State political culture and support for Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries

The Social Science Journal 47 (2010) 699–709

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

State political culture and support for Obama in the 2008Democratic presidential primaries

Patrick Fisher ∗

Department of Political Science, Seton Hall University, 400 South Orange Avenue,South Orange, NJ 07079, USA

Received 23 June 2009; received in revised form 14 December 2009; accepted 1 February 2010

Abstract

Though ideologically similar, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appealed to different types ofvoters in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries and demographically the candidates’ supportvaried considerably. Relative to the demographics of the primary electorates, however, we find thatstate political culture played an outsized role in determining which candidate emerged victorious in aparticular state. When the size of demographic groups in the 2008 Democratic primaries are utilized inordinary least squares regression models as independent variables with state political characteristics andDaniel Elazar’s state political culture typology, political culture proves to be an important determinantof the level of support given to Obama in a state. States that are characterized by a more moralisticpolitical culture are more likely to have given Obama a greater share of the primary vote and states thatare characterized by a more traditionalistic or individualistic culture were less likely to support Obamain the 2008 Democratic primaries.© 2010 Western Social Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination was extremely competitive,with Barack Obama barely defeating Hillary Clinton in a fight for delegates that lasted untilthe last primaries were conducted. As competitive as the race was, however, the differencesbetween the candidates were generally not ideological as the candidates’ positions on publicpolicy issues were fairly similar. Yet, demographically, Obama’s and Clinton’s support variedconsiderably. The candidates appealed to different types of voters in the Democratic primaries.Although a number of demographic divides existed in the Democratic primaries, we find thatone of the most important factors differentiating the candidates’ level of support in 2008 was

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700 P. Fisher / The Social Science Journal 47 (2010) 699–709

state political culture. State political culture played an outsized role in determining whichcandidate emerged victorious in a particular state as Obama’s dominance in moralistic statesproved to be a critical component of his upset victory.

1. The demographic gaps of the 2008 Democratic nomination

An analysis of the voting behavior of different demographic groups in the 32 Demo-cratic primaries that took place beginning on February 5 (when the contest had narrowedto Obama and Clinton) through the last primaries on June 3 finds that the relative strengthof Obama’s and Clinton’s support among different demographic groups explains some of thepolitical dynamics of the 2008 Democratic nomination. Table 1 displays eight demographicgaps in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries beginning February 5 (since exit pollsgenerally were not conducted in caucus states, this analysis is limited only to states thatheld primaries). The source for the exit polls is the National Election Pool, a consortiumformed by NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and the Associated Press. There were noteworthygaps on the basis of race, age, education, religion, income, gender, self-described partisanshipand self-described ideology. For the purposes of Table 1 each gap is defined as the largestdifference between demographic groups that were classified for each category in exit polls.Obama’s demographic bases of support were African Americans, younger voters, voters witha postgraduate education, those with no religion affiliation, wealthier voters, males, politicalIndependents, and liberals. Clinton’s strongest demographic groups were Whites, older voters,voters with a high school education or less, Catholics, poorer voters, females, Democrats, andmoderates.

Focusing solely on demographic groups, however, misses important geographic nuancesof the 2008 Democratic primaries. Politically where people live is more important than ever(Brown, Knopp, & Morrill, 2005). States—and regions—have real and significant cultural andpolitical differences (Gelman, 2008). Even after accounting for group traits, regional effects canoften be detected because people are proximate to one another influence each other’s attitudesand behavior (Mutz, 2002). This can be considered a “neighborhood effect”—the tendencyfor people to be socialized by those they live around (Gimpel & Schuknecht, 2003). Obamaand Clinton tended to do better in different parts of the country, with Obama tending to win

Table 1Ranking of demographic gaps in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries.

Obama’s Best Group % Obama’s Worst Group % Gap

Race African American 83 White 40 43Age Under 30 61 60 and older 39 22Religion No Religion 56 Catholic 41 15Education Postgraduate 55 High school 41 14Income $100,000+ 53 Under $30,000 44 9Gender Men 53 Women 46 7Party Independent 54 Democratic 48 6Ideology Liberal 51 Moderate 47 4

Source: National Election Pool exit polls of 32 Democratic primaries beginning February 5, 2008.

P. Fisher / The Social Science Journal 47 (2010) 699–709 701

the primaries and caucuses in the Northwest, plains, and South and Clinton tending to win theprimaries and caucuses in the Northeast, Southwest and Appalachia.

