Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
The votes are still being tallied, but it is very clear that the Romney campaign and allied groups didn’t come even close to delivering all the voters they could have, or should have, on Election Day.
I produced a very rough total for the vote by taking the state totals and increasing each candidate's share by the percentage yet to be counted in each state: 66.2 million votes for Obama, 62.5 million for Romney.
In 2008, John McCain received about 60 million votes, a couple of million short of Romney. But, of course, the population has increased. When you look at the votes as a share of the voting eligible population, Romney pulled in almost exactly the same proportion of votes as McCain did in ’08.
Romney’s campaign, despite all the turmoil and billions of dollars, could not turn out more voters than John McCain.
This is a stunning failure. Epic. And even more so when we look at the percentage of likely supporters each side turned out this year. The electorate has become more Republican and less Democratic since 2008 . . . in other words, Romney had a bigger pool of likely voters that he could draw from to outperform Obama.
I apportioned the voting eligible population in 2008 to the full 7-point party identification breakdowns for 2012. In other words, if 28 percent of the population identified as a Strong Dem, then I assigned 28 percent of the VEP to Stong Dems, and did that for each category (and split pure Indies 50/50).
In 2008, Obama’s campaign turned out 59 percent of their likely supporters, and McCain’s campaign turned out 63 percent of his likely supporters (there were a lot more Dems).
In 2012, Romney’s campaign turned out just 59 percent of potential supporters to Obama’s 58 percent.
In other words, Obama and his allies turned out about the same proportion of a smaller pool of likely supporters, and Romney, et al, failed utterly to capitalize on the shift in party ID and ideology. Looking at the relative declines in various states, I think Sean Trende is on to something with his speculation about who failed to show up and why, especially in Ohio.
The more I look at these numbers, the more angry I get . . . this election did not have to be lost.
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Nov '12
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
Adam Schaeffer
The choice to not vote is a perfectly reasonable choice . . . The Romney campaign shouldve worked to nudge those voters and drag them to the polls. They didn't. They failed. Obama's campaign did that successfully with many of their disappointed, marginal voters. Romney should've nudged those voters against turning out. They didn't. · 11 minutes ago
Totally agree.
I said this once on a blogging site back in 2008 after McCain and the GOP failed against Team O that the GOP is horrible in its outreach. I lived in NYC at the time and I realize that NY is abig blue state BUT the GOP did nothing, absolutely nothing to try to spread its message. I really do believe that the Democrats have a much better operation when it comes to making personal outreach a part of their retail politics.
The GOP needs to learn these lessons well. I'm not suggesting that Republicans and conservatives need to stop being Republicans and conservatives BUT they need to do a much better job of making their appeals on a person-to-person level. Simply having the best argument doesn't always work.
Jun '10
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
How is a Republican who fails to vote any different than a Democrat who shows up to vote himself more benefits? Both have failed in their civic duty. You can dissect all the partisan data you like, but the fact remains that the body politic has become corrupted. Public apathy is as dangerous to the health of a republic as public mooching. So ends the American Republic. RIP.
May '10
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
It came about just as I predicted-- Romney didn't fire up the base.
Nov '12
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
ORCA was some kind of stupid real-time election day data mining initiative where there were supposed to be campaign workers out in the field feeding back information on poll turnout so that HQ could then target areas of the country for extra GOTV efforts.....total WASTE if you ask me. If you're waiting until election day to do that, you're simply TOO LATE.
Obama data mined and micro-targeted GOTV information in real-time for months based on its 2008 voter lists!!
Jul '11
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
Two questions:
How many GOP seniors died in the last four years who were not replaced by those just younger than them?
How many among the poor who would normally vote GOP (evangelical or otherwise) are now dependant on food stamps and other befefits?
May '11
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
SunnyOptimism
ORCA was some kind of stupid real-time election day data mining initiative where there were supposed to be campaign workers out in the field feeding back information on poll turnout so that HQ could then target areas of the country for extra GOTV efforts.....total WASTE if you ask me. If you're waiting until election day to do that, you're simply TOO LATE.
Obama data mined and micro-targeted GOTV information in real-time for months based on its 2008 voter lists!! · 11 minutes ago
I agree. By the way, I am delighted to find an appropriately named counterpart at Ricochet.
