NASCAR Dads: Swing Vote Trump Card or Our False Hope?

ABC News ^ | Feb. 15, 2004 | Gary Langer, ABCNEWS Polling Director

[g_eames]

Soccer moms, campus kids, "freestyle evangelicals," "office-park dads," "security moms" — they crop up every election like mushrooms behind the barn (and they thrive in the same kind of medium). We call them the "group du jour" — the crucial swing voter group that's said to hold the key to the next election. In fact, as Ellen Goodman once put it, they usually can't swing anything more than a headline.

Now it's NASCAR dads. Who are they? Depends whom you ask. According to ABCNEWS' Political Unit, they're "auto racing fan Democrats, usually anti-gun control, and tend to live in more rural areas of the country."

Professorial pundit Larry Sabato calls them "middle- to lower middle-class males who are family men, live in rural areas, used to vote heavily Democratic but now usually vote Republican."

To the NRA's Wayne LaPierre, they're "hard-working, average tax-paying Americans that are raising their families and putting their kids through school. They are patriotic. They own guns. They hunt, and they go shooting and they love the Second Amendment."

A CBS analysis specifies Southern and Midwestern suburban and rural white men. (Amusingly, only 41 percent of the CBS NASCAR dads said they were … fans of NASCAR.)

And the Wall Street Journal, citing the conjurer of this group, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, says they're "blue-collar fathers between 35 and 55 … culturally conservative but very populist."

Swing Voters?

When we run data from our recent polls we find that married, middle- and lower-income white men account for a single-digit share of the national population, and support President Bush in precisely the same proportion as all white men. (Make it rural white men, and it goes down to low single digits.) And white men, particularly Southern white men, are a solidly Republican group, highly unlikely to swing anywhere, anyhow.

[g_eames]

The article is pretty interesting. It claims that the real swing voters are independents and white Catholics. Win them and we'll will most likely win the popular vote.

[NYCVirago]

The New York Times did a very condescending "Nascar Dads" article a month or so ago. Some of us here pointed out that it was silly to suggest that this group were swing voters, since they were mostly white males, a group that votes overwhelmingly Republican.

[OPS4]

Nascar Dad's love bush and they will help him become president. The more the main stream press demeans
these guys the more of them will turn out the vote.

Ops4 God Bless America!

[freebacon]

I am a white Catholic, and as far as I know most white Catholics vote Republican consistently, and are compelled to by the abortion issue. The opposition to that issue has been championed predominately by the parishioners of the Church and is their for most concern. So I don't see how they're going to be the primary swing voters.

[beckysueb]

Me thinks this article is meant to tear down our good feelings from Bush's warm reception at the race.

[pjb819]

Me agrees! And I also think that John Kerry's criticism of President Bush visiting Daytona was a real slam to the fans! It sounded like Kerry was saying that GWB was wasting time for a photo op. So spending Sunday afternoon with 75,000,000 was not worth it? NASCAR fans aren't worth the effort?

[Impy]

The rats made up this turn. These are GOP base voters.

[ole_man_ribba]

I doubt NASCAR Dads have voted demon-rat since Jimmy Carter if then. I've been attending NASCAR events for 20 years and I've yet to meet a liberal or a demon-rat voter at a race. Not even the women fans vote demon-rat. Hell not even black NASCAR fans I know vote demon-rat.

[Meldrim]

"Only the oddball election of 2000 is harder to read: George W. Bush won white Catholics by seven points and independents by two (within polling tolerances, essentially a dead heat.) He won the election, but not the popular vote."

Alright. It would be interesting