Premium
Moral Values and Vote Choice in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election
Author(s) -
Knuckey Jonathan
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.259
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1747-1346
pISSN - 1555-5623
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-1346.2007.00058.x
Subject(s) - presidential election , politics , presidential system , test (biology) , political science , multivariate analysis , positive economics , social psychology , psychology , economics , law , statistics , paleontology , mathematics , biology
Scholars and journalists have emphasized the growing importance of cultural issues and a “values divide” in shaping recent political behavior of the American electorate. Discussion of a values‐based cleavage has been especially evident since exit polls for the 2004 presidential election revealed that “moral values” topped the list of issues that respondents cited as the “most important” issue in the election. While there has been considerable debate and disagreement over the influence of moral values in 2004, no analysis has performed a crucial test of the moral values hypothesis, namely developing a multivariate model to examine the effect of moral values on vote choice relative to other issue preferences and demographic variables. This article develops such a model using data from the 2004 American National Election Study. Findings suggest that moral values exerted an important effect on vote choice in the 2004 presidential election, even when other predictors of vote choice were included in a multivariate model.