Clinton-Limbaugh Win In Indiana, Polls Suggest
The Limbaugh Effect in Indiana and North Carolina was real, but fairly small; however, it was enough to reduce Obama's margin of victory in North Carolina, and it easily provided enough votes to give Clinton her 23,000-vote margin of victory in Indiana.
According to exit polls, in Indiana, among the 11% who described themselves as voting Republican in the past, Clinton won 53-45%, not much different from Clinton's support among Democrats. However, due to fears about possible legal action against Republicans trying to subvert the Democratic primary, it's possible that Limbaugh listeners either lied about their party identification or who they voted for.
There are other ways to try to measure this. Overall, 16% of Indiana voters called themselves conservatives, and 65% supported Clinton (among the 4% who were very conservative, Clinton won approximately 70%).
Also, in an Obama-McCain match-up, 19% of the Indiana voters would vote for McCain, and of these 87% had voted for Clinton. By contrast, in a projected Clinton-McCain match-up, 17% would vote for McCain, and only 58% of them had voted for Obama. What does this mean? Basically, about 7% of the overall voters said they voted for Clinton but support McCain no matter what. About 2% of the voters voted for Obama but support McCain against either case. Taking these numbers into account, I would guess that approximately 5% of the Indiana electorate in the Democratic primary consisted of Republicans seeking to vote against Obama to create chaos in the Democratic Party.
Openly racist voters were a bigger factor. Fully 10% of the Indiana voters in the exit polls were whites who said that race influenced their voting, and 79% of these voters supported Clinton. So approximately 8% of the voters in Indiana were whites voting against Obama because of race (of course, many of these racists may be Limbaugh listeners).
As in previous primaries, gender helped Clinton in Indiana while race hurt Obama. Among the voters who said that gender was not a factor in their vote, Clinton and Obama split the vote equally. It was women voting for Clinton because of her gender that created her likely margin of victory in Indiana.
In North Carolina exit polls, the Limbaugh effect was equally powerful, and perhaps even more so. There were more self-described conservatives (22%), and they voted 51-42% for Clinton, but among the 8% who were "very conservative," Obama actually won by a small margin. About 6% of the voters were self-described Republicans (and they supported Clinton 56-35%). However, it's odd that self-described Independents split evenly between Obama and Clinton, while Obama won Democrats easily, which is the reverse of the case in Indiana and many other states. This suggests that some of the dittoheads in North Carolina were calling themselves independent.
The Limbaugh effect becomes clear in this stat: 19% of the voters said they would support McCain in a match-up against Obama, and 82% had voted for Clinton; that means they were disgruntled voters who say they may not support the other Democrat. But of the 15% who would support McCain in a match-up against Clinton, only 45% had voted for Obama. This means that a large proportion of the anti-Clinton voters voted for her, and that's the Limbaugh effect. I would estimate that around 5% of the voters in North Carolina were Republicans who voted for Clinton despite hating her.
In North Carolina, racism was less of a factor than in other states, while sexism was a bigger factor. Nine percent of the voters were whites who said race impacted their vote, and 59% supported Clinton. That's a net of only 5-6% racist voters, less than in Indiana. By contrast, 21% of voters said gender was a factor and Obama was supported by them 52-43 (however, Obama's margin was even larger among those who said gender was not a factor). Interestingly, as a total number, more women said that gender was a factor and voted against Clinton than men who did so.
Hillary Clinton wrote in an email to her supporters, "This victory is your victory, this campaign is your campaign, and your support has been the difference between winning and losing." Let's hope she sent that message to Rush Limbaugh, who did more than anyone to give her a victory in Indiana.
Overall, the North Carolina and Indiana exit polls show that the Limbaugh effect is real and does affect the final margins. But the exit polls also show that racism and sexism are alive and well in American voting, even within the Democratic Party. Obama will be the Democratic nominee, and we will need to find a way to defeat racism along with John McCain in the November elections.
Originally posted at the author's Daily Kos Diary. Crossposted at ObamaPolitics.
