Do you think Sarah Palin was a negative factor?
According to the Exit Polls, Palin was a significant net asset to McCain.
not really. It depends on which way you slice the data. In the CNN exit poll, 60% of voters thought Palin was not "qualified to be president if necessary," and they voted 82% for Obama. While she did help energize the Republican base, she also turned off a lot of independents, moderate Democrats, and Hillary women who otherwise might have voted for McCain.
Also, Palin hurt among key demographics in key states that McCain had to win, especially among Jews in Florida and Pennsylvania. Palin's church had hosted a speaker from Jews for Jesus, a group which elicits strong negative reactions from American Jewry. Her pastor had made comments about how suicide bombings were God's punishment for the Jews' rejection of Jesus. Furthermore, false rumors were spread that she was a Buchanan supporter or a member of the John Birch society.
In addition, her whole Real America vs Fake America nonsense turned off urban and suburban whites, who swung 9 points to Obama. Appalachian and Southern whites swung to McCain, despite the fact that he's in many ways a worse candidate for those regions than Bush was. Racism was a factor, but it really isn't that much more widespread in the South than it is in many Northern cities. If you're looking for an explanation as to why rural whites in the South swung Republican and working class whites in the North swung Democratic, that's a good place to start looking.
If she helped McCain, she helped him mainly in places where he didn't need it.
Lets look at the question.
Was McCain choice of Palin a Factor in Your Vote?
60% of respondents said Yes, and of those 60%, the majority (56%) voted for McCain.
Now, of the 33% who said that the McCain Choice of Palin was NOT a factor, the majority of them voted for Obama.
