Building evangelists through dialogue: Obama victory margin

I've been pouring over the US Presidential election exit polling data which is all available at the CNN site. It gives some interesting answers to many questions. We've here talked about the need to engage with customers and audiences, and we find excellent data comparing the performance of the Obama and McCain campaign from the exit polling data. Also the stats-rat in me was aroused by many other matters which don't really relate to our blog about Communities Dominate, such as what effect did Sarah Palin have, and which woman had the bigger positive benefit to McCain's campaign - the numbers are astounding. I'll dig through some of those numbers later in this blog, after the link. So let me just first briefly do the relevant engagement numbers here that would probably be of interst to most of our readers.

We've reported here many times of the innovative ways that the Obama campaign communicated with its supporters. We now have the results, was this a pointless activity with networked kids who won't show up to vote, or were there real results measurable in the final vote?

Lets dig in. The Exit polls - which by the way are the most reliable measurement of the US voting population's mindset - with a huge sample size of nearly 18,000 on the national election level, ten times the size of a large pre-election poll and thirty times the size of the daily tracking polls - and as this is not "likely voters" or "registered voters" but actual real voters straight after they voted, it is the most accurate measure of what people were thinking. For those who think that the media and polls were against McCain and the Republicans this year (or perhaps any year) please note, that Fox News is one of the sponsors of this national exit poll - there is only one, and it is truly done with the best polling competence and resources, and shared with all news organizations equally. I do trust these numbers implicitly.

So Obama vs McCain in contacting the voters. The Exit Poll asked if the individual voter had been contacted by either campaign. The McCain campaign had managed to contact almost one in five actual voters, in 18% of the total voting population (note obviously both campaigns would also contact others, who for whatever reason did not show up to vote; the more accurate the "micro-targeting" can be, the more they eliminate those who are ineligible to vote - foreigners, teenagers etc). As there were approx 130 million voters (the final number won't be confirmed until weeks from now, and is growing every day), the McCain campaign reached a very respectable 23 million people who actually voted.

Now Obama. His campaign managed to contact a whopping 26% of the total electorate who voted ! More than one in four who stood in line at the polls, had been personally contacted by the Obama campaign. In numbers that is about 34 million people. Wow. That is truly impressive.

So to put these in context. For every 20 people that the McCain campaign called or emailed, the Obama campaign managed 29 contacts !  This level of interactivity and engagement is a hopeless advantage for the McCain campaign to attempt to defeat. That is partly why so many of the red states went to Obama by the slimmest of margins right at the end. The Obama campaign had the resources to direct the "get out the vote" campaign into the last battleground states. Obama himself flew to Indiana on voting day, to motivate and energize his supporters.

Perhaps its not the quantity of the calls and contacts, but the quality? Yeah, that is a very valid point. And we have again the numbers. For every contact that the McCain campaign made to a voter, 60% voted for McCain. But for every contact the Obama campaign made, 64% voted for Obama.

Its now a bloodbath. Its not only more by millions, the Obama campaign was also more efficient in turning contacts into votes. If we count the total contacts made, and multiply it by the voting results, we get that the "ground game" of the McCain campaign generated 14 million actual votes through their direct contacts. But the Obama campaign generated 22 million actual votes by its direct contacts. Or in other words, Obama's campaign "won" the get-out-the-vote game by 8 million votes.

How relevant is that? If we assume the final vote will be just about 130 million people, then the difference in 8 million votes is 6% - exactly the winning margin in the popular vote nationally, as of today.

So for all the other factors, the anti-Bush sentiment, the enormous advertising funding advantage of Obama, the "cratering" economy, etc - a very major reason why Obama won not by 1% or so, the margins of the past two elections - but by 6% - was this huge advantage in the actual calls to votes by the Obama campaign.

I will also look at other intersting stats from the election about McCain, Palin, Bush, Hillary Clinton etc after the link here, but that is not really "Communities Dominate" stuff, so if you're not really into the US elections, you might not want to read this...