There were important geographical differences between Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clin-ton’s bases of support. Obama, for example, had sizeable victories in what John Judis and RuyTeixeira call “ideopolises,” new-growth cities built upon some combination of light industry,soft technology, university and research centers, and growing retail and service sectors (Judis& Teixeira, 2002). Obama won ideopolises such as Boulder County, CO, Orange County, NCand Dane County, WI by a greater than 2:1 margin. Obama also did very well in smaller collegetowns, winning over 60% of the vote in Monroe County, IN (University of Indiana) and BooneCounty, MO (University of Missouri). The only county in the entire state of New York thatObama won was Tompkins County, home of Cornell University and Ithaca College, whichObama won with 57% of the vote.

Obama’s message, however, did not resonate nearly as well with lower-educated Whites. Itis debatable whether or not Obama’s lack of success with lower-educated Whites was moreanti-Obama or more pro-Clinton, but in many parts of the country Obama got clobbered in thisdemographic group. In West Virginia, a state where 96% of the Democratic primary electoratewas white, Obama won only 22% of voters with no college degree. The situation was similar inneighboring Kentucky, where Obama won only 25% of the vote among voters with no collegedegree.

There were obviously important demographic differences between the coalitions of supportfor Obama and Clinton. Before we test the explanatory power of these demographic gaps,however, we will take a look at one more possible factor explaining Obama’s and Clinton’srelative support: state political culture. State political culture, as it turns out, is a much strongerpredictor of how well the candidates did in a particular state than are most of the demographicdifferences of state primary electorates.

2. Political culture and subcultures

Given the importance of the relationship between what government does (or does not do) andpolitical culture the political cultures of American states rightfully should be a major focus ofstudy (Patterson, 1968). The research of political culture generally focuses on: (1) the origins,political theory, and cultural attributes of the political system, (2) the policy process, (3) policyoutputs, and (4) attitudes in citizens and elites (Wirt, 1991). Our analysis will focus on thelatter—citizen and elite attitudes.

Culture shapes preferences by answering three important questions: (1) who am I?, (2)how should I behave?, (3) what is legitimate? Thus, culture provides individuals with theirbasic social identities (the identity function), norms for socially acceptable behavior (theboundary-maintenance function), and standards for judging institutions (the legitimacy func-tion) (Wildavsky, 1987). The learning of specific orientations to politics and experience withthe political system are extremely important (Almond & Verba, 1965). Changes in societalexperiences may alter citizens’ cultural orientations (Lockhart, 2003).

Political culture consists of a shared set of ideas about the role of government and whoshould influence public policy. Politics cannot be understood apart from culture and ideology


(Kincaid, 1982). It is a common mistake to try to explain the diversity of everyday behaviorin the USA on the grounds of uniformity in shared national values. Most political cultures,however, are heterogeneous (Almond & Verba, 1965). Even within the most fully developedcultures, parochials will exist. The USA may be a single nation, but Americans do not constitutea single culture (Wildavsky, 1997). Cultural and historical contingencies interact to produce aseries of distinct patterns of American political development (Lockhart, 2001).

A commonly used typology for political subcultures within the USA is that proposed byElazar (1984). Elazar’s theory is based on the immigration and migration patterns of ethnicgroups and religions. Elazar’s scheme has widely been seen as the most promising effort tomap American political cultures and the best way to characterize state political culture (Mead,2004). Elazar’s subcultural theory of American political culture has been found to be relatedto a number of life quality measures and other scholars using more systematic methods haveproduced results that are consistent with Elazar’s findings (Lieske, 1993).

According to Elazar, the national political culture is the synthesis of three major politicalsubcultures that are dominant in varying parts of the country: moralistic, individualistic, andtraditionalistic.

The moralistic political culture stresses the conception of the commonwealth as the basis forDemocratic government. Politics is viewed as being a positive activity in which citizens havean obligation to participate. Good government is measured by the degree to which it promotesthe public good. Individualism is abated by a commitment to communal power to intervene inprivate activities when it is considered necessary for the public good. Communitarian principlesdictate that government has the responsibility to promote the public welfare. Moralistic politicalcultures are also more likely to produce political systems that are more responsive to thedemands of reformers than other political cultures (Ritt, 1982).

