Issues in the 2008 presidential election: Perceptions of the candidates and their links to vote

Abstract

Can the electorate's beliefs on issues be used as a predictor of vote? More importantly,
do voter's perceptions of a candidate's position overshadow the party identification
model? Arthur H. Miller and Thomas F. Klobucar (2003) studied this subject by
analyzing the 2000 American Presidential Election. The aim of this paper is advance
their study, by creating a more robust test of their model. The 2008 election is analyzed
using data from the American Nation Election Time Series Survey. This election was
chosen because it identifies the economy, as the most important issue (CNN exit poll). If
issues could have more predictive power than party identification, the 2008 election
would show it. Likert scale responses were transformed into proximity scales to create
new variables exemplifying how close the electorate felt to Barack Obama and John
McCain on a range of issues. A binary logistic regression with actual vote serving as the
dependent variable was used to identify which issues were had the most impact. The
findings show that, while party identification has the highest influence on the vote,
issues measured also had an impact. Defense spending remained significant throughout
the test suggesting that electorate voted for the candidate that mirrored their beliefs on
that issue. This research shows that the electorate is sophisticated enough to decide
which candidate to support, without only reverting to partisan identification.

Date of Award	2011
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	Eastern Illinois University
Supervisor	Andrew D. McNitt (Supervisor)