The Last 8%
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in News
According to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 8% of voters remain undecided. And who are these indecisive folks? Pew says:
Undecided voters are less educated, less affluent, and somewhat more likely to be female than the average voter … undecided voters are also more likely to attend church regularly.
I’m not sure if that bit of demographics gives us any great hint on which way undecideds will break. But, at this point, if they haven’t gotten comfortable voting for the “change†candidate, I can’t imagine them jumping in mass to Barack Obama’s side. My best guess is that Obama could get a 50/50 split but, more likely, John McCain will pick up a higher percentage of stragglers. If you can’t make up your mind, it’s generally easier to go with the “known commodity.â€
Of course, you could also argue that undecideds are fundamentally unhappy with the choices and a significant percentage could end up either not voting or choosing a third party candidate. Unfortunately, there just isn’t any good historical data on the kind of election we’re having this year. The last time an election did not include either an incumbent president or an incumbent vice president was 1952.
The question is whether or not undecideds will even play a role at this point. It all depends on the accuracy of the polls. If Obama is already over 50% in enough key states, it won’t matter if McCain grabs 100% of the undecideds. But if the race is actually close in a lot of states, then a 75/25 or even a 60/40 split of that last 8% could lift McCain over the top.
However the election plays out, it’ll be interesting to see how the undecideds break.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 29th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
And 1952 might not be the best possible analog for this year either. After all, as I recall the question that year was not “Will Eisenhower win?” Rather, it was “Which party will convince Eisenhower to be their candidate?” (The Democrats did not succeed, but it wasn’t a foregone conclusion at the start of the electoral cycle.) Not quite the situation this year…..
October 29th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
They’ll break for Obama. He hasn’t sold them, but McCain has unsold them. I think they’ve decided against McCain. Americans are optimists.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I went door-to-door in PA for Obama last weekend and spoke to undecideds. I was startled at how apathetic the undecideds were – or maybe I should say “unenthused”. I suppose that’s what you’d expect from people undecided this late in the game. But it lead me to believe that many, many of them will just not vote. Several told me that. I asked one woman, “So you’ve decided not to vote this year?”. She corrected me, “Oh, I’m voting, but not for President. But my husband is for Obama.” I never expected that response. Also, I think the media attention proclaiming Obama the likely victor will further suppress the undecided vote.
I think 25% won’t vote, 25% will break for McCain for “fear-based” reasons(yes, racism, anti-christ, socialist, etc.) and the remaining 50% will break evenly. So, at 8% undecided nationally, I predict 4% for McCain, 2% for Obama, and at least 2% no-shows.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
FiveThirtyEight’s got an analysis of undecideds from yesterday.
He sez:
October 29th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
While I think it’s true that most undecideds at this point are probably not well informed, I think we need to be careful not to paint everyone that way. I’ve heard numerous people say basically that you’d have to be stupid to be undecided at this point. I disagree, and I think it’s actually unfortunate that so many voters are so stubborn that they latch onto one particular candidate that they innately relate to without giving the other candidate’s argument any consideration. Let’s not be so naive as to think that any one candidate has a monopoly on the truth, or so simple-minded as to think one candidate is a saint and the other is evil. The issues we face are complicated, but we only get bumper-sticker campaigns instead of real debate.
Take the debate on taxes, for example. I think if you put two intelligent people in a room, you could have a pretty good discussion about the pros and cons of various tax policies. But we don’t hear that from campaigns, because it’s not easy to pin down who is the “winner” and “loser” in such discussions. Instead, we hear, from one side, that Obama is a socialist. And from the other side, we hear that the rich should “pay their fair share” (whatever that means). Those are easy to put on bumper stickers, easy to cheer for when your candidate says them. But they don’t even come close to the real debate we should be having on these issues. Frankly I can’t wait until after the election when hopefully we can have some of these discussions without the election forcing them to dumb-down.
I am an undecided voter, but I don’t fit into the stereotypical mold. I’ve posted several posts on my blog about my pending decision, and my defense of the undecided voter, so I won’t repeat myself here. I was hopeful this election, given that both candidates appeared to be of a different mold than typical politicians. I was disappointed and I will am not excited about voting for either of them on Tuesday.