either now believe they voted for Bush in 2000, or did not come back to vote in 2004.
Cleveland: certain rain
Columbus: likely rain
Miami: showers possible
Madison: chance showers
Some facts and thoughts, some from the article and some from my jelly-like brain:
Every voter falls in one of those three categories. You can't put this together in any way to find a narrative to describe a Bush win.
In fact, the only way to describe a Bush win that could hold together at all is that this polling data is wrong.
Turning to John Kerry, the editors write that "In every crucial area of concern to Americans (the economy, health care, the environment, Social Security, the judiciary, national security, foreign policy, the war in Iraq, the fight against terrorism), Kerry offers a clear, corrective alternative to Bush's curious blend of smugness, radicalism, and demagoguery."
It's signed "The Editors" but I hear Hendrik Hertzberg's voice loud and clear. I defer to no one in my endless admiration for him.
Buh-bye George.
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