Moral values, moralism, and the 2004 Presidential election

The “moral values vote ” in the 2004 American presidential election should be in-terpreted more broadly than as a reflection of concerns about same-sex marriage and abortion. Instead of specific hot-button social policy issues, a general person-ality trait of moralism—the tendency to perceive a moral dimension in everyday decisions—may have contributed to the election outcome. Specifically, we hypoth-esize that some Bush supporters shared Bush’s high level of moralism (as reflected in his rhetoric) and that this moralism motivated their votes. Consistent with our hypothesis, a preliminary empirical investigation suggests that Bush voters were, indeed, higher in moralism than were Kerry voters. Plans for further research and political strategy implications are discussed. By now, the story that George W. Bush won the 2004 presidential election due to the “moral values vote ” has grown old, as has the newer story that discredited the original one. Almost as soon as the news networks declared that issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion drove Bush’s victory (e.g., Baker, 2004; Macko, 2004; Murphy, 2004), rejoinders by journalists and pundits began appearing (e.g., Langer, 2004; Meyer, 2004), and these narrative accounts have recently been but-tressed by political scientists ’ scholarly analyses showing that single issues like same-sex marriage contributed little, by themselves, to Bush’s win (e.g., Burden, 2004; Hillygus & Shields, 2005; Jacobs, 2004). The controversy started with two brute facts. First, according to the widely re-ported National Election Pool exit polls, a plurality of Americans (22%) ∗Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Benjamin J. Lovett, Depart