Apr '11
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
SunnyOptimism
ORCA was some kind of stupid real-time election day data mining initiative where there were supposed to be campaign workers out in the field feeding back information on poll turnout so that HQ could then target areas of the country for extra GOTV efforts.....total WASTE if you ask me....
Obama data mined and micro-targeted GOTV information in real-time for months based on its 2008 voter lists!! ·
It was a toy, not costing much money, that was meant to mildly enhance election day calling enhancements. It didn't work. John, who wrote the powerline article, apparently spent all day running round being unhappy about it not working, but for most poll watchers, they just got on with their day without this minor enhancement.
The Obama technological advantage, though, was very real. They were able to sink serious amounts of money and high skill volunteer efforts into making fantastic GOTV software in 2011. This helped with every level of the volunteer effort. My instinct is that the best advice for politicians who wish to adopt Adam's recipe for success is "build/ buy something like Dashboard".
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 1:37amJul '11
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
The yard signs and bumper stickers ( a few hundred dollars worth) I ordered 5 weeks ago arrived Saturday. Just sayin.
Southern Pessimist, maybe we should arrange a fishing trip in 2014 and discuss strategy for the mid term elections.
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
You make very good points . . . again, these are estimates, but liberal ones.
One way that we might get some traction on whether Romney did better in swing states than he did on average (although we'd really need to control for a lot of underlying state factors to be sure about this).
Obama's average vote haul per state haul declined 4.7% and Romney's increased 5.2%. This gives us some sense of the underlying shift in turnout nationwide.
Compared to these average shifts, Obama performed about 5 points better in OH, and Romney just .5 point better. In FL, Obama performed 4.4 points better than his average and Romney 1.1 point worse. In VA, it was O 3.3 better and R just .3 better. And in CO, it was O by 10 and R by 8.
Oct '10
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
Isn't the real question whether Romney got more people in the states that mattered? Have you seen Hoyacon's post? How does your analysis play out in the 'battleground' states where the money was actually spent?
Oct '10
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
Time travel!
"in 1 minute"!
I now return you to your datamining blamefest.
Apr '11
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
Adam Schaeffer
You make very good points . . . again, these are estimates, but liberal ones.
One way that we might get some traction on whether Romney did better in swing states than he did on average (although we'd really need to control for a lot of underlying state factors to be sure about this).
Obama's average vote haul per state haul declined 4.7% and Romney's increased 5.2%. This gives us some sense of the underlying shift in turnout nationwide.
Compared to these average shifts, Obama performed about 5 points better in OH, and Romney just .5 point better. In FL, Obama performed 4.4 points better than his average and Romney 1.1 point worse. In VA, it was O 3.3 better and R just .3 better. And in CO, it was O by 10 and R by 8. · 0 minutes ago
I don't understand your claims, whether about the subjectivity of the vote counts, or about the "vote haul" totals; Mitt beat McCain in Florida, but McCain beat Mitt in Ohio in votes, or about the improved vote haul nationally. Are you talking polls?
Apr '11
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
Hoyacon is right to point this out, but Stuart Creque has the actual numbers here, except Virginia, which was a small Mitt lead. In the states where Mitt had a GOTV operation, the GOP vote was up, with one exception (Ohio) and a semi-exception (Pennsylvania, where there was a token GOTV operation set up at the last minute). In states with no GOTV operation, the GOP vote was down.
Apparently when you switch from votes to "vote hauls", these numbers change radically. From a simple perspective, though, it would appear that the GOTV operations worked.
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
Ha . . . well, good points coming up here . . . look, it's still up in the air how much Romney did or did not shift votes where it counted, but I think it is very clear he didn't do what he could have, and should have done.
Obama's huge achievement was in staunching the bleeding, in fact putting on a damned good tourniquet where it counted. And Romney couldn't boost it at all or enough where it counted. He couldn't even get the same share of the voting eligible pop as Bush in '04. That's just a sad, sorry performance, especially 8 years later and with a serious shift in party ID.
This wasn't an easy task, but Romney's campaign, and all of us, should have been quite capable of it. Obama was horribly vulnerable for an incumbent. We fumbled . . . and they did a damned good job running it into the end zone.
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 1:52amRe: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
James Of England
.... Stuart Creque has the actual numbers here, except Virginia, which was a small Mitt lead. In the states where Mitt had a GOTV operation, the GOP vote was up, with one exception (Ohio) and a semi-exception (Pennsylvania, where there was a token GOTV operation set up at the last minute). In states with no GOTV operation, the GOP vote was down.
I'm actually using estimates that give Romney even bigger vote totals to account for outstanding votes. But what matters isn't whether he increased over McCain, but whether his increase in these swing states was larger than the average across all states. It wasn't. Let's put this in extremes . . . say Romney had a 50% increase in his vote over McCain on average, but in the swing states he only had a 5% increase. That's a huge failure regardless because he massively underperformed the underlying shift.
May '12
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
But that's the real problem, isn't it? "We" didn't turn up to vote. regardless of Obama's strategy, the self-described "conservatives" and conservative-leaning independents, didn't turn up.
Jul '10
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
Adam Schaeffer: Ha . . . well, good points coming up here . . . look, it's still up in the air how much Romney did or did not shift votes where it counted, but I think it is very clear he didn't do what he could have, and should have done.
Obama's huge achievement was in staunching the bleeding, in fact putting on a damned good tourniquet where it counted. And Romney couldn't boost it at all or enough where it counted. He couldn't even get the same share of the voting eligible pop as Bush in '04. That's just a sad, sorry performance, especially 8 years later and with a serious shift in party ID.
This wasn't an easy task, but Romney's campaign, and all of us, should have been quite capable of it. Obama was horribly vulnerable for an incumbent. We fumbled . . . and they did a damned good job running it into the end zone. · 18 minutes ago
Edited 17 minutes ago
Now hold on a moment. I haven't seen anything that suggests a positive shift in party ID for the GOP versus 2004.
Am I mistaken?
Nov '12
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
James Of England
The Obama technological advantage, though, was very real. They were able to sink serious amounts of money and high skill volunteer efforts into making fantastic GOTV software in 2011. This helped with every level of the volunteer effort. My instinct is that the best advice for politicians who wish to adopt Adam's recipe for success is "build/ buy something like Dashboard". · 9 minutes ago
Edited 5 minutes ago
Precisely!
GOP GOTV Technology = Pencils & Clipboards
[with some binders full of women ;-)]
OFA GOTV Technology = iPad & Smartphone Apps
I'm sure technology is not the whole story, but seriously, what the heck did the RNC and Team R/R do with all of that money they raised?!?!?! They knew this was coming. They knew Team O was going to use massive amounts of technology. Yet they played the same tired ground game from 20+ years ago!
May '11
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
DocJay: The yard signs and bumper stickers ( a few hundred dollars worth) I ordered 5 weeks ago arrived Saturday. Just sayin.
Southern Pessimist, maybe we should arrange a fishing trip in 2014 and discuss strategy for the mid term elections. · 53 minutes ago
Yep. Let's mention it again from time to time and we might have a crew. I am in.
Apr '11
Re: Double the Spending, Less Turnout . . . The Numbers on Romney vs McCain
Adam Schaeffer
James Of England
.... Stuart Creque has the actual numbers here, except Virginia, which was a small Mitt lead. In the states where Mitt had a GOTV operation, the GOP vote was up, with one exception (Ohio) and a semi-exception (Pennsylvania, where there was a token GOTV operation set up at the last minute). In states with no GOTV operation, the GOP vote was down.
I'm actually using estimates that give Romney even bigger vote totals to account for outstanding votes. But what matters isn't whether he increased over McCain, but whether his increase in these swing states was larger than the average across all states. It wasn't. Let's put this in extremes . . . say Romney had a 50% increase in his vote over McCain on average, but in the swing states he only had a 5% increase. That's a huge failure regardless because he massively underperformed the underlying shift. · 26 minutes ago
You have numbers to suggest that the Romney vote was the McCain vote (59,934,814)* 1.052 = 63 million votes cast (comment #29)? Talk about a buried lede! OK. If that's the case, the GOTV operation was less impressive.