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Finally even if the numbers are solid the causality is not. The voters were never asked "do you listen to Rush" That would have easily solved the mystery. Just because someone is conservative does not mean they listen to Rush and furthermore just because people listen Rush mean they follow his advice. A much simpler explanation is on offer for Hillary's numbers. The explanation is that she appeals to more conservative voters than Barack does. She is a known quantity , she is much more willing to rattle sabers and is older than Barack. This might just appeal more to Conservative and Very Conservative voters. They liked her blue-collar mama appeal. They like her tenacity and toughness, they like her views on national security issues.
It is amazing that anyone would take anything emanating from Rush's mouth seriously. This whole "operation chaos" bit is nothing more then self promotion and cheep theater. Obama lost in Indiana by a narrow margin. While he lost a battle, it looks like he might have won the war. Indiana is looking more and more like a Pyhrric victory for Clinton.
If, more likely when, Clinton's ship finally sinks beneath the waves there is yet another question though. What will all of you do when you don't have her to kick around any more? Even more troublesome is the question of how are you going to rebuild all those bridges you brunt down to Hillary's supporters?
First question why is it when Obama gets Republican votes it is proof of his skill as a uniter but when Hillary gets Republican votes it is proof of how evil she is? Obama would have been yesterdays news if it was not for the crossover votes he got in many of the early primaires.
Second any arguement from polling data is a structure built of sand. Polls have been barely worth the paper they are printed on. Remember to just a few short days ago when some polls had Hillary tied or even ahead in North Carolina? Those polls were not even close. When you start arguing a two or three percent shift via the data you are in very dangerous territory. Remember most of these polls have a margin of error of 4%. That would be plus or minus 4% or a total spread of 8% That kind of spread can easily vaporize a 22,000 vote difference.
Every single time BO has lost a primary there is always some excuse. Now it's the Rush Limbaugh effect. Why? Because more former Republicans voted for Hillary? In the past whenever more Republicans voted for BO it was touted as his appeal across party lines.
"Every single time BO has lost a primary there is always some excuse. Now it's the Rush Limbaugh effect. Why? Because more former Republicans voted for Hillary? I"
no- because more Republicans who intend to vote for McCain in the general election voted for Hillary.
When I see stuff like this that is so blatanlty allowed and devised and accepted by both Limbaugh & Clinton I am firmly convinced that THE SYSTEM is wicked and corrupt without fault!
This system will continue to be ONLY allowed for the WHITE ELITE period! If MCCain can have 2 controversial pastors bashing Muslims in the US and Catholics? Catholics?
There is some vicious white backlash against OBAMA that proves what this country is made of..viciou
Rush Limbaugh ought to be brought up on suggesting Voter Fraud!!!!! Clinton role needs to be examined further like she says in the debates.
(Continued from previous comment):
Again, there is no doubt in my mind that there was an organized, concerted effort for Republicans to vote insincerely for Clinton based on an email I received from one of my Republican friends discussed in the diary other personal contacts beyond the email. Granted that both candidates have broken records in getting out the vote during the whole of the Democratic campaign and that the Democratic presidential primary was easily the more attractive of the two, but remember, offices from the governor on down had contested party primaries in Indiana, so there were state and local incentives for Republicans to vote in their own primary. In a state that historically has voted 55% Republican to 45% Democratic (roughly), you had 1,275,000 votes in the Democratic presidential primary and 412,000, Republican. That figure alone raises eyebrows.
I posted a diary at DailyKos the morning of the election predicting a higher crossover percentage of Republicans voting for Clinton with mischievious intent in Indiana, but not by much (net 5.5% more Republicans crossing over for Clinton vs. Obama). It needs to be pointed out that, even at this estimate that I think is conservative - no pun intended - 5% of total voters converts to higher percentages when you are talking just about the votes in the Democratic primary.
For instance, lets assume 10% of the total voters crossed over and further assume that 5% more crossed over for Clinton than did for Obama, or 7.5% and 2.5%, respectively. If you take these respective percentages of the total vote (and you have to include the total Republican primary vote of about 412,000) and subtract them from their respective actual vote totals, that reduces Clinton's actual vote of about 645,000 by 127,000 (= 7.5% of appx. 1,700,000 total votes) and reduces Obama's actual vote of about 630,000 by 42,000 (= 2.5% of 1,700,000). After this adjustment, Clinton's "sincerly Democratic" vote totals are reduced to 518,000 and Obama's, 588,000, which means a 1.1 % Clinton victory becomes a 7.4% Obama victory, a swing to Obama of some 8.5%.
