PLANK NOVEMBER 7, 2012
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We all know that President Obama won re-election last night. But why did he win? My colleague Jon Cohn makes a persuasive broad-brush argument, but when I try to identify, from exit poll data, the specific Obama policies that voters ratified, the exercise proves weirdly difficult.
Sixty percent of voters said the economy was the most important issue, followed by health care (17 percent), the deficit (15 percent), and foreign policy (four percent). So, OK, this election was about the economy. But 77 percent of voters said the economy was in bad shape (it is!), and by a hair voters trusted Romney more than Obama to handle it (49-48). Among the 77 percent of voters who believed the economy was in bad shape, voters trusted Romney on this issue more than Obama by a wider margin (51-47 percent).
The most important economic issue, voters said, was unemployment (38 percent), followed by rising prices (37 percent), taxes (14 percent) and the housing market (8 percent). Those most concerned about unemployment went for Romney, and those most concerned about rising prices went for Obama. Never mind that it’s Obama whose constituency was more likely to compel him to address unemployment, and it’s Romney whose constituency was more likely to compel him to address inflation (which at the moment doesn’t exist, so why is it virtually tied with unemployment as the preeminent economic concern?).
It was probably to Obama's advantage that taxes ranked so low on the list of economic problems. Sixty percent of voters said taxes should be increased, which definitely benefited Obama at Romney’s expense. An impressive 55 percent of voters said the economy favors the wealthy, which looks to me like an upturned middle finger aimed at Romney. As I’ve written before, GOP promises to cut taxes lost their magic in 2012. But a 63 percent majority of voters said they opposed raising taxes to lower the deficit. The lesson here may be that voters, as opposed to rich people and Washington big shots, don’t think the deficit is an urgent problem. (Remember, only 15 percent of voters cited it as the most important issue.) On the other hand, a 51 percent majority said they wanted a smaller government that provided fewer services, compared to 43 percent who said they wanted a larger government that provided more services. So even if voters weren’t hopped up about the deficit, they didn't like big government (at least in the abstract).
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On the question of whether taxes should rise on incomes above $250,000 (a key campaign pledge for Obama), only 47 percent of voters agreed. Still, that 47 percent was more than the 35 percent who said nobody’s taxes should go up, and the 13 percent who said everybody’s taxes should go up. Does that mean Obama’s tax policy was favored over Romney’s? Hard to say, since voters probably had a hard time figuring out which of these other two options represented Romney’s position. (In fact, neither did. Romney wanted to raise taxes on lower incomes in order to cut them on higher incomes, but he fervently denied this was so.)
With regard to the second-most important issue—health care—a slender majority favored repealing Obamacare, the single most important accomplishment of Obama’s presidency. But 52 percent trusted Obama over Romney to handle Medicare (that’s just good sense). It may be that Romney-Ryan’s determination to voucherize Medicare is the thing that lost them the election. But if that’s true, how to explain that the elderly vote went to Romney 56-44 percent? (Maybe because they were grandfathered out of the voucher plan?)
The immigration issue clearly helped Obama, in large part because his share of the Latino vote this year (69 percent) was bigger than in 2008. Two thirds of voters said they favored giving undocumented immigrants the opportunity to apply for legal status, and 61 percent of these two-thirds favored Obama. Still, voters never ranked immigration as one of the most important issues.
Voters didn’t rank abortion as one of the most important issues either. But about 60 percent of voters said abortion should be legal in most or all cases, and Obama won these votes by a much bigger margin than Democrats have in past presidential elections.
Perhaps the single weirdest exit-poll finding is that 52 percent of voters agreed that the country is on the “wrong track.” Yet the incumbent won anyway, and a 54 percent majority approved of the job he’s doing. Fifty-two percent of voters thought Obama was more in touch with people like them, compared to only 44 percent who felt that way about Romney (and even that seems high to me, given Romney’s genial obtuseness). Perhaps voters attribute the wrongness of the track that America is on to Republicans in Congress. President George W. Bush won re-election in 2004 despite 49 percent of voters stating in exit polls that America was on the wrong track, which it was. (Incidentally, one possible reason Obama won re-election in spite of voters’ unfavorable views about the economy and Obama’s trustworthiness in handling it is that a 53 percent majority of voters still blame Bush, perhaps unfairly, for the dismal state of the economy, compared to 38 percent who blame Obama.)
