Why Bush Won

Texas Gov. George W. Bush scored a clear win over John McCain in the South Carolina primary despite a record-high voter turnout that McCain backers hoped would lift the Arizona senator to victory. Using exit poll data, Monika McDermott of the CBS News Election and Survey Unit explains why Bush won.

Self-described Republicans made up 61 percent of the primary electorate and, as expected, Bush dominated Senator John McCain among these voters, receiving over two-thirds of their support. McCain performed best among Democrats, who made up just 9 percent of the electorate, but gave McCain 79 percent of their votes. McCain also did well among independents, receiving 60 percent of the vote, matching his 61 percent share in New Hampshire. Bush, however, performed better among South Carolina's independents than he did in New Hampshire, receiving 34 percent of the independent vote today, compared to only 19 percent on Feb. 1.

Bush's popularity among conservatives (61 percent of the electorate) and voters who identified themselves with the conservative Christian right (one-third of the electorate) also helped his victory. Both of these groups made up more significant portions of the electorate in South Carolina than they did in New Hampshire, and Bush received roughly two-thirds of the support of each group.

While veterans make up a substantial portion of the South Carolina Republican electorate (27 percent), they did not break heavily for McCain. Veterans divided evenly between McCain and Bush: 48 percent and 47 percent respectively.

Bush: "Reformer With Results"size>color>

Bush appears to have had the upper hand in defining both his and McCain's images in South Carolina. When asked which candidate was the real reformer, voters gave a slight edge to Bush: 24 percent chose only Bush, 17 percent chose only McCain and 36 percent chose both of them. Each candidate carried the group that chose "only" him as the real reformer, but even among those voters who said both were reformers, Bush won 56 percent of the vote to 41 percent for McCain.

McCain was damaged by Bush's efforts to tar him as a hypocrite on the issue of campaign finance reform. Forty-three percent of voters said they had concerns that on the issue of campaign finance McCain says one thing, but does another - although 50 percent said they were not concerned. Among those with concerns, Bush won over three-quarters of the vote.

And while McCain made a very public display of pulling his negative advertisements in the past week, and Bush continued to run his, voters still saw McCain as the more negative of the two candidates. Forty-three percent of voters said McCain had attacked Bush unfairly, while only 35 percent said Bush had unfairly attacked McCain.

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Moral values ranked as the top issue for primary voters - 37 percent chose moral values from a list of seven issues. Nineteen percent chose Social Security and Medicare as the most important issue, and 13 percent chose taxes. Among voters who chose moral values as their top issue, Bush beat McCain by 19 points - 55 percent to 36 percent. McCain won 58 percent of the vote among those who considered Social Security and Medicare top concerns, while Bush won 78 percent of the tax vote.

When asked to choose between a tax cut and shoring up Social Security, primary voters chose Social Security 52 percent to 44 percent. But despite McCain's efforts to convince voters that Bush's tax cut would jeopardize Social Security, 40 percent of those who chose Social Security over taxes still voted for Bush, while 57 percent chose McCain.

Only 6 percent of primary voters chose abortion as the most important issue in their vote, but candidate support divided along pro-choice and pro-life lines. McCain won 56 percent of the vote among those who would like abortion to remain at least mostly legal (39 percent of voters), while Bush won 61 percent among those who prefer to see abortion mostly or totally illegal (58 percent of voters).

Even though Bush and McCain have taken the same position on the Confederate flag controversy, candidate support divided somewhat along flag lines. Overall, voters were evenly divided over whether the flag should stay or go - 48 percent said go, 47 percent stay. But 61 percent of those voters who would like to see the Confederate flag remain voted for Bush, compared to 35 percent for McCain. Among those who would like to see the flag removed, 49 percent chose McCain and 45 percent chose Bush.

The CBS News exit poll was conducted among 2,078 Republican primary voters in South Carolina as they left the polls. The error due to sampling could be plus or minus two percentage points for the entire sample. The sampling error for sub-groups could be higher.

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