WHICH WOMAN

I think one of the most fascinating finding of the exit polling is about the two major women this election cycle, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. Who helped and who hurt John McCain?

Before I go to that, lets start with a startling observation. The Exit Poll asked voters of a hypothetical pairing of McCain against Hillary Clinton rather than Obama. The result? Hillary would have won by 11 point margin - five points more than Obama !

Now, while this is not really a "fair" judgement at this point, because Hillary never ran in the actual election, and McCain would certainly have adopted very different tactics against Hillary than against Obama, and Hillary would have been on the receiving end of three months of anti-Clinton campaigning by McCain - so her negatives would have been up and her positives down - but still, it is a fair argument to say, that under "normal circumstances" against a "generic Democratic rival" such as Hillary Clinton, McCain would have lost by double digits !

So it must be noted, that McCain did perform heroically well this season, when all the cards were stacked against him - with even the economy cratering six weeks before election day..  So while it is painful for most Republicans right now facing McCain's loss, the exit polls suggest that had McCain faced Hillary Clinton, the result would have been far worse. Small solace.. (or as 007 might say, a quantum of solace..)

So lets look at the effect of the two ladies to McCain's campaign.

In 2004 the Democrats and Republicans both achieved 37% support in the actual election, from their own parties (the last fraction of a bit under a third is the independent vote). This year Obama got 39% of the vote from Democrats - ie the Democrat vote grew from 2004. But the Republican voter turnout was seriously down, with only 32% showing up for McCain.

Before the conventions, McCain's support had been very weak among Republicans mostly because he had a reputation of being a maverick of not holding solidly the Republican party line and often being bi-partisan. The pundits suggested McCain should select a strong conservative to add to the support of the conservative wing of the party. McCain's pick of Sarah Palin - while a surprise pick - did this initially, energizing the party loyals, ie the "party base".

THE PALIN FACTOR

As the election wore on, the support for Palin started to diminish as various discrepancies emerged with her stated positions and reality. She did not return the money for the bridge to nowhere, she actually kept the money in Alaska. She did not sell the plane on ebay, she ended up selling it at a loss to a crony. She claimed to be a fiscal conservative but left the Wasilla government with its biggest deficit. On the McCain's ticket and its anti-Tax philosophy, Palin's state took twice the federal handouts than what Alaska contributed to the system. She claimed to be against earmarks, yet had hired a lobbyist to get more earmarks to both her city and later to her state, etc etc etc. She claimed to have foreign policy experience because she could see Russia, she couldn't name newspapers she read, spent 150,000 dollars of desperately needed cash to clothe herself and her family (enough to keep the Michigan McCain campaign on TV two weeks) - and now Newsweek tells us it was tens of thousands more than even that enormous number. She didn't know Africa was a continent, etc etc etc. And for a campaign accusing Obama of being a socialist, Palin was the governor to implement the most socialistic "redistribution of wealth" in any US state today - through her initiative to institute a windfall profits tax to energy companies in Alaska - and redistributing that extra income to Alaska residents.

In the final two weeks dozens of Republicans came out in public, against the McCain campaign - and usually citing the choice of Palin as a sign McCain was not fit to be President. Republican war-winning general and former secretary of state under George W Bush, Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama was the most damning of these Republican views, but were echoed by countless others including staff from the Reagan administration, the previous Bush administration and the current Bush administration.

I don't mean to say Palin is inherently bad, please do not misunderstand me. I do mean, that the image that was given when she was suddenly introduced by McCain just before the Republican convention, and the reality of who she really is and how prepared (or unprepared) she was - that reality came out. Obviously the bad press and the nightly jabs by all the comics headed by Saturday Night Live and Tina Fey's brilliant parody of Palin made all the matters worse.

