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How Barack Obama's Votes Beat Hillary Clinton's Votes in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Contest: Not Malapportionment, But Turnout Variation and the Florida Effect
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Alan Siaroff
Published/Copyright:
July 16, 2009
The long-lasting race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Presidential nomination finished with Obama winning a clear majority of the pledged delegates. Yet he did not win a majority of all votes cast, and indeed the popular vote total was extremely close. This article assesses how a close vote total translated into a delegate victory for Obama. Three factors are assessed: malapportionment in terms of delegates per state, a strong abstention (low turnout) effect in the caucuses, and the disqualification of the Florida results. Numerically the abstention effect not just in the caucuses as a whole but across the various caucuses was the most significant factor.
Published Online: 2009-7-16
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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- Institutional Structure and Democratic Values: A Research Note on a Natural Experiment
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- How Barack Obama's Votes Beat Hillary Clinton's Votes in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Contest: Not Malapportionment, But Turnout Variation and the Florida Effect
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- The Obama Effect: Patterns of Geographic Clustering in the 2004 and 2008 Presidential Elections
- U.S. Health Care and Real Health in Comparative Perspective: Lessons from Abroad
- Review
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Keywords for this article
2008 Democratic presidential contest;
malapportionment;
turnout variation;
caucuses
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction
- Introduction
- Article
- Perception and Reality in Congressional Earmarks
- Institutional Structure and Democratic Values: A Research Note on a Natural Experiment
- Even Closer, Even Longer: What If the 2008 Democratic Primary Used Republican Rules?
- How Barack Obama's Votes Beat Hillary Clinton's Votes in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Contest: Not Malapportionment, But Turnout Variation and the Florida Effect
- Campaign Microtargeting and the Relevance of the Televised Political Ad
- The Obama Effect: Patterns of Geographic Clustering in the 2004 and 2008 Presidential Elections
- U.S. Health Care and Real Health in Comparative Perspective: Lessons from Abroad
- Review
- Review of The Persuadable Voter: Wedge Issues in Presidential Campaigns
