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First, a disclaimer: I am a political scientist. This means that, although I am a lifelong Democrat, I probably view the ongoing political struggle with less passion than the rest of you. So, if you read something you don’t like in what follows, don’t assume that I am somehow supporting Bush. I am just calling things as I see them. Now, about the impact of Ralph Nader….
Last year I sat in on a dissertation defense for a Political Science PhD candidate at Stanford University. (That candidate now, PhD in hand, teaches at Harvard.) The candidate’s dissertation dealt with voters’ changing choices over the course of a political campaign. In particular, she was interested in what she called “mismatched voters”—liberals who were supporting Bush, or conservatives supporting Gore, as examples. Her central conclusion was that mismatched voters almost always find there way home to the party where they belong. In the 2000 campaign, virtually every voter who started out mismatched figured out their mistake by election day and voted for their “right” candidate. I’ll share a couple other interesting things about her study after I get to the point about Ralph Nader.
In her study, the PhD candidate tracked over 20,000 voters for more than a 6 month period. She discovered that virtually every single voter who “should” have been voting for Gore—based on their approval of the Clinton/Gore administration and/or their agreement with Gore’s issue postions—who had initially supported Nader, ended up voting for Gore on election day. I’ll say it again—virtually every single voter who “should” have been voting for Gore, but who initially supported Nader, ended up voting for Gore on election day. The people who did vote for Nader, almost without exception, would not—I repeat, would NOT—have voted for Gore! Nader voters rejected both major political parties. Only a very tiny percentage of eventual Nader voters were actually stolen from Gore. This was a stunning discovery. In the big picture sense, this means that Nader did not cost Gore any votes—or at least very few votes. Now, Nader still could have made a significant difference in the 2000 election—but only because the margin in Florida was so excruciatingly small.
Based on the results of this PhD candidate’s dissertation study, it is likely that Nader will steal almost no votes from the Democratic nominee in the general election. Thus, unless some state is again decided by only a couple hundred votes, Nader’s presence will have no substantive impact on the results of the 2004 election. Nader will attract some voters who are disaffected with both major parties, but he will not steal Democratic votes. Even Democrats who initially support Nader will find their way home by election day.
Now, a couple other interesting things from her study.
First, it was not Nader who cost Gore the most votes in 2000. It was Clinton! There was only one group of “mismatched” voters in 2000 who failed to vote for the “right” candidate on election day. Liberals who were disgusted by Clinton’s personal behavior voted for Bush, though they agreed with Gore on most issues. During her dissertation defense, the PhD candidate described this as the “Clinton anchor”, because its impact on Gore’s candidacy was so dramatic. If these voters had correctly matched up with Gore, he would have won the election easily. From her study, it appears that Gore was right to do all that he could to run away from Clinton.
Second, the source of data for this study is fascinating. This PhD candidate got her data from “Knowledge Networks”. Knowledge Networks is a company that was started by a group of Stanford professors, essentially as a really slick way to get social science data. After securing financial backing from the private sector, these professors gave away thousands of TiVos to a sample of people from across America. In exchange for the free TiVo, each of these people had to agree to immediately and honestly answer any questionnaires sent to them over the interactive system. Most of the time these surveys deal with products—like “Do you use Palmolive dish soap?” This is how Knowledge Networks pays for the system. But, every now and then, these professors throw in one of their social science surveys. As a result, they not only know the political leanings of the people in their sample, but they can track their attitudes over time. So, by asking policy preference questions, the PhD candidate was able to determine whether each person in the study “should” have been a Democratic voter, Republican voter, or Green voter, etc. She could then compare who these people should have been supporting with who they did support. And she could track changes in their preferences as the campaigns progressed. This is how she could say that almost all mismatched voters found their way back to their correct party by election day—except for those towing the “Clinton anchor”. This is also how she could discover that those who ended up voting for Nader would not have voted for Gore anyway.
In case any of you are wondering where these results have been published—they haven’t, yet. She is working on putting them out as part of a book.
I am now reminded of a couple of other interesting bits of information from the last election that can help us evaluate the potential impact of Nader in 2004—but they are NOT from the study I discuss above.
First, remember the forgotten impact of Pat Buchanon. Many people focus on the two states that Bush won that were within the margin of the Nader vote—Florida and New Hampshire. They assume that if Nader had not been in the race, Nader votes would have gone to Gore and Gore would have won those two states, and thus won the election. The study discussed above makes this line of thought questionable, but even if it is true, we should also consider what may have happened if Buchanon had not been in the race—just to be fair. Most people don’t even think about Buchanon’s impact, but they should. If we assume that votes for Buchanon would have gone to Bush without Buchanon in the race, then it appears that Bush would have also won Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin in 2000, instead of Gore (assuming Nader still ran, but not Buchanon). Gore’s margin of victory in each of these states was less than the number of votes cast for Buchanon. And, without Buchanon in the race, Bush may have won Florida by thousands of votes. Now, I don’t personally believe that Buchanon voters would have automatically gone for Bush—anymore than I believe that Nader voters would automatically go for Gore. I am just trying to point out that if we are going to get all upset about the impact of third party candidates, we should admit the impact that they have an impact on both major parties—not just our own. I think it is better to not get upset about them at all, or over estimate their impact—either way.
Second, remember that Joe Lieberman will not be on the ticket this time around. Lieberman practically lived in the Jewish retirement communities in Florida for months prior to the 2000 vote. Gore handled the rest of the country while Lieberman worked Florida, day in, day out. At the time it was joked that Lieberman would have to run for reelection to the Senate from Florida—because he now lived there. Without Lieberman’s efforts, Florida would have probably been won handily by Bush, and Nader’s impact—whatever it was—would not have mattered. Just look at the margin in the Florida legislature, and at Jeb Bush’s election numbers. Florida is clearly a majority Republican state. Unless Graham is the VP nominee, I doubt Florida will be in play in 2004—and the Nader factor won’t be factor, even there.
So, in sum, everybody just calm down. In all likelihood, Nader will make no difference in 2004. The Democratic nominee will win or lose for entirely different reasons.
Finally, before anyone accuses me of abandoning this thread, I must now head off to class. I’ll check back later today to possibly reply to any comments.
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