Describe a Mondale 1984 Bush 1988 voter

[Benjamin Frank]

There's probably been multiple threads on this, but I don't want to look them up. (The search feature could probably be better than it is now, but I'm not asking for anything.)

I can think of a number of reasons but I'll hold off offering them.

[Samof94]

There's probably been multiple threads on this, but I don't want to look them up. (The search feature could probably be better than it is now, but I'm not asking for anything.)

I can think of a number of reasons but I'll hold off offering them.

Rural white guy in Minnesota, possibly a Korean War vet

[Benjamin Frank]

There's probably been multiple threads on this, but I don't want to look them up. (The search feature could probably be better than it is now, but I'm not asking for anything.)

I can think of a number of reasons but I'll hold off offering them.

Rural white guy in Minnesota, possibly a Korean War vet

You might mean something specific about rural voters in Minnesota, you might even be thinking of a specific person for all that I know, but Michael Dukakis actually won Minnesota by a far greater margin than Mondale did. (Dukakis won by around 140,000, Mondale won by about 3,700.)

[Republican Party Stalwart]

There's probably been multiple threads on this, but I don't want to look them up. (The search feature could probably be better than it is now, but I'm not asking for anything.)

I can think of a number of reasons but I'll hold off offering them.

Rural white guy in Minnesota, possibly a Korean War vet

You might mean something specific about rural voters in Minnesota, you might even be thinking of a specific person for all that I know, but Michael Dukakis actually won Minnesota by a far greater margin than Mondale did. (Dukakis won by around 140,000, Mondale won by about 3,700.)

Yes, but that was inevitable considering that the country as a whole voted for Reagan by a "far greater margin" than for Bush. All things considered, it's impressive that Bush kept Minnesota in the single digits despite losing two states Reagan won (Iowa and Rhode Island) by double digits, and especially considering that Minnesota voted for Carter in 76, for Humphrey in 68, and for Truman in 48 by double digits.

The number of Republicans who voted for Mondale in 84 but for Bush in 88 simply because of the "favorite son effect" is indeed probably negligible, but very likely greater than zero.

[Benjamin Frank]

There's probably been multiple threads on this, but I don't want to look them up. (The search feature could probably be better than it is now, but I'm not asking for anything.)

I can think of a number of reasons but I'll hold off offering them.

Rural white guy in Minnesota, possibly a Korean War vet

You might mean something specific about rural voters in Minnesota, you might even be thinking of a specific person for all that I know, but Michael Dukakis actually won Minnesota by a far greater margin than Mondale did. (Dukakis won by around 140,000, Mondale won by about 3,700.)

Yes, but that was inevitable considering that the country as a whole voted for Reagan by a "far greater margin" than for Bush. All things considered, it's impressive that Bush kept Minnesota in the single digits despite losing two states Reagan won (Iowa and Rhode Island) by double digits, and especially considering that Minnesota voted for Carter in 76, for Humphrey in 68, and for Truman in 48 by double digits.

The number of Republicans who voted for Mondale in 84 but for Bush in 88 simply because of the "favorite son effect" is indeed probably negligible, but very likely greater than zero.

Well, Rhode Island was also one of the just six states that voted for Carter in 1980.

Iowa was an anomaly in 1988. If you check the results, you'll see that South Dakota also was unusually competitive. The reason for this is that there had been a major drought in parts of the United States for a number of years and there was a perception that the Reagan Administration hadn't helped out very much.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/07/15/reagan-urges-farmers-to-keep-hope/789781b0-c3bb-4bc8-8ced-1f90777d5703/

Although the drought was widespread and only really Iowa and South Dakota voted for Dukakis in protest, I think the reason was due to the higher number of family farmers in those states relative to the other states. As far as I'm aware, the drought essentially killed off the remains of family farms in the U.S in favor of corporate farms.

[Sumner 1868]

Maryland suburban/exurban Democrats with crime panic seems the best answer.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Georgia voter who began to vote Republican but loved Carter and associated Mondale with his administration.

[Pericles]

The state of Tennessee swung to Bush. My guess is that Bush's suburban strength combined with the state's long-term realignment.

[Benjamin Frank]

I'm surprised with the general inability to answer this question, or the narrowness of the answers. Maybe because if I were older and American I might have been a Mondale to Bush voter.

1.People who thought Ronald Reagan was too right wing so voted for Mondale but didn't mind Bush's older establishment conservative views.

2.People who were concerned with Dukakis' lack of foreign policy experience, especially at a time when the Soviet Union was going through major changes which hightened interest in foreign policy. Up to that point, Ronald Reagan, the governor of California who spent a good deal of time even when governor commenting on foreign policy (The Vietnam War, The Panama Canal Treaty, The Cold War...) was the first governor to be elected President since Franklin Roosevelt, the governor of New York.

3.As an extension of point two: the provincial nature of Michael Dukakis. This was a guy who had pretty much been outside of the Northeast only when serving in the military (largely confined to Massachusetts and New York while attending University) and his lack of knowledge of the people of the other regions of the country showed. Even more than that, many commentators at the time said that he seemed to be running to be governor, not President, of the United States.

"This election is about competence, it's not about ideology."

The ironic thing of the 1988 was the media said George H W Bush's biggest problem was 'the vision thing' (for what he hoped the United States could achieve while he was President) but it was Michael Dukakis who had really zero abstract vision while Bush (although not in his own personal election campaign) argued for a "kinder, gentler nation."

I'd be interested if anybody has the data from any exit polls or the Pew poll after the election because I suspect there was actually a fair amount of 'Reagan Democrats' who returned to the Democratic Party to vote for Dukakis (not in the South though obviously) while there probably were a fair number of 'Mondale Democrats' who were concerned about Dukakis' lack of stature (and I don't mean his height) which I think is the one word that sums up the points I was making.