Voter Mobilization and the Obama Victory

As with the other presidential elections from this decade, the 2008 election was followed by considerable speculation as to how new efforts to mobilize voters affected the eventual outcome. Although the conventional wisdom implies that “Democrats benefit from higher turnout,” previous research in po...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAmerican politics research Vol. 38; no. 2; pp. 211 - 232
Main Authors Osborn, Tracy, McClurg, Scott D., Knoll, Benjamin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.03.2010
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Candidates
Citizen participation
Democratic parties
Election results
Elections
Electoral campaigning
Electoral results
Mobilization
Obama, Barack
Political analysis
Political behaviour
Political campaigns
Political mobilization
Political Participation
Political parties
Presidential elections
Presidents
U.S.A
United States of America
Voter behavior
Voter Turnout
Voting Behavior
Voting turnout
United States > US
voter mobilization
2008 election
turnout
presidential elections
voting behavior
electoral context
political participation
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Summary:As with the other presidential elections from this decade, the 2008 election was followed by considerable speculation as to how new efforts to mobilize voters affected the eventual outcome. Although the conventional wisdom implies that “Democrats benefit from higher turnout,” previous research in political science demonstrates that such a conclusion applies to actual election results inconsistently. In this article, we outline the difficulties involved with assessing turnout effects within a particular election and proceed to test the hypothesis that the Obama campaign benefited from higher turnout using three different methods. The evidence suggests that the Obama campaign benefited substantially from voter turnout, particularly in comparison with the Kerry campaign in 2004, yet they also were successful in changing the minds of already mobilized voters. Although various data difficulties suggest the presence of some bias in our estimates, the consistency of the results across tests supports the general conclusion.
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ISSN:1532-673X
1552-3373
DOI:10.1177/1532673X09359131