I would urge the president not to take any of these exit-poll findings too much to heart. For one thing, the polls were conducted only in 31 of 50 states, limiting their relevance to the electorate as a whole. And anyway, you can drive yourself insane trying to resolve the logical inconsistencies in what the public believes about how the government should be run. What matters is that in spite of all these contradictions, a majority of voters cast their ballot for Obama. They think he's doing a good job, and they want him to continue doing it. He should do so as he sees fit.
12 comments
"I would urge the president not to take any of these exit-poll findings too much to heart." Voters are like my teenager: they don't know what they want. The "logical inconsistencies" I find the most humorous, if depressing, is that a majority blame Bush for the dismal state of the economy, have greater confidence in Romney to do something about it, and believe Romney would reinstate Bush's policies. There's a grain of wisdom in there somewhere but I'll be damned if I can find it.
- rayward
November 7, 2012 at 4:01pm
It sounds like you're trying to reduce to a single number, a LOT of facets of the election. I'm sure different states had different valuations of those things. In Ohio, for instance, I suspect there's a lot more (say 60%) of the electorate that really appreciates the auto bailout, while in North Carolina there's quite few (say 30%) that do. Combine the two, and you can easily get less than 50% approval for the auto bail-out. Yet Obama won in Ohio based partly on that, and lost in North Carolina where that wasn't a factor at all. You're averaging things together that shouldn't be averaged, and then wondering how those resulting low numbers result in a win. They don't. But it's your technique at fault. Bottom line for Obama -- do the right thing. Let the Bush tax-cuts expire. Continue the recovery. Cut the military, but maintain or increase social spending. Then let the election chips fall where they may. If stuff works, America wins.
- AllanL5
November 7, 2012 at 4:16pm
Oh boy, can't anyone here play this game? The voters do not care about the issues per se. The want a president whom they perceive is strong and has their interests at heart. The public actually knows that no one knows what is going to happen and hence does not sweat the details. Didn't Romney prove that, if nothing else? He had no details, his "plans" were preposterous. For wonks, this rendered him clearly unfit. For the public, he apparently paid no penalty. (Aside: This is why Galston's perpetual pleas for Obama to introduce detailed plans in the middle of a campaign were so utterly ridiculous.) The public wants someone with the will and the intention to do what they think they would want done if they knew what to do which they basically know they don't. The issues are used as symbols with which to add truthiness to the frame that the candidates are trying to fit onto the public mindset. Whoever wins the framing battle wins, because then the things that candidate says are given credit while whatever the other guy says is discounted. Once the public is persuaded of strength and intention, it wants to not know the details. It says, "Hey, that's your job, not our job. You figure it out and get it done. That's why we hired you." Obama very wisely set out early to frame Romney. It worked. The particulars -- the issues -- are the adornments, not the substance of what the public cares about. Hence, no amount of analysis that tries to rationalize the candidates' positions on issues, the public's view of the issues, and the outcome is every going to produce anything other than meaningless much. Okay. Now, play ball!
- roidubouloi
November 7, 2012 at 4:22pm
Individual issues don't add up to the sum of their parts - the vision of America so beautifully framed by Obama in 2004 and expanded upon during the campaign, graphically on display at the Convention. Also obvious: Romney's persona, his wife's persona, and their supporters: they don't look like America, period. Also, the social issues scare people. You can't tell women what to do. Period. You can't tell black and brown people they can't vote. You can't tell the less wealthy that we're worthless mooches. Plus, we like President Obama and Michelle rocks. The end. PS: BILL CLINTON - awesome. And Dubya? He went to Grand Cayman. Kept HIM out of sight. 'Nuff said.
- Sophia
November 7, 2012 at 4:31pm
My old man switched from being a Bobby Kennedy supporter to being a George Wallace reporter 44 years ago, pretty much in the time it took Kennedy to die on the floor of the Ambassador hotel in LA. If you're looking for logic in the American voter, be prepared for a long hunt.
- IowaBeauty
November 7, 2012 at 4:38pm
President Obama ran on raising the top rate. Romney ran on lowering it. Can anyone guess what I think that means about how one element of the fiscal cliff is supposed to be resolved?
- Nusholtz
November 7, 2012 at 4:59pm
Also, there's this. There IS logic here, history and majesty and I think at least some - a majority of Americans recognize it: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/barack-obama-2012-14524219#ixzz2BZPkVwJW Barack Hussein Obama is a transformational figure. I think he has it in him to be a second Lincoln. Certainly he faces enormous challenges. May the wind be at his back.
- Sophia
November 7, 2012 at 5:10pm
"The public wants someone with the will and the intention to do what they think they would want done if they knew what to do which they basically know they don't." The public in a nutshell, roi. And I do mean NUTshell.
- magboy47.
November 7, 2012 at 7:40pm
I would like to add that President Obama won re-election because John Sununu is lazy.
- Nusholtz
November 7, 2012 at 10:07pm
late to this, luckily, because I get to see some smart comments. Nothing more American than wanting logical impossibilities. And, much as I love Charles Pierce, you don't have to be black to be inspired by Barack Obama for not just his, Michelle's, and his campaign's brains, but their journey, too. If your parent or grandparent punched a clock when they were sick, if you recognize echoes of family lore like the disapproval that split Elizabeth Warren's family, it echoes inspirations we've all had, even if you chuckle now at how it was a big deal once to surmount the stinkeyes after WW2 if a second gen WOP married a third gen MICK - it might not be as bad as today's glares directed at gay and biracial couples, but overcoming is recognizable. A lot of us, or our parents or grandparents or great grandparents were called wetbacks by whatever other name in fashion in the time or place. If you were the first or one of the few to go to college, or someone assumes that you are the employer of your hispanic shopping buddy, or you see the hate for the Flotus on the internet, you may start to recognize who you can trust to know about overcoming. And if some kids get John Lewis to dance gangnam style, or some girl thinks she doesn't have to be a feminist any more, or someone avoids the label of liberal, or comments that Muslims should get over themselves, you just sigh and remember that growing up, for some issues, can take a few hundred years. Isn't there an internet meme about Barack Obama being the only adult in the room sometimes?
- JCAtwood
November 8, 2012 at 2:45am
Good answer, magboy. Obama won in part because they didn't trust Romney Ryan to "fix" the economy. They understood that it the average person who would pay the price. They also knew that the Democrats wouldn't be as ready to sacrifice their interests for those of the rich. The rest is commentary.
- arnon1
November 8, 2012 at 3:38pm
I find the poll results on the issue of taxes to be quite telling. If 55 percent think we should tax the wealthy more, that comes from a sense people have in this country that this country favors the wealthy. On the other hand, when you ask people the question "should we raise taxes to lower the deficit," people have an instinctive response: absolutely not. They have heard too much about politicians on both sides of the aisle spending too much money to reward too many special interests, pork barrel spending, etc., and instinctively want that to be reigned in. And there is a good argument that, no matter how much you raise taxes, politicians will still spend however much more money than they take in -- because they can't help it. People would be particularly attuned to that idea after the profligacy of the Bush years. On top of it, it seems to me people know congressional spending most likely favors the wealthy -- e.g., wealthy campaign contributors. Americans favor a level playing field -- they don't necessarily think tax and spend politicians LEVEL the playing field, they are cynical enough to suspect they may tilt it even further towards the rich.
- dmschlom
November 9, 2012 at 11:20am