The individualistic political culture, on the other hand, is based on the utilitarian conceptionthat politics should work like a marketplace. Government should handle only those functionsdemanded by the people it is created to serve. This businesslike conception of politics placesa premium on limiting community intervention on private activities and restricts governmentaction to only those areas that encourage private initiative. Ideological concerns are eschewedas both politicians and citizens look upon politics as a specialized activity for professionalswith only a small role to be played by the general public.

The traditionalistic political culture views the proper role of government in a much differentlight: politics is viewed as a privilege, not an obligation. It has an ambivalent attitude towardthe marketplace and an elitist conception of the commonwealth. The traditionalistic politicalculture reflects a precommercial attitude that accepts the inevitability of a hierarchical society.It accepts government as an actor with a positive role in the community, but unlike the moralisticpolitical culture it tries to limit that role to securing the continued maintenance of the existingsocial order. Those who do not have a definite role to play in politics are not expected, norencouraged, to be politically active.

Each of the three political cultures is dominant in varying areas of the country. Elazarfinds that the geography of political culture is directly related to the westward expansion of theAmerican frontier. There were three streams of American migration that began on the east coastand moved westward after the colonial period. Each stream moved from east to west whichgenerally led them due west from the immediately previous area of settlement. The distribution


of the three political cultures is the result to three overall streams of westward migration whichled various groups across the USA. Due to this pattern of migration, the individualistic politicalculture tends to be dominant in the middle-Atlantic states, the Midwest, and the mountain states;the moralistic political culture dominant in New England, the Great Lakes region, and the westcoast; and the traditionalistic political culture is relatively isolated to the South and Southwest.

Elazar’s impact on state politics scholarship has been widespread. The Elazar cultures aredistinct from other political differences among the states such as political ideology or parti-sanship. Yet, at the same time, the cultural types are linked to many features of state politicsand government. Moralistic states have higher levels of political participation, more competi-tive parties, stronger merit personnel systems, and more liberal and innovative programming.Traditionalistic states, on the other hand, tend to display less of these characteristics whileindividualistic states tend to fall in between the two other cultures (Mead, 2004). State politicalinstitutions and processes, therefore, vary considerably along political cultural grounds. Aswe come back to and address in detail later, Elazar’s political subcultures have been found tobe related to the presidential primary process, with moralistic states tend to schedule primarydates earlier in the campaign season than do individualistic or (especially) traditionalistic states(Carman & Barker, 2005).

Elazar’s political subcultures have been found to be good predictors of public policy varia-tions among the states (Erikson, Wright, & McIver, 1993). More than a 100 empirical analyseshave successfully used Elazar’s typology to explain political phenomena (Nardulli, 1990).A study using indices of moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic political cultures andreligious data for each state found that political culture is related to political characteristicsand political decisions of American states (Johnson, 1976). Another study found that moral-ist, individualistic, and traditionalistic values imply quite different strategies for promotingeconomic growth. Moralistic states pursue strategies that emphasize solidarity, individualis-tic states employ policies that confer particularistic benefits on investors, and traditionalisticstates utilize exclusionary incentives that tend to reinforce the political status quo (Hanson,1991). Elazar’s prototype classification of American political subcultures was also found tobe an important determinant of the adoption of death penalty statutes and the frequency ofexecutions, with states that are characterized by a more traditionalistic political culture aremore likely to have adopted a death penalty statute and to execute inmates more frequently(Fisher & Pratt, 2006).

Despite the success of Elazar’s typology at explaining political differences between thestates, his scheme has come under criticism. One of the most frequent criticisms of politicalculture literature concerns the difficulties of measuring political culture. Elazar’s derivationof the three political subcultures, for example, is not based on any rigorous statistical pro-cedures (Lieske, 1993). One study, operationalizing Elazar’s typology at the individual levelusing survey questions, found little internal coherence, suggesting that while Elazar may haveidentified some important dimensions of American political culture, these dimensions may notbe associated in the manner that he hypothesized. Thus, while he may have identified some keyaspects of political culture, his cultural groupings have little empirical foundation (Nardulli,1990). Another criticism of Elazar is that his categories capture the beliefs of political elitesand activists better than those of voters (Kincaid, 1980). Finally, Elazar’s typology has alsobeen criticized for its depiction of the traditionalistic subculture. The traditionalistic subculture


is virtually synonymous with the political culture of the southern states, underestimating thecultural variation in the South (Ellis, 1993). While Elazar’s typology may gloss over importantdifference among states classified as the same political culture, however, the similarities ofthose states with the same political culture are much more impressive than their differences.