I do not mean she is a bad person, or incompetent, or incapable of serving Alaska or indeed having a major role in the Republican party in the future. She is loved by the base of the party. But I do mean, that it is clear, that the image that the McCain campaign tried to project with her (change) and through her (women voters) turned out to be very different in reality with all the revellations.

Now lets go to the numbers. The exit polls are very clear about this. The voters were asked if they thought Palin was qualified to be President. The results are crushing. 60% said not qualified. (for any partisan Republicans who might read this, note the same survey asked if McCain or Obama had the right experience - and 51% said that Obama did have the right experience to be President - this inspite of the fact that obviously Obama is nowhere near as experienced as McCain).

Only 38% percent felt that Palin was qualified to be President.

Well, that alone does not mean that people didn't vote for McCain inspite of this? Well, they also asked if Palin was a deciding factor in the election. Now it gets interesting. For 60% of the voters, Palin was a factor in the vote (and for 7% it was the most important factor, and for another 33% it was an important factor).

How was it reflected in the vote? 56% of those for whom Palin was a factor, voted for McCain. These 56% obviously felt Palin was qualified. This is roughly the same number as the total Republican vote in the election (although 10% of Republicans voted for Obama, so in reality, more than one in ten of the Palin supporters were independents). That would be good, if not for the other part.

43% of those who felt Palin was a factor, voted against her (and McCain) by voting for Obama. This is extremely harmful. Mostly VP candidates are ignored in the election. But having Palin on the ticket, brought no measurable added voting for McCain (and judging by anecdotal evidence of moderate Republicans, cost McCain votes) but Palin's choice boosted the Obama vote (in part or as the most important factor) by 33 million votes. Yes, more added to McCain than to Obama, but there is no evidence at all, that the selection of Joe Biden pushed ANY voters to vote for McCain. Had McCain selected someone like Mitt Romney or Carly Fiorina or Mike Huckabee, then the VP choice would have been "neutral" to the opposition, while helping boost the party loyals.

Even we ignore all other numbers, and take only the 7% for whom Palin was the most important factor, and who because of it voted for Obama (52% of those) - that is 3.5% of the actual vote which was "only anti-Palin". That is 4.5 million votes into Obama's camp (and the real number is far greater from the others who felt it was a partial factor). I have to be very clear, this is a number that cannot be balanced by the "positive factor" of having Palin on the ticket.

Compared to the 2004 campaign, the total Repblican party turnout was DOWN by a massive 6.5 million votes. Palin did not bring out the Republican vote. What is worse, ten percent of the Republican vote (another 3.5 million votes) went to Obama - Obama whom the Republicans very consistently called the most liberal senator - someone perhaps appealing to some left-leaning independents, but the most liberal senator could not (alone) be appealing to the base of Republicans.

Palin was cited as the primary reason by many moderate Republicans when voting for Obama. So out of the 3.5 million votes that Obama "stole" from the Republican base, Palin was certainly one primary reason, if not the primary reason.

The first rule of the VP choice, is to do no damage. Palin was the most damaging VP choice in many decades, far more so than Dan Quayle even.

HILLARY FACTOR

But I said women, not woman. There is a woman McCain has to thank for his election totals, and that was not Palin, it is Hillary Clinton. The amazing number is, that while yes, of Hillary's supporters, yes the majority did of course vote for Obama - amazingly 16% voted for McCain !   Out of all voters, Hillary supporters were 14%. So one out of six of those, who supported Hillary but now voted for McCain is 3 million voters.

While Palin the woman cost McCain millions of votes, but Hillary Clinton actually "delivered" for John McCain 3 million voters !  It would have very prudent of McCain to use more of Hillary Clinton's arguments - the experience, the 3 AM phone call, etc against Obama, rather than the nonsense superficial ie he's a celebrity, he pals with terrorists, he is a socialist etc.