Since I’m hitting the Huffposts word limit, I'll just add the last paragraph with further comments re: the crossover voting if the reader is not fully disinterested by now.
Throw the gross enormity which is Rush Limbaugh in prison for treason for misusing the airwaves to conspire to break the law and change the results of the American election process.
SO, Hillary didn't REALLY win, because like her resume, she had a padded election thanks to Limbaugh..
defeat racism by nov. your dreaming or on something. racism is alive and well in america. some of it is cultural some fear some elitist some hard feelings for losing the war.
What a crock. Can you Obama supporters not even give any credit to someone other than your candidate? No matter how hard it may be for you to believe, Obama is not going to win all 50 states and not everybody thinks he is the second coming. Will gladly vote for him over any Republican even after having to hear the crap that seems to flow so easily from the Obama camp. Hopefully you don't turn off enough people so that you blow the election.
RBChicago.
RBChicago, I've never heard a single Obama supporter claim that he could win all 50 states. However, I will go out on a limb and predict that he will win the general election handily, that he will win almost all of the traditional Democratic states, and that he will win an impressive handful of what are usually considered Republican states. I am not sure what you are calling a "crock", but I believe that it is quite plausible that Obama won the majority of the Indiana voters who were sincerely seeking to select their favorite between Hillary and Barack. It seems entirely possible that more than 2% of the voters were motivated by Limbaugh to play a chaotic role in the Democratic nominating process. We'll never know for sure, but that possibility takes some of the luster off of her win in Indiana in my view. On the other hand, her Pennsylvania win was solid, as was Obama's in North Carolina.
- Jim Heaphy
RBChicago.
The time for the superdelegates to come out of hiding is now. And remember folks, all the antics you are seeing Hillary and Bill connive these past few days, well just think of the stuff that will be going on in that White House with them, instead of working on the problems of a nation. Remember the antics that led to impeachment. Remember the lies. And we don't know what else is under the covers today that the Republicans already do as to Hillary and Bill.
That is why Limbaugh caused the chaos.
Please everyone who cares, click on the "buzz up" button at the beginning of the article, the world needs to know!
It is so sad that the republicans can interfer with such an important process for the democratic party and nothing can be done about it. can they do this in cacuses to? It 's like they can make a mockery out of the nomination process and all one could say oh well !! that's why the SD should vote to end this race or they part of Limbaugh's operation chaos to?
1) I think all the states should do primaries on a federal (mandatory) holiday. If they all voted at once, than this whole "staggered" election thing wouldn't happen, and the repugs that really wanted to support a republican would have to choose between picking their man, and trying to down our pick.
2) Caucuses DO limit the effect (see Texas) when you have to sit there for four hours listening to how the democratic party is going to beat republican tail in November, repugs tend to walk out or never show up.
3) The next few races will go to Hillary. Barack isn't even out there campaigning anymore, he's locking up the nomination (fighting smart instead of fighting ugly) while Mark Penn and Hillary are out in the boondocks trying to learn how we distribute our delegates.
If that's true, and it may be since Hillary "won" Indiana by such a small margin, it means that last Tuesday night was an Obama blowout with wins in both states. Hillary Clinton, retain a shred of self respect and step down. Superdelegates, if she doesn't have the good sense to leave with grace, why don't you all come out, declare your support for obama if you have made that decision, and shut this charade down now ?
Somebody get a spine.
You know how the press tends to handicap the candidate that they see as having been cheated or screwed over by malfeasence.
Go back and watch the coverage of tuesday again. Clinton WON, but they declared her DoA. Why?
Limbaugh.
(Thanks Rush - you may have restarted the love affair between Obama and the press that he will absolutely REQUIRE to offset McCain's "straight-talk" love in.)
I am not a bit shocked. When i went to my precinct to vote on tues. there were 3 different yard signs in 3 different yards advertising Operation Chaos. And within plain sight of the polling place. And there are enough dittoheads here in Indiana and they are just that malicious.
Wow.
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