Who were the Gore-Bush voters?

[Pres Mike]

In 2000, Bush got 47.9% of the vote. Gore got 48.4%. Nader got 2.74%

In 2004, Bush got 50.7% of the vote. Kerry got 48.3%. Nader got 0.38%

It seems Kerry was able to get most of the Nader 2000 vote. But it seems 2.46% of voters switched from Gore 2000 to Bush 2004

So what happened? Natioanl secuirty voters? Perhaps they were going to vote for Bush in 2000 before the DUI?

Or perhaps Republicans just had more untapped first time voters?

[Ashley Biden's Diary]

White suburban women, also a decent chunk of rural voters in places like the upper south. With the former group it was primarily terrorism, they were specifically targeted with the "Wolves" ad for example. With the latter group it was terrorism along with gay marriage.

[Pres Mike]

White suburban women, also a decent chunk of rural voters in places like the upper south. With the former group it was primarily terrorism, they were specifically targeted with the "Wolves" ad for example. With the latter group it was terrorism along with gay marriage.

I see, soccer moms who wanted to feel "safe".

The second group were conservative leaning southerns in TN, WV and KY. They finally found home in the GOP after giving Democrats one last chance with Bill Clinton.

[darklordoftech]

Neocons who didn't care for the domestic policy Bush ran on in 2000, neocons who thought Gore was more neocon than Bush in 2000, people frightened by 9/11, 9/11 first responders, etc.

[wnwnwn]

Yellow dogs from the South

[Pres Mike]

Neocons who didn't care for the domestic policy Bush ran on in 2000, neocons who thought Gore was more neocon than Bush in 2000, people frightened by 9/11, 9/11 first responders, etc.

Wasn't Bush seen as unusually liberal for a Republican in 2000?

[Joe McCarthy Was Right]

Hispanics, southerners, and people with family ties to New York.

[Pres Mike]

Hispanics, southerners, and people with family ties to New York.

Having looked at the data, Bush improved best in the upper south, Arizona and tri-state area (NY/NJ/CT) so you are right.

Bush also improved a few points in Texas, California, Florida and Illinois. All big states that helped with the national popular vote margin.

Looking at the swing states, he only gained a point or two. But this was cancelled out by Kerry eating up the Nader vote. So Kerry kept WI/MI/PA/MN with similar margins.

Something interesting, Kerry did much better than Gore in the Mountain West. That can be explained with Nader doing quite well in 2000. Nader won 5% in Montana and 10% in Alaska! Kerry was able to do much better than Gore in states like MT/AK/ID/SD but still lost these states. I think these states are more secular so the gay marriage refrendums wouldn't have flipped too many voters unlike the south. Might also explain why the Obama 2008 campaign thought they were slightly winnable.

[UWS]

Among these voters, there are Democrats like Ed Koch and also Zell Miller who saw Bush as the stronger leader on national security issues and War on Terrorism and didn't recognize their party as the party of FDR, Harry Truman and JFK and Miller even gave Keynote Adress at the 2004 RNC and even assaulted Kerry on his position opposing defense programs and wondered whether he would arm U.S. Forces with spitballs

[MyLifeIsYours]

Suburban mid-Atlantic voters who were traumatized in the wake of September 11th, who became hawkish and swore to support military intervention in the Middle East. They would fit one type of Gore 2000 voter that swung to Bush in 04.

[kwabbit]

Latinos, Southern WWC, and mid-Atlantic suburbanites. Bush did worse than 2000 in many educated suburban counties. 2000-2004 suburban swing, although not really talked about, was a canary in the coal mine for the GOP in culturally moderate areas.

[UWS]

A lot of Florida voters

In fact 44 % of national Latino voters voted for Bush compared to 35 % in 2000. Bush saw an increase of 6 % of African American support in Florida bringing it to 13 % compared to 7 % in 2000. Jewish voters accounted for 5 % of the vote in FL and Bush won 20 % of them perhaps due to Kerry opposing the Patriot missile that shot down Saddam Hussein scud missiles over Israel. The moreover that some of the 9/11 jihadists trained in FL. And FL saw massive hurricane season and most FL voters appreciated Bush’s response to it. As a result Bush won FL by a comfortable 5 percent

[Dan the Roman]

In 2000, the race was between a Texan Republican and a Democrat, who although from Tennessee, was branded as the inheritor of the Clinton coalition that in places like New England had taken on an almost nationalist hew. Massachusetts was giving Bush's father 46% as late as 1988 against its own governor. It was Clintonism that locked down those voters in California and New England.

Kerry was in many ways a throwback to the Dukakis-era(he even served as the Duke's LtGov) which meant a much more abrasive patrician streak.

To the extent SSM mattered I think it was a class issue reinforcing the personal messaging against Kerry. I don't think it mattered much.

I also have a theory that if the US had a French-style runoff system, Bush actually would have won a December run-off in 2000 by about the 2004 margin. Contra ideological assumptions about Nader voters, Clinton fatigue was real, and I think Nader>Gore switchers would have been overwhelmed by change voters being more motivated than marginal democrats. This is why I think the obsession with the infinitesimal popular vote margins nationally and in Florida is misplaced historical revisionism driven by how bad Bush turned out to be as President. I just don't buy that there was somehow a clear popular sentiment for Al Gore to become president in 2001. At most, you could say Bush didn't have a clear mandate either. But if a majority had clearly wanted Gore they would have made that known.