Now, it is likely that some Hillary supporters who ended up voting for McCain did so partly because of Palin as well, lets be honest. There were probably a small portion of moderate GOP female members who were attracted to Hillary as a woman, and then offended by Obama and found the "excuse" in Palin to return to the GOP. But that benefit would have to have been made with the golden rule of VP's, first do no damage. Any of the many women on the McCain public short list would have fulfilled this criterion - and been far more appealing to Hillary supporters, than Palin was. Nonetheless, McCain was right to thank Hillary early, and he still owes her another thank-you, when they next meet in the Senate. Palin cost McCain millions of votes, but Hillary very concretely gave McCain 3 million votes that he would not have gotten without her campaign this year.

BUSH FACTOR

Then there is George W Bush. A big part of Obama's victory was new voters this year (13%), who voted for Obama at a ratio of almost 3:1. But what of the Bush voters from 2004? You would expect none of them to embrace Obama instinctively and the natural successor to Bush - inspite of his campaign trying to distance McCain from Bush, was of course McCain, not Obama. There were many many reasons why Bush voters would be deserting him and going for "change", obviously with the President's approval ratings the worst ever measured (worse than when Nixon resigned). But how did it impact McCain?

McCain did win the majority of those who voted for Bush in 2004, no surprise. But 17% of those who voted for Bush now voted for Obama. That is devastating. That is 10 million actual votes. And yes, that is almost exactly the margin by which McCain lost.

This was a referendum on Bush, and as Obama was able to tie McCain to Bush, that essentially lost him the election. This to me and digging through the numbers, is the biggest single reason.

WHAT OF MR BRADLEY?

Bradley Who? Bradley was a black candidate for I think Governor of California several decades ago. The polls just prior to his election suggested a big win, but he lost the election. It was called the Bradley Effect, by which white people would tell pollsters they are prepared to vote for a black candidate, but then in the voting booth, racism would appear, and the person would actually vote against the black candidate.

This year obviously Obama took a giant majority of the black vote (something like 95%) so there was a "positive discrimination" for him, that most blacks voted for him. Not all because he was black, obviously, but some certainly voted for him because he is black. Meanwhile, was there a Bradley effect? Well, this exit poll cannot answer that directly - but it can actually verify a professed racist bias (against blacks). The exit polls reveal that for 9% of those who voted race was an important issue. This split 53% for Obama (ie being black was good) 46% for McCain (black is bad). So the McCain portion - 46% out of 9% or a little over 4% of the total electorate, admitted to being bigoted about race and voting against Obama because of his race.

This is reality in America, but luckily the number is small. And obviously, there are racists among blacks and hispanics etc, so its not only with whites. But I think the number is quite revealing.

Meanwhile what of Mr Bradley? We will actually get a good measure of the reality of the Bradley effect. We have to wait until we get the final count of the official vote in a couple of weeks. Then we'll see what is the final winning margin. I am estimating that to come in around 7% (currently it is 6% as they still count the last votes). But - the exit polls suggested that the voting margin should be 8%. This should be the same number. So here is the Bradley effect. Whatever the final vote margin will be, and if that differs from the exit poll margin - that is the (net effect of the) Bradley Effect. Note there is a "reverse Bradley Effect" at least hypothetically, where a traditionally conservative and "white" member would say they will vote for McCain but in their heart, they know they will actually vote for Obama and do not want to admit this to anyone. So that is why "net Bradley Effect". But I expect that to come in around 1-2%.

So in sum. McCain had a huge burden in the anti-Bush vote. That alone cost him the election. He gained a lot out of Hillary Clinton but lost even more out of the final voting day effect of Palin (and yes, initially Palin did help the party base, but that support eroded to disasterous levels by election day). Obama was hit by real racism and most likely also a Bradley effect by which Obama's performance was significantly less than the "generic" Democratic candidate would have done against McCain. Finally the get-out-the-vote advantage that Obama had, helped seal the victory for him.

Fascinating stuff for those among us who happen to be propeller-heads and love stats. What will I do for the next four years?

Comments

[Microsoft office 2007]

It is indeed wonderful to read your article. I appreciate your style.

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