Thumbs Down? Opponent Dissatisfaction among Obama and Clinton Supporters
As virtually any political campaign wears on, more and more sharp words get exchanged by the combatants and their handlers — a tendency exemplified last week by the sudden resignation of Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power, who had referred (off the record, she thought) to Hillary Clinton as a “monster,” and this week by the sudden resignation of Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro following her on-the-record remarks about Obama and race.
Some of this infighting is all in good political fun as campaigns go, for politics ain’t beanbag, as Mr. Dooley put it. Even so, sooner or later all the attacks and counterattacks become likely to leave a residue of hard feelings, creating a situation in which the vanquished may turn thumbs down on the victor. Thus the issue repeatedly arises of whether divisive primaries undermine a candidate’s prospects in the general election — an issue on which there is some good political science research, as John Sides recently posted here.
New grist for the mill has been delivered, in the form of some data that Joost van Beek, a dedicated psephologist, recently forwarded to us at “The Monkey Cage.” Drawing on exit poll results archived at msnbc.com, Joost calculated what he called the “Bitterness Quotient” between Obama and Clinton supporters in the Democratic primaries that have been contested so far. I don’t like that name, because what’s being measured isn’t necessarily bitterness; for example, a Clinton supporter could be dissatisfied by an Obama victory simply because the voter likes Clinton more on the issues and harbors no hard feelings toward Obama. Still, Joost’s data are valuable, for they tap directly into dissatisfaction with the prospect that one’s disfavored candidate might become the Democratic standard-bearer.
Question wording: “No matter how you voted today, would you be satisfied with [Clinton/Obama as the nominee]?”
The response frequencies are shown above for the 27 states for which the data are available. These data are up-to-the-minute, for they include results from the Mississippi exit poll that was conducted just three days ago. Excluded are three states in which Democratic primaries have been held: Hawaii, where no exit poll was conducted; Michigan, where Clinton was the only candidate on the ballot; and New Hampshire, where an exit poll was conducted but the dissatisfaction question wasn’t asked. Each entry in the table above is simply the percentage of Obama or Clinton voters who answered “dissatisfied” when asked whether, “no matter how you voted today,” they would be satisfied or dissatisfied if the other candidate turned out to be the Democratic nominee.
Some observations:
- Overall, Obama’s supporters have expressed less dissatisfaction at the prospect of having Clinton at the top of the ticket than vice-versa. The reason could be that Clinton has run the more negative of the two campaigns, creating doubts in her supporters’ minds about Obama; for example, according to a Wednesday news release by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, in the hotly contested Ohio primary more than one-fifth of Clinton’s advertisements but less than five percent of Obama’s were negative.
- The Opponent Dissatisfaction Index has varied considerably from state to state, especially among the Clintonistas, for whom it has ranged all the way from 30% to 72%. For the Obamaniacs, the range has been narrower (29% to 58%).
- If you stare at these data long enough, you may begin to see some patterns. But a better approach is to run some statistical analyses. Having done so, I’ll note that Obama’s supporters in the South have been a bit more receptive than his supporters in the rest of the country to the prospect of having Clinton as the nominee. On the other side of the coin, Clinton’s southern supporters have been less receptive than those elsewhere to a possible Obama victory.
- Since Super Tuesday (February 5), Obama’s supporters have expressed greater dissatisfaction about a potential Clinton nomination than they were doing before then — again, presumably as a result of Clinton’s attacks on their favored candidate. For Clinton’s supporters, there has been little movement over time in their dissatisfaction with Obama’s possible nomination.
- Putting the effects of region and timing together reveals that since Super Tuesday a major South versus non-South gap has opened up in Obama supporters’ dissatisfaction with a potential Clinton nomination, whereas earlier there had been no such gap. For Clinton supporters, though, neither region, timing, nor the two together, help account for the state-to-state variability in expressions of dissatisfaction with an Obama candidacy,
In general, then, there has been no systematic increase in opponent dissatisfaction with the passage of time in this campaign. In the particular case of Obama’s supporters in the South (a large prooportion of whom are African Americans), though, dissatisfaction with the prospect of a Clinton victory has indeed grown.
