Patching it up

The chances are high that they will again this fall. Today's partisans are actually more loyal to their parties than they were in June 2000. According to a Pew Center for the People and the Press survey taken in late April, 77% of Democrats supported Obama over McCain, and 81% picked Clinton over McCain. As for the GOP, 85% of Republicans backed McCain against either Democrat.

And evidence suggests that the "reinforcement effect" is already underway. After Obama's big win in the North Carolina primary and better-than-expected showing in Indiana, a Gallup poll found increased support for him among most categories of Democrats.

But what about those Clinton supporters who say they won't vote for Obama in November? And what about those Republicans who still like Huckabee more than McCain? The existence of these voters certainly suggests that support for the parties' likely nominees could be less than overwhelming, but responses to exit polls conducted in primaries do not accurately predict how people will vote in November. In the 2004 New Hampshire primary, for instance, only 62% of Democrats who didn't vote for John Kerry said they had a favorable impression of him. By election day, however, ambivalence within the party seemed to vanish: 89% of Democrats who voted chose Kerry.

What about those white working-class voters Obama has had trouble attracting? Will they rejoin the Democratic fold in November?

They probably will because class differences have not divided Democrats in recent elections. For instance, in the 2004 election, 86% of white Democrats without a college degree voted for Kerry, as did 92% of those with a college degree. White Democratic voters who made less than $50,000 a year were just as loyal to their presidential candidate as those who earned more, according to the National Election Pool's exit poll. Democrats were largely unified across class boundaries despite Republican attempts to portray Kerry as an effete cosmopolitan out of touch with "real" Americans.

But if Obama, an African American, wins the nomination, as is expected, race could make the 2008 election different from previous presidential contests. There are certainly some white Democrats who won't vote for a black for president. An imperfect indicator is those Democratic primary voters who supported Clinton and said race was a factor in their decision. In the Kentucky primary exit poll, this group constituted 17% of all Democratic voters.