What’s Rush Got to Do With Obama?

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

The Limbaugh Effect

• Did Dittoheads save Hillary’s Campaign

• March 4th, Texas her ‘Alamo’– Bill said a ‘must win state’

• Clinton ‘won’ TX by 100,000 votes out of 2,820,000

• Texas an open primaryopen primary

The Limbaugh Effect

• Rush, on March 3rd, tells 13 million listeners ‘hold their noses’ and vote HRC

• Dallas Morning News also reported rumors of efforts

• Bill O’Reilly mentioned it on Fox

The Limbaugh Effect

• Limbaugh:

– “We need to sustain this soap opera”– “we need Barack Obama bloodied up

politically”

The Limbaugh Effect

• Strategic cross-over voting– Sincere– Malicious, “raiding”

• When might voters engage in strategic voting?

• Did Limbaugh, et al affect level of strategic voting?

The Limbaugh Effect

• Strategic Cross-over Voting

• Requires a fairly sophisticated voted, and:– information about election outcomes– incentive to maximize effect of vote– institutional rules that facilitate action

The Limbaugh Effect

• Strategic Cross-over Voting

• Information– Ample polling information– GOP race known to be irrelevant– Obama ahead in national Dem polls– Head-to-head polls show Obama stronger

vs. McCain than Clinton vs. McCain

The Limbaugh Effect

• Strategic Cross-over Voting

• Incentives– would a dedicated Republican care enough

to cross-over?– how many cross-over for sincere reasons

(like Ann Coulter, they really like Clinton)?

The Limbaugh Effect

• Strategic Cross-over Voting

• Institutions– what barriers? – what penalties?

• does voter lose ability to participate in other GOP contests?

• does voter need to re-register?

The Limbaugh Effect

• Strategic Cross-over voting• Institutions

– Old WA Blanket Primary said to be a ‘perfect setting’ to facilitate cross-over voting

– What about new ‘top two’ primary?

The Limbaugh Effect

• Cross-over Voting

• What do we know?

• Most studies show cross-over is sincere– Support for popular incumbents in WA, CA

• Parties claim it exists– Dixie Lee Ray (but she won)

The Limbaugh Effect

• Evidence of cross-over voting in 2008 Democratic primaries?

• Exit Polls (which, suck...but forget that)

The Limbaugh Effect

• Evidence

• Trends in GOP participation in Democratic primaries / caucuses

• Trends in support for Clinton among Republicans participating in Dem events

The Limbaugh Effect

• Hypothesis

• If strategic cross-over voting exists, we should see more Republicans participating in Democratic events as McCain locks up nomination

The Limbaugh Effect

• Hypothesis

• If cross-over voting is malicious, Republican support for Clinton should increase as McCain locks up GOP nomination

The Limbaugh Effect

Proportion of Republicans Participating in Dem Eventsthrough June 3rd, 2008

The Limbaugh Effect

Ratio of Republican support of Obama to Clinton

The Limbaugh Effect

• Evidence

• In early events, 3% of voters were Republican– they voted 70% Obama, 30% Clinton

• On March 4th, 9% of voters were Republican– they voted 50% Obama, 50% Clinton

The Limbaugh Effect

• Explanations:

• 1) Clinton changed her style, went on attack, which appealed to more Republicans....and targeted GOP voters

• 2) TX, MS, IN Republicans more likely to be excited by HRC than Republicans in other states

The Limbaugh Effect

• Explanations

• 3) Gradual trend where some GOP voters saw their vote had more effect on Democratic side– strategic? yes.– hard to tell if sincere or malicious

• hedging

The Limbaugh Effect

• Evidence

• Average of about 4% GOP share in Democratic electorate– Each event = 0.5% greater GOP share of

Democratic electorate– Open primary = 1.2% greater GOP share– NO CLEAR LIMBAUGH EFFECT

The Limbaugh Effect

• Evidence

• Average ratio of GOP support Obama to Clinton = 2.1 to 1– each event = 0.2% decrease in Obama’s

edge over Clinton among Republicans– each 1% increase in McCain’s lead = 0.1%

decline in Obama among Republicans