3. State political culture and the 2008 Democratic primaries

Elazar’s typology of political subcultures proved to be a good predictor of Obama’s supportin the 2008 Democratic primaries and caucuses. Specifically, whether or not the moralisticsubculture was dominant in the state was an excellent predictor of Obama’s vote share rel-ative to Clinton’s. Overall, Obama won 76% (13 of 17) of the states that Elazar classifiesas moralistic. Obama won eight out of the nine states which Elazar classifies exclusively asmoralistic (Elazar classifies some states as hybrids, with dominant and secondary subcultures).The only exclusively moralistic state that Obama lost was Michigan, where he was not on theballot because he did not want to break the Democratic Party’s rules regarding Michigan’searly primary. States with individualistic and traditionalistic subcultures, on the other hand,tended to be relatively evenly divided between Obama and Clinton. Obama won nine of theindividualistic states while Clinton won eight. Of the traditionalistic states, Obama won sevenand Clinton nine. Thus, Obama won less than half of states that were not moralistic.

Political culture thus seemed to play an important role in determining which candidate wona state’s Democratic primary in 2008. Why would this be the case? Why should we expectObama to do better in moralistic states?

Given Obama’s reformist and outsider campaign message of “hope,” it is perhaps not surpris-ing that Obama did best in moralistic states which put a premium on a communitarian vision ofthe public good. Obama’s idealistic message, which encouraged new participants—especiallyyounger and minority voters—to engage in the political process for the first time, may haveresonated better with those who instinctively sympathize with communitarian notions of thecommonwealth.

State ideology may also have factored into Obama’s success in moralistic states. Moralisticstates are more likely to ideologically extreme, in both directions (Erikson et al., 1993). Obama’searly opposition to the Iraq War and other policy positions to the left of Clinton may have madehim the ideological preference of Democratic primary voters in moralistic states. This may haveparticularly been the case later in the campaign. As the primary season progressed Clintonmay have realized that the states that were scheduled to vote late in the primary process weremoderate or conservative-leaning (and generally not moralistic), and thus moved somewhatto Obama’s right. Clinton, as polls showed, had the edge among working class and olderDemocrats and she targeted them in response, especially in Pennsylvania. In the last month ofprimaries, Obama tended to do better in more liberal areas (such as Oregon) and Clinton betterin more conservative ones (such as Kentucky and West Virginia). The relationship betweenstate ideology and voting patterns, however, was not consistent but tended to vary by statesubculture. Clinton did well in many of the most liberal individualistic states (Massachusettsand Rhode Island) while Obama did better in liberal moralistic states (Washington and Oregon).


The historic nature of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in her attempt to become the first femalepresident may have initially made her seem likely to do well in moralistic states. Moralisticstates have historically been more supportive of gender equality and more supportive of femalecandidates. Currently, for example, 28% of state legislators in moralistic states are womenwhile only 22% are women in other states, a statistically significant margin (NCSL, 2009).Despite moralistic states’ relative support for female candidates, however, it seems clear withObama’s strength in moralistic states that other factors trumped gender. Race, in particular,appears to have been a much more important factor in explaining Obama’s relative dominancein moralistic states.

Race, as we discussed before, was by far the single most important demographic factordifferentiating Obama’s and Clinton’s support. Since moralistic states have traditionally beenthe most supportive of civil rights and the most racially tolerant, Obama’s race may have beenless of a deterrent to vote from him among white voters than it was in moralistic states than itwas in individualistic and traditionalistic states.

Obama’s support among white voters did in fact vary considerably—by a statistically sig-nificant margin—by political subculture. In the 32 states that had primaries (and exit polls)beginning February 5, Obama’s share of the white vote in moralistic states was 53%, but it wasonly 40% in individualistic states and 33% in traditionalistic states.

The fact that there is such a wide discrepancy of the white vote by political culture is con-sistent with other models that analyze the behavior of Whites and non-Whites which havefound that analyzing only white behavior more accurately reflects the cultural divide in Amer-ican politics (Miller & Shanks, 1996). Though Obama’s particularly poor performance amongWhites in traditionalistic states may be attributable to racism, it supports the contention thatthese states are inherently elitist and do not encourage increased participation, traits that arevery much counter to the campaign that Obama conducted trying to become the first AfricanAmerican to win the presidency.

