What Did Voters Really Mean When They Said "Moral Values" Were Important in Deciding Who to Vote for in the U.S. Presidential Election?

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – December 22, 2004 – A lot of hot air has been devoted to commentary on the (surprising to some people) result of the exit polls that "moral values" topped the list of issues which voters said were important to them, when they were interviewed immediately after voting in the U.S. presidential election. This new Harris Poll asked voters what they meant by these words.

Before presenting these new findings it is worth commenting that we should not have been surprised. It appears that whenever "moral values" has been included in a list of issues (as it was in the 2004 exit polls) moral values was seen as important by more voters than any other issue. That was not a new phenomenon peculiar to this election. Moral values had topped the list of issues in those exit polls in both the 2000 and 1996 elections which included "moral values" in the list of issues.

This new Harris Poll finds that fully 45 percent of all those who voted in the 2004 presidential election believe that moral values were very important in deciding which candidate to vote for. However, this was twice as common among Bush voters as Kerry voters (59% compared to 30%).

When those who believed moral values were very important in making their decision were asked to say what in their own words they meant by moral values, the issues mentioned most often were honesty (22%), the protection of marriage/marriage defined as between a man and a woman (17%), pro-life/opposition to abortion (15%), family morals or values (13%), belief in God/faith/religion (13%), Christian and biblical values (12%), and integrity (12%). However, some of these answers were much more likely to be given by Bush supporters than by Kerry supporters. Unlike the exit poll results these were all spontaneous, unprompted responses.

These are the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 1,833 U.S. adults who voted in the 2004 presidential election surveyed online by Harris Interactive^® between December 8 and 15, 2004.

Among those who felt that moral values were very important in helping them to decide who to vote for, Bush supporters were much more likely than Kerry supporters to mention the protection of marriage as between a man and a woman (25% compared to 1%), pro-life/anti-abortion positions (22% compared to 3%), family morals and values (18% compared to 5%), belief in God and religion (17% compared to 6%), and Christian attitudes and Biblical values (16% compared to 3%).

Kerry voters who felt that moral values were very important were more likely than Bush supporters to mention honesty (27% compared to 21%), integrity (14% compared to 11%), caring for and having respect for others (12% compared to 3%), peace/war in the Middle East (15% compared to 1%), equality and civil rights (8% compared to 3%), and helping those less fortunate (10% compared to 1%).

What do these results mean?

These findings confirm that many of the positions of the Christian Right were important in influencing substantial numbers of people who voted for President Bush. In particular, opposition to same sex marriage, opposition to abortion, belief in God and Christian attitudes and biblical values clearly made a substantial difference in this election.

"How important were moral values to you in deciding which candidate to vote for?"

Base: Those who voted in this year’s election

©2004, Harris Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without the express written permission of Harris Interactive.

"What do you mean when you say that moral values were very important to you?

What values to do have in mind?"

(Unprompted responses: respondents were not shown a list)

Base: Voters who said moral values very important in deciding who to vote for

* Less than 0.5%.

- Not mentioned.

©2004, Harris Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without the express written permission of Harris Interactive.

The Harris Poll^® was conducted online within the United States between December 8 and 15, 2004 among a nationwide cross section of 1,833 adults who voted in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election. Figures for age, sex, race, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

In theory, with probability samples of this size, one could say with 95 percent certainty that the results for the overall sample have a sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Sampling error for the Bush voter results (812), the Kerry voter results (872), and the voters who said moral values were very important in deciding who to vote for results (819) is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (nonresponse), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. This online sample was not a probability sample.

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