Moral Values Myth?

In today’s Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer argues quite coherently that it was not moral values which won Bush the election. He argues intelligently the category of moral values encompasses many issues – which he believes are abortion, gay marriage, and most interestingly Hollywood’s corrupting influence on America. And, since these issues are all lumped together he wants the other issues combined too. And then “moral issues” does not finish first, but instead last.

The two other groups he wants to combine and compare are economic policy – including jobs, taxes and health care, and foreign policy issues – defined as terrorism and Iraq. Of course this argument made a great deal of sense. Upon checking the statistics Mr. Krauthammer’s math adds up, it wasn’t moral issues but foreign policy that weighed most heavily on voter’s minds.

But further examination showed a major flaw in his argument. The groupings of issues he wanted showed great splits in each subcategory. The foreign policy grouping was the main issue for 34% of the voters nationwide. But of those voters, the 15% who thought Iraq was the main issue, 73% voted for Kerry. The 19% who believe terrorism was the deciding factor gave President Bush 86% of their votes. We find the same problems within the economic grouping. Mr. Kerry won by large margins in the topics of jobs, education and health care. Mr. Bush won in only taxes. Another grouping split.

Under moral values, which were left undefined, 22% of the voters said were their primary reason for voting. These voters gave 80% of their vote to President Bush. When all factors are weighted together the President gained the largest number of votes from voters who claimed moral values as their most important issue. Mr. Krauthammer would like to break moral values down into smaller categories, but unlike issues of foreign and economic policy, there would not be a great division among those voters. Voters who believe gay marriage, abortion or Hollywood’s moral decay would all invariably vote the same way. There is no great divide. All these issues appeal to the same grouping of people. If pollsters had a reasonable expectation to see splits on these issues they certainly would have included them in the poll. This is not the case.

Additional research showed that two of the large swing states – FL and OH showed results remarkably similar to the national results, with terrorism rating higher in FL for the President.

The more remarkable statistic is that Bush increased his voting share among several Democratic stronghold groups – including Blacks and people of Jewish faith. Following the 2000 election no one who have predicted the President would actually capture a greater share of their vote. A closer examination shows that of people who attend religious services weekly or more often gave the President a greater share of the vote than those who attended less frequently.

There must be an explanation for the high voter turnout, and the exit polls do not show a great divide on the other issues. The President did not improve his share among voters who were described as Democrats. He did do slightly better among Republicans and marginally better (1%) by independents. So, where and why did the President improve? He lost great shares of voters on issues from Iraq, economy/jobs, health care, and education. Leaving only two issues showing change from the prior election to drive voters to the polls for the President – terrorism and moral values.

Moral values may not have been the single determining factor in the election, but it did have a greater impact than any other single issue or even issue grouping. Moral values is not a myth issue, it helped the President to victory. Mr. Krauthammer would have been better served by actually examining the poll results further.

If you wish to see the complete exit poll results, with the ability to break poll down by states, click here.