let's recall that, in the 2000 popular vote, more people voted for gore than bush.

here's the punch-line: kerry did not lose on issues, personality, or anything of the sort. he lost because dems got beat on getting the more loyal voters out.

if you want to minimize the numbers you have to look at, skip to the red section below

here are the numbers from the 2004 national exit poll on election day:

43% of those who voted in 2004 voted for bush in 2000
37% of those who voted in 2004 voted for gore in 2000
3% of those who voted in 2004 voted for third party in 2000
17% of those who voted in 2004 did not vote in 2000

to put it another way....

of those who voted in 2000 and 2004:

52% voted for bush in 2000
45% voted for gore in 2000

to put it another way, dems seem not to have done a very good job getting out the vote among people who voted for gore in 2000.

i thought this was perhaps misleading since so many folks voted in "early voting." but using some of the other exit poll data, it seems that 51% of those polled voted for bush in 2004, and 48% of those polled voted for kerry, which matches the final popular vote results.

when you break down the exit poll data further it gets more disturbing:

43% of those who voted in 2004 voted for bush in 2000
of that 43%, 91% voted for bush and 9% voted for kerry

37% of those who voted in 2004 voted for gore in 2000
of that 37%, 90% voted for kerry and 10% voted for bush

that is, the % of cross-overs pretty much evens out.

3% of those who voted in 2004 voted for third party in 2000
of that 3%, 71% voted for kerry and 21% voted for bush

17% of those who voted in 2004 did not vote in 2000
of that 17%, 54% voted for kerry and 45% voted for bush

that is, kerry won handily among those who voted third party and those who didn't vote in 2000.

kerry lost because republicans got more of their 2000 voters to the polls in 2004 than did democrats.

the only other possibility is that people lied about who they voted for in 2000.

well, I would say most dems that voted in 2000, that aren't in this figure voted absentee based on the 2000 election. That's my theory.

i thought that as well, but as i said in the first post: "i thought this was perhaps misleading since so many folks voted in "early voting." but using some of the other exit poll data, it seems that 51% of those polled voted for bush in 2004, and 48% of those polled voted for kerry, which matches the final popular vote results."

so, a disparity between election day voting and other means of voting doesn't explain it, because there is no disparity.

This completely disproves the theory that nobody who had voted for Gore would vote for Bush this year when in fact there was slightly more crossover to Bush's side. Kerry supporters were trying to float that theory to prove that a Kerry victory was money in the bank, but like so many other things, they were wrong about that too.