4. Findings

To test the predictive value of Elazar’s subcultures in the contest for the 2008 Democraticpresidential nomination, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models were employed uti-lizing state political culture, state political characteristics, and state primary demographics asindependent variables. Two measurements of Elazar’s typology are used to test the influenceof political culture. For the first model, whether or not the dominant subculture in a state ismoralistic is used as a dummy variable (with moralistic subculture coded as 1 and tradition-alistic and individualistic subcultures coded as 0). For the second model, Ira Sharkansky’soperationalization of Elazar’s typology which rates states on a scale from 1 to 9, with lowscores given to moralistic states and high scores given to traditionalistic states, with individ-ualistic states in between (Sharkansky, 1969). This measurement was used in a prior study totest the “institutional lag model” that predicts that a state’s political institutions are structuredaccording to a political culture dominant in the state (Norrander, 2000). A potential problem,however, with measuring Elazar’s political cultures in such a fashion is that Elazar himselfargues that a moralistic-individualistic-traditionalistic continuum does not necessarily reflect


the relationship between the different political cultures (Elazar, 1982). Rather than a linear rela-tionship, Elazar believes that a triangular relationship best describes the association betweenhis political subcultures—the individualistic political culture should not be classified as beingbetween the moralistic and traditionalistic political cultures.

For state political characteristics, the model uses government ideology and the percentage ofwomen in state legislatures as independent variables. Orientations toward government influencemany aspects of state politics (Nice, 1994). In order to measure ideology, we utilized the findingsof Erikson et al. (1993) which are based on public opinion survey data (Erikson et al., 1993).It is the most direct measure available of how citizens regard themselves ideologically. Themeasure has also been found related to many state policy decisions (Nice, 1994). Though ithas been argued that meaningful ideological change occurs within states over time (Berry,Ringquist, Fording, & Hanson, 1998), Erikson, Wright, and McIver contend that state-levelideology is mostly stable, a finding that has been supported elsewhere (Brace, Arceneaux,Johnson, & Ulbig, 2004). Obama’s outsider and reformer message, along with the fact that hewas attempting to become the first African American elected president, may have given himmore of an appeal in more ideologically liberal states. Similarly, the percentage of women instate legislatures as independent variable was used to measure potential support in a state forHillary Clinton as opposed to Barack Obama. The women’s movement has long argued thatgreater numbers of women need to be elected to public office (Carroll, 2001), and Clinton inher attempt to become the first female president may have had strong support among thosestates where women were more likely to hold political office. In regards to political culture,it has been found that women have greater status in states with a moralistic or individualistic(rather than traditionalistic) and as a result, higher percentages of women legislators (Buntin,Greenblatt, & Smith, 2005).

Finally, the model utilizes each of the demographic gaps discussed earlier (see Table 1), usingthe percentage of the primary electorate of Obama’s best demographic groups as independentvariables. The demographic variables are derived from the exit poll data of the 32 Democraticprimaries that took place beginning on February 5, so-called Super Tuesday when 15 stateshad Democratic presidential primaries (as was the case for Table 1, the analysis concentratessolely on states that held presidential primaries, ignoring caucuses because of the lack of exitpoll data). The focus of the model is thus on the Democratic race after the contest had beennarrowed to Obama and Clinton.

Table 2 contains the results of the models predicting Obama’s vote share in the 2008 Demo-cratic presidential primaries. Upon controlling for state political characteristics (state ideologyand percentage women in state legislatures) and the demographics of the state Democraticprimary electorate (percentage of the electorate that was African American, under 30 yearsold, had a postgraduate degree, had no religious affiliation, had an family income greater than$100,000 a year, was male, was a self-described political independent, and was ideologicallyliberal), Table 2 indicates that whether or not a state was a moralistic subculture is a strong andsignificant predictor of Obama’s share of the overall vote (p < .01). The same can also be saidof the model that includes Sharkansky’s typology of political culture, which is also a statisti-cally significant predictor of Obama’s performance in a state (p < .05). Taken together, thesemodels indicate that, net of statistical controls, political culture is an important determinant ofObama’s share of the vote in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries.


Table 2Ordinary least squares regression models of Obama vote in 2008 Democratic presidential primaries on PoliticalCulture with Demographic Covariates (n = 32).

