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Roger C. Lowery PLS 401, Senior Seminar Department of Public & International Affairs

(Exercise 6) The Impact of ATTITUDES TOWARD GAY MARRIAGE On 2004 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE CHOICE Controlling for PARTY Identification. Roger C. Lowery PLS 401, Senior Seminar Department of Public & International Affairs UNC Wilmington. Univariate Hypothesis. Theory :

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Roger C. Lowery PLS 401, Senior Seminar Department of Public & International Affairs

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  1. (Exercise 6)The Impact ofATTITUDES TOWARD GAY MARRIAGEOn 2004 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE CHOICEControlling for PARTY Identification Roger C. Lowery PLS 401, Senior Seminar Department of Public & International Affairs UNC Wilmington

  2. Univariate Hypothesis • Theory: • Immediately prior to Election Day 2004, the nationwide trial-heat margin between Bush and Kerry was too close to call. • H1: Neither Bush nor Kerry was a consensus choice among pre-election voters in 2004.

  3. Table 1:

  4. Univariate Findings • H1(neither Bush nor Kerry was a consensus choice in 2004) is supported by the sample data in Table 1 because: • The pattern predicted by H1 is observed in the sample data. There is very little difference (less than 2%) between Bush and Kerry support in the sample. • The differences in Bush/Kerry support that are observed in the sample are too small to be statistically significant. The random-sampling error margin for the sample results in Table 1 (3.0 %)* is larger than the vote-choice margin between Bush and Kerry supporters (1.6 %). * http://www.custominsight.com/articles/random-sample-calculator.asp

  5. Bivariate Hypothesis • Theory: • Bush supported a constitutional ban on gay marriage and Kerry opposed.* *http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/13/eveningnews/main629360.shtml • H2: Voters who opposed gay marriage were more likely to support Bush in 2004 than voters who supported gay marriage.

  6. Table 2:

  7. Bivariate Findings • H2 (voters who opposed gay marriage were more likely to support Bush in 2004 than voters who supported gay marriage) is supported by the sample data in Table 2 because: • The pattern predicted by H2 is observed in the sample data. Taub = 0.35, which indicates that gay-marriage attitudes were a strong predictor of vote choice. • This sample finding is statistically significant. The chi-squared probability of random-sampling error is less than 0.05 (χ2 = 0.00).

  8. Multivariate Hypothesis • Theory: • Because some (but not all) gay-rights supporters have gravitated to the Democratic Party and some (but not all) gay-rights opponents have moved to the Republican Party; therefore, there is less conflict within each party than between the two parties on the issues of gay rights. • H3: the impact of attitudes toward gay marriage on 2004 presidential vote choice will be weaker within partisans than in the total population. [Party identification will be a confounding variable.]

  9. Table 3a

  10. Table 3b

  11. Table 3c

  12. Multivariate Findings • H3 (the impact of attitudes toward gay marriage on 2004 presidential vote choice will be weaker within partisans than in the total population) is supported by the sample data. Party identification is a confounding variable in this analysis. • The strength of the bivariate relationship did weaken as predicted in the partisan subgroups. [The taub for Democrats (0.20) and Republicans (0.15) was less than in the total sample (0.35). • The impact of gay marriage on vote choice (although weakened) was still statistically significant within Democratic (χ2 = 0.00) and Republican (χ2 = 0.01) subgroups.

  13. Substantive Implications • The Democratic Party is more internally divided on the issue of gay marriage than is the Republican Party. • However, party identification out-weighed the impact of gay-marriage attitudes in presidential vote choice in 2004. • even if the electorate had been limited to only Democratic identifiers who opposed gay marriage, then Kerry would still have easily defeated Bush. • even if the electorate had been limited to only Republican identifiers who supported gay marriage, then Bush would still have easily defeated Kerry. • There were relatively few single-issue gay-rights voters in 2004 who voted against their party’s candidate.

  14. Methodological Implications • Why is gay marriage is more of a “wedge issue” for the Democratic Party than the Republican Party? • What important demographic groups are most likely to oppose their party’s stand on gay marriage; and, therefore, more likely to defect? • Do other gay-rights issues (adoption, employment, hate crimes) align with or cross-cut the gay-marriage issue cleavage? • Do other group cleavages (age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.) align with or cross-cut the gay-rights issue cleavage? • Do other public morality issues (public-school prayer, sex education in public schools, abortion, torture, etc.) align with or cross-cut the gay-rights issue cleavage?

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