Stomping On The 2004 Exit Poll`s Grave (And Some Other Myths)
[The
Sailer Election 2004 Series:
Sailer Strategy Wins Another For GOP—But How Much
Longer?;
Bush Didn`t Win 44% of Hispanic Vote —The Smoking Exit
Poll;
Another Nail In The Coffin Of Bush`s “44% Hispanic
Share”;
I Told You So Department: Only Bush Boosters Now
Believe 44% Hispanic Vote Myth]
It may not be as flashy as
Powerlineblog.com`s rout of
Dan Rather. But I really have to congratulate me
(and VDARE.COM) for routing the exit poll-fuelled media
myth that George Bush made a big breakthrough among
Hispanics this year.
The internet rules!
Edison-Mitofsky, the firm that conducted the troubled
2004 National Exit Poll (NEP), has now issued a long
report (PDF) reviewing its own performance. It
offers some important nuggets about what really happened
last November.
- E-M`s analysis of
the exaggerated Bush share of the
Hispanic vote (pp. 59-62) confirms my diagnosis of
what went wrong, as I elaborated in VDARE.com, see
above).
As I`d discerned, Bush did better among Hispanics on the
long form questionnaire that Edison-Mitosfsky had given
out at 250 polling stations (total sample size of
12,219) than on the short form questionnaire distributed
at 1,469 locations (sample size of 75,537).
The long form exaggerated the national and regional Bush
share of the Hispanic vote—especially the bizarrely high
figure in the South region, where Bush supposedly won
64% of the Hispanic vote, even though he carried only 56
percent in
Florida and 49 percent in
Texas. (Which was reduced from the initial
announcement of 59 percent).
Nationally, Bush supposedly lost among Hispanics only by
53-44 on the long questionnaire, but got whipped 58-40
on the larger sample size short form.
Back on November 7, I wrote: "The big difficulty with
an exit poll is coming up with a representative sample
of polling places. Apparently, the NEP failed to do
this." That`s exactly what went wrong with the
National/Regional exit poll`s Hispanic share, as Edison-Mitofsky
now admit.
- The Edison-Mitofsky
report also contains an interesting table (p. 59)
showing six more demographic groups where the widely
publicized National figure for Bush`s share disagreed
substantially with the sum of the State exit polls.
Here`s Bush`s share for each:
| National | States | |
| (Small Sample) | (Large Sample) | |
| Hispanic | 44% | 40% |
| Asian | 44% | 39% |
| Age 75+ | 45% | 48% |
| Jewish | 25% | 22% |
| Mormon | 80% | 76% |
| Muslim | 6% | 13% |
| Income >$200,000 | 63% | 60% |
All of these are small and geographically-clustered
groups. So the sum of the State exit polls is inherently
more trustworthy and than the smaller sample size
National poll.
My comments:
The Asian mirage. The news, reduced
Asian share is worth noting in the context of the
President`s plan to increase immigration. Here`s a
largely prosperous, law-abiding, and socially
conservative “model minority.” Yet
Asian-Americans apparently
can`t stand Mr. Bush. They gave him only 39
percent of their votes, compared to 58 percent among
non-Hispanic whites.
The
Neoconservative Mirage.
Bush`s 22 percent share of the Jewish vote, although
reduced from the small sample estimate, is of course
slightly better than the 19 percent he achieved in
2000. But then, John Edwards had replaced Joe
Lieberman as the Democrat`s VP nominee. So you`d
expect a Republican to win back some conservative and
moderate Jews who liked
Lieberman. Compared to how well Republicans did
from 1976 through 1988, when their share of the Jewish
vote ranged from
31 percent to 39 percent, 22 percent is very bad.
And, when you consider how much of the neoconservative
invade-the-world-invite-the world foreign and
immigration policies Bush adopted as his own—well, 22
percent is unbelievably awful.
What this shows is that neoconservatives can make a big
noise, but they can`t deliver the vote. With Jews
casting only 3 percent of all votes, the neoconservative
vote comes out to only 2/3rds of one percent of the
electorate.
To put in Texan terms the President ought to understand,
the neoconservatives are all hat and no cattle.
The
Muslim Mirage:
It`s not surprising that there`s a big difference
between the small sample and large sample figures for
Bush`s share of the
Muslim vote (6 percent vs. 13 percent), because
the total
quite tiny—only 1 percent (compared to 3 percent
for Jews). And of course, that`s rounded. It would be
useful to learn whether the unrounded Muslim
proportion of the total vote was actually closer to
0.5 percent or 1.4 percent—in the 2002 election, it
was only 0.3 percent.
Either way, it`s not worth
Grover Norquist`s time.
[Steve Sailer [email
him] is founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute and
movie critic for
The American Conservative.
His website
www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily
blog.]