Variable

State political cultureElazar’s Typology (1 = Moralistic) 12.056 (4.191)**

Sharkansky’s Typology −2.716 (0.999)*

State political characteristicsGovernment Ideology 0.032 (1.873) −2.915 (2.076)% Women in State Legislatures −0.065 (0.344) 0.067 (0.350)

State primary Demographics% African American 0.710 (0.143)*** 0.882 (0.167)***

% Under 30 years old 0.248 (0.607) −0.048 (0.650)% Postgraduate Degree −0.032 (0.474) −0.150 (0.480)% No Religion 0.864 (0.516) 0.689 (0.533)% Income $100,000+ 0.313 (0.322) 0.278 (0.326)% Male 0.327 (0.805) 0.902 (0.800)% Independent 0.183 (0.269) 0.306 (0.276)% Liberal −0.040 (0.537) 0.166 (0.533)

[5pt] Constant −2.048 (41.015) −17.482 (40.428)r2 .764 .757F 5.902*** 5.660***

Sources: State is moralistic: Elazar (1984), government ideology: Erikson et al. (1993); % Women In State Legis-latures: National Conference of State Legislatures (2009); state primary demographics: National Election Pool exitpolls of 32 Democratic primaries beginning February 5, 2008.Note: Ordinary least squares regression estimates with standard errors in parentheses.

∗ Significance level: p < .05.∗∗ Significance level: p < .01.∗∗∗ Significance level: p < .001.

State political characteristics and state primary demographics proved to be relatively poorpredictors of Obama’s vote share relative to political culture. The only demographic variablethat was statistically significant was race, which unsurprisingly proved to be a robust predictor(p < .001). The model thus supports the contention that political culture was an importantdeterminant of Obama’s primary performance in a state. Despite all the conjecture about thedemographic bases of support of Obama and Clinton, the demographics of the Democraticprimaries—with the exception of race—proved to be of secondary importance in predictingstate preference for Obama or Clinton relative to the state’s political culture.

The significance of political culture and race in the 2008 Democratic presidential primarieshas important implications. Prior to the 2008 campaign, Carman and Barker (2005) found thatprimary scheduling is substantially conditioned by state political culture and its interaction withstate ideology and racial homogeneity. Moralistic states tend to schedule primary dates earlierin the primary season than do individualistic or traditionalistic states. As a result, moralisticstates have tended to enjoy disproportionate influence over presidential nominations since 1972(Carman & Barker, 2005).

Interestingly, this tendency toward frontloading among moralistic states becomes moredramatic as racial homogeneity increases relative to other states. Carman and Barker argue


that since moralistic states tend to be disproportionately white, racial minorities have beensystematically denied equal opportunities to choose their leaders, because the states where themajority of racial minorities live in states that quite often held their primary elections afterthe outcome has been determined (Carman & Barker, 2005). Yet, Obama—the first AfricanAmerican candidate to seriously have a chance at winning a major party nomination—didmuch better in moralistic states. The fact that moralistic states tended to be disproportionatelywhite, therefore, did not impede his effort at winning the Democratic nomination.

In fact, the tendency toward frontloading among moralistic states may have been critical toObama’s success. By winning the early primary moralistic states, Obama was able win a largecushion of delegates and to built momentum that helped him when the primary calendar andpolitical climate—especially after the Reverend Jeremiah Wright controversy—turned againsthim. So despite the belief that the demographically unrepresentative nature of moralistic stateswould work against minorities, in 2008 moralistic states were instrumental in an AfricanAmerican candidate winning the nomination.

Our findings lead to two principal conclusions. First, our results indicate that political cultureis an important determinant in the support given to Obama in a primary. To be sure, states thatare characterized by a more moralistic political culture are more likely to have given Obamaa great share of the primary vote and states that are characterized by a more traditionalistic orindividualistic cultures were less likely to support Obama.

Second, the link between political culture and Obama’s primary vote remains strong andstable even when controlling for a host of other demographic factors regarding the composi-tion of the states’ primary electorates and state political characteristics. The only independentvariable that had more explanatory power in our models was race. The strength of the polit-ical culture-Obama vote share link gives us added confidence that this relationship is not amethodological artifact. Rather, it reflects an ongoing phenomenon where the political cultureof a state was a substantively important determinant of the degree to which states supportedObama in the 2008 primaries.

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State political culture and support for Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries

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