David Park: Did "Moral Values" and the Gay Marriage Backlash Play a Key Role in Bush's 2004 Victory?

[I am an assistant professor in political science George Washington University. Before coming to GW, I was an assistant professor of political science and applied statistics at Washington University. I received my BS in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland and PhD at Columbia University.]

Journalists (via political pundits)** and political scientists have conflicting accounts of the 2004 elections. Both are very convincing. Let me first start with the journalists’ account. Twenty-two percent of the voters told election pollsters that “moral values” were their top issue (and of that group 80 percent voted for Bush) and thirteen states voted to ban same-sex marriages. The NY Times backs up that account in their article, Same-Sex Marriage Issue Key to Some G.O.P. Races, with interviews with political consultants:

[T]he ballot measures also appear to have acted like magnets for thousands of socially conservative voters in rural and suburban communities who might not otherwise have voted…In Ohio, for instance, political analysts credit the ballot measure with increasing turnout in Republican bastions in the south and west, while also pushing swing voters in the Appalachian region of the southeast toward Mr. Bush.

The (logical) conclusion is that “moral values” and the gay marriage backlash played a key role in Bush’s victory.

Political scientists believe the exact opposite. In an article by Ansolabehere and Stewart III, appropriately titled, Moral values and the gay-marriage backlash did not help Bush, they argue that, the “Marriage referenda mobilized voters on both sides, not just the conservatives, and the net result may have been to John Kerry’s benefit.” Here are the facts from Ansolabehere and Stewart III: