Sorting in '06 & '08?

Ultimately, the 2006 and 2008 elections do strengthen Fiorina's argument for sorting. The fact that control of the House, Senate, and Presidency swung from the Republicans to the Democrats does not in itself signal that voters had never sorted themselves out based on ideology. Two simple facts support this idea. First, a large part of Fiorina's argument is that the vast majority of the electorate are not that different, so for the middle of the middle-of-the-road voters the ideological or party identification is less durable over time and events or circumstance can swing their vote from one election cycle to the next. Second, the voting differentials in any single election race that have swung control to the Democratic Party are not that vast to suggest massive amounts of missorted voters still exist. Furthermore, even where large margins do exist, there are the effects of new voters to consider. With respect to the recent presidential election, Obama's victory was larger than both of President Bush's in terms of popular vote margin, but also in terms of total votes cast. The fact that new voters are emerging in the electorate, and perhaps "sorting" themselves as Democrats or liberals does not indict Fiorina's argument any more than the idea that the moderate, independent voters are still flexible and unlikely to reliably and completely assign themselves to a single party over the long term.

The Module 14 notes reference Fiorina attributing the result of the 2004 Presidential Election to the female vote; it also mentions that it can be easy to diagnose such a result when there is a significant difference in a given voting bloc from one election cycle to the next. Nonetheless, in analyzing Fiorina's contention by comparing the 2004 and 2008 exit polls, it is striking that the gap changed just as significantly among men - Democrats lost among men 45% to 53% in '04, and won 49% to 48% in '08. Women voted 52% to 46% in favor of Democrats in '04, and that went up to 56% in '08. The tides behind this change clearly must be from the middle, and in any case the sorting of voters into the ideologically correct party is bound to be an ongoing process. Another interesting gap shift from '04 to '08, which I believe also supports a case for the ongoing sorting of the electorate, is the vote of the youngest voters, 18-29 year-olds. In 2004, this group went 55% to 44% for the Democrats; in '08, this numbers swelled to a full 66% in favor of the Democrats. This is not to say that it can be expected that the Democratic candidate will have ~66% of the 18-29 vote in every election, but those voters are more likely to have correctly sorted themselves as Democrats and voted accordingly, and as such can expected to reliably vote Democratic, all other things being equal. Overall, I think it becomes clear that while it may the sorting hypothesis cannot and does not purport to be a predictor of how large the margins between voting blocs or parties may be, it is still a significant element in explaining and defining elections for a new political era.