Anger With Bush Drives Dem Voters
CBS News Political Consultant David R. Jones analyzes the issues on Democratic voters' minds on Super Tuesday.
On a day in which voters in Democratic primary and caucus states selected over one-quarter of all the delegates to their party's national convention, CBS News exit polls provide a revealing portrait of the mind of the typical Democratic voter in 2004. This portrait contains some striking differences from just four years ago, and holds clues about the campaign themes the party's eventual nominee, John Kerry, is likely to emphasize or avoid as he looks ahead to the general election in November.
CBS News surveyed Democratic primary voters as they exited the polls in nine states participating in this year's "Super Tuesday" contest: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. Continuing a pattern found in earlier contests this year, the candidate quality that voters said mattered most in their decision was the ability to defeat George W. Bush (33 percent of voters). In contrast, only 19 percent of voters said a candidate standing up for his beliefs mattered most, and only 10 percent said having the right experience mattered most.
Significantly, these candidate quality concerns are almost the exact opposite of those expressed by Super Tuesday voters four years ago in the 2000 Democratic primary elections. In 2000, selecting a candidate that could win in November mattered most to only 10 percent of Democratic primary voters, less than the 23 percent who said that standing up for beliefs mattered most, and less than the 29 percent who said having the right experience mattered most in their decision.
This dramatic shift in the qualities that Democrats are looking for in their presidential nominee appears to be a consequence of the intensity of their displeasure with the results of the 2000 election. With a Democrat no longer in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress, Democrats have found themselves completely locked out of power in Washington for this first time since 1954. For many Democratic voters, it is the first time in their lifetimes that the party has been this powerless.
Democrats' frustration with the political situation of their party, and with its effects on public policy in America, has manifested itself in anger towards George W. Bush in particular. Close to half (47 percent) of all Democratic voters on this Super Tuesday said they feel angry towards the Bush administration. An additional 36 percent said they feel dissatisfied with his administration. Only 15 percent were satisfied or enthusiastic about Bush. As the Democrats' anger has grown, so too has their desire to nominate a candidate with the best chance of beating Bush in November.
One of the Democrats' main concerns with the direction of the country since Bush has been in office is the state of economy. Nearly 40 percent of Tuesday's voters said the issue of the economy and jobs was the most important in deciding their primary vote this year. This is more than twice as many voters as selected the next most common issue mentioned, health care (17 percent). Much of this concern may be driven by voters' personal experiences. When asked about their families' financial situation today compared to four years ago, more voters said it has gotten worse (38 percent) than said it has gotten better (22 percent).
The concern over the economy among Democratic primary voters this year represents another big shift from their views on Super Tuesday in 2000. In 2000, only 20 percent of voters selected the economy and jobs as the issue that mattered most in deciding their vote, the same proportion that selected social security as their number one issue. The lower level of concern regarding the economy in 2000 compared to 2002 can be attributed to the fact that four years ago most voters were happy with the state of the economy. Sixty percent of voters said their families' financial situation had improved during Bill Clinton's term in office, and only 9 percent said it had gotten worse.
These differences between the views of Democratic primary voters in 2000 and 2004 suggest that we can expect John Kerry to make the economy and jobs a major theme of his general election campaign. However, the exit polls indicate that other issues thought to motivate core Democratic groups are less likely to be emphasized by the Kerry campaign in the coming months. These include the issue of the war in Iraq and the more recent issue of gay marriage.
Opposition to the war in Iraq was one of the main issues that thrust Howard Dean to the front of the pack in the early stages of the Democratic nomination process. But just as Dean's candidacy has faded, so too have Democratic primary voters' interest in this issue. Only 13 percent said this issue mattered most to their decision on Super Tuesday. If this issue is not a major motivator for Democrats to vote for Kerry, it is almost certain that it would not be a winning issue for him among Independent and Republican voters in the general election.
On the surface, President Bush's recent call for a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage raised the prominence of an issue that would seem to resonate strongly with core Democratic and Republican constituencies, and thus provide a major issue for the general election. Within the Republican Party, evangelical Christians and other social conservatives feel strongly about the need to preserve the institution of marriage as it has traditionally been defined. Furthermore, the Democratic Party's history of promoting of equal rights for all citizens would appear to place them squarely at odds with President Bush on this issue.
However, the exit polls show that only 32 percent of Democratic primary voters believe that gay couples should be allowed to legally marry. Thirty percent said that gay couples should only be allowed to form civil unions—a position close to the one crafted by Bush—and 29 percent of Democratic primary voters said that there should be no legal recognition of gay couples' relationships at all. Based on these numbers, Kerry would not appear to gain much of an advantage, if any, from emphasizing the issue of gay marriage in his general election campaign.
The CBS News exit polls were conducted by Edison / Mitofsky for the National Election Pool. Results are based on 12,886 voters leaving the polls in nine states (California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont), and have an overall margin of sampling error of +/- 2 percentage points.
David R. Jones is associate professor of political science at Baruch College, City University of New York. He the author of a book and several scholarly articles on American politics and voting behavior. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.