Several primaries are currently scheduled, and the prospect of do-overs in Michigan and Florida remains. Will these patterns remain in force, will they become even clearer, or will they be supplanted by new trends as the long campaign slog continues? Stay tuned.
[A doffing of the chapeau to Joost van Beek]
Comments
I've been looking at these data myself, thinking about how to do something publishable with them (but mostly just ruminating in emails to colleagues).
The question doesn't get at the concept, really. Why might someone be "dissatisfied" with the nominee of their party? Well, the first thing that comes to this partisan's ind is that you think they will lose--not that you don't like them. So, I'm not sure what these questions tell us.
Posted by: Matt Jarvis | March 14, 2008 05:31 PM
I disagree.
The question certainly leaves open the issue of WHY someone is dissatisfied. As I noted in the main post, it could be because one likes one's favored candidate's stands on the issues more than the opponent's. It could be because one can't stand the opponent. It could be, as you note, because one fears that the opponent will lose the general election. It could be because one is a racist or a sexist. And so on.
But the question does very directly get at the CONCEPT as I've stated the concept, which is voter's dissatisfaction at the prospect of a victory by the opponent. I can't imagine a more direct link between that concept and a survey question.
This isn't to say that it's a great survey question -- I would have preferred degrees of (dis)satisfaction rather than an either-or. But the realities of exit polling have to be taken into account. I would also have preferred a follow-up, or even a series of follow-ups, to address the WHY question. But for purposes of taking a cut at the extent of dissatisfaction at the prospect of the opponent's victory, I'll settle.
Posted by: Lee Sigelman | March 14, 2008 06:52 PM
I think the relevant question is, "no matter how you voted today, would you support Clinton/Obama in the general election against John McCain"?
The question of dissatisfaction with the Democratic primary opponent only has practical bearing in terms of how many Democrats will actually vote Republican in November if their preferred nominee loses the primary.
Posted by: Diodotus | March 14, 2008 07:16 PM
Diodotus:
I think the question that you propose is just fine.
I wouldn't issue a blanket description of it as "the relevant question," though. Relevance is in the eye of the beholder; it isn't an attribute of a question per se. IF your interest is in how the general election is going to turn out, then your question IS "the relevant question." However, IF you're trying to describe the amount of (un)enthusiasm the two sides have for one another, the exit poll question is "the relevant question." For most bottom-line types, your preferred wording is better. For some purposes, though (e.g., understanding the emotional tone of the race), I tend to doubt it.
Posted by: Lee Sigelman | March 14, 2008 07:25 PM
So now we have to deal with the DIS factor. Will this turn into a POLITICAL DEF JAM?
Posted by: Shag from Brookline | March 15, 2008 08:58 AM
Clinton's Southern supporters have been less receptive to Obama than her supporters elsewhere - bullet #3.
I'd loved to know the demographic breakdown of Clinton supporters in the Southeast... It's suggestive of Southern white democrats carrying a racist torch.
You're right Dr. Sigelman, the longer you look at this the more you see (or in my case, wonder).
Posted by: JP | March 15, 2008 05:14 PM
Hi JP,
One basic relevant demographic would presumably just be to look at the share of the white vote that Clinton and Obama got.
There have been 25 primaries/caucuses on and since Super Tuesday for which exit polling was done. On average, Clinton got 55% of the white vote in those states, and Obama 40%.
The Southern states compare to that average of 55% for Hillary as follows:
79% Arkansas
72% Alabama
70% Mississippi
67% Tennessee
58% Louisiana
57% Missouri
56% Oklahoma
55% Texas
53% Georgia
47% Virginia
They compare to that average of 40% for Obama as follows:
52% Virginia
44% Texas
43% Georgia
39% Missouri
30% Louisiana
29% Oklahoma
26% Tennessee
26% Mississippi
25% Alabama
16% Arkansas
From Louisiana on down those are the lowest scores for Obama among white voters in the country. New Jersey had the lowest white Obama vote among non-Southern states, at 31%.
There would appear to be a correlation of sorts with the data in this blog post: the states where the proportion of Hillary voters saying they'd be dissatisfied if Obama were the nomineee was the highest were Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee and Oklahoma.
Posted by: Joost | March 16, 2008 11:14 PM