Historical Perspective on Obama's Victory

I don’t need to tell anyone that Obama’s victory is a historic moment for American race relations. There are also numerous articles on the historic voter turnout that is expected for this election. This record turnout is – implicitly or explicitly – attributed to Obama’s influence. Then there are the standard questions of how much of a mandate the vote really has given to Obama.

This last question is especially important, because it will probably have a large impact on Obama’s governing style. Will we get Obama the radical, far-left socialist who supports infanticide, wants to ban all handguns and common hunting ammunition, and believes that fairness trumps the Constitution in his quest to redistribute the wealth? The Obama who voted with his own party (if you don’t count absences against him) 98% of the time? The Obama who has not authored a single piece of legislation that required him to work across the aisle at any political cost?

Or will we get the Obama who repudiates his own votes on abortion, claims to cherish the second amendment, lectured on Constitutional law, speaks of unity, bi-partisanshipt, and promises to be the president of even those who voted for McCain? Will we get the Obama who had Jeremiah Wright baptize his daughters, or the Obama who could not remember any anti-American rhetoric from Wright and repudiated him?

A lot of this depends, I believe, on how far Obama believes he can push the American people. This in turn depends on two things: the amount of legislative support he can count on from his own party and in the size of the mandate he acquires from his victory yesterday.

In terms of legal hurdles, it looks like the Democrats have failed to acquire a super-majority in the Senate. This means that the Republicans will be able to filibuster. So any sweeping political change would need to be bolstered by his mandate to rule. And since perception is reality Obama and his supporters need to inflate the perception of a mandate as much as possible.

But even among the bastion of Obama’s powerbase there are significant signs that he was voted for his image, rhetoric, and historical nature and not for his policies. Consider gay marriage. In California 70% of blacks voted in favor of the ban on gay marriage. In Florida 71% voted in favor of a ban. This represents a dramatic departure between the policies of Obama’s base and Obama’s policies. He may share the ethnicity with black Americans, but he is certainly culturally out of touch with them as a social liberal in contrast to the strong social conservative roots of the American black population.

So let’s take a step back and look at the wider picture. Just how historic is Obama’s victory? And how high was the voter turnout? Using a variety of informal sources on the web, I collated the Electoral College results of every American presidential campaign back to the first. I also collected the popular vote results of every American presidential campaign back to 1872. Finally, I gathered approximate voter turnout going back to 1824.

Voter Turnout

Voter turnout numbers vary depending on whether votes are measured versus all those who are registered to vote, eligible to vote, or just of an age where they could vote. The simplest method is also the least accurate – the number of voting age population is compared to the number of voters. Using this method (and data from The American Presidency Project) the average turnout is 64.1% The max is 81.8% and the minimum is 48.9%. Obama’s turnout (projected based on 98% of precincts reporting) looks to be about 64.1%

It’s clear in the graph that voter turnout was a lot higher overall through most of the 19^th century. It fell precipitously in the first quarter of the 20^th century, and again in the last quarter of the 20^th century (the bottom of the crater is the 1996 campaign between Clinton and Dole). Overall the turnout of the 2008 election is completely average. But based on the 20^th century as a whole, it’s on the high side. And looking at just the last quarter century, it’s the very highest turnout to be found by a large margin. Overall we can say that turnout was high, but – even if we start measuring at the steep decline at the start of the 20^th century – it is not unprecedented. It is similar to turnout in the elections between 1952 and 1968.

Electoral College Margin of Victory

Because so many states are winner-take-all, the margin of victory in the Electoral College varies dramatically from a low of -5.75% (the 1824 election was settled by the House of Representatives) to a high of nearly 100% (the 1936 victory of Roosevelt over Landon was 97%, the 198e victory of Reagan over Mondale was 95%). The overall average margin of victory is 42%, and Obama’s comes in at 35%

Unlike the turnout results, there is no obvious and dramatic evidence that time is a significant factor in the results. There are blowouts and close calls scattered from the early 19^th century to the late 20^th century. In this context, Obama’s victory is not a close call, but also not even as strong as average.

Popular Vote Margin of Victory

In terms of establishing a mandate, the popular vote is actually more important than the Electoral College vote. These results tend to be a lot closer, ranging from a low of -3.00% to a high of 26.72% with an average of 9.54%. Obama’s victory is, by comparison, rather meager at just 6.23%.

So Obama’s victory is ranked #21 out of the 35 elections for which I was able to gather data. This isn’t low enough to have an actual negative mandate, as when Bush managed to win the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote to Gore, but it’s certainly not the kind of mandate that lives up to Obama’s grandiose rhetoric and lofty ambitions for changing the world.

Conclusion

Obama does have a mandate to lead. He won the popular vote, the Electoral College, and he brought out significant turnout. But it’s a stretch to count the high turnout as a credit to Obama since his margin of victory was so slim. This means that almost as many of the votes that Obama got out were coming out to vote against him. Similarly, the Electoral College results may like slanted heavily to Obama’s favor, but historically speaking they are not even up to the average margin of victory. And the popular vote is the same story – Obama won. But that’s about all you can say about it.

There’s one final detail to consider. Obama’s victory is historic because he’s black and this is America. Many of those who came out to support him were motivated by this sense of history rather than by support of his policies. On the other hand, many of those who voted against him were motivated by a fear for his policies. If we believe that the race factor was a net positive for Obama (and I do), then this means that if we subtract that from the mandate to see what supports exists for Obama’s policies – there is arguably no mandate left. Obama may have a mandate to be president, but it seems his mandate doesn’t cover his political objectives – just his presence in the White House.

If you combine the razor-thin, arguably non-existent mandate for Obama’s policies with the absurdly high expectations fueled by both Obama’s rhetoric (to “heal the world”) and the innate naïveté of his young supporters, it looks like a recipe for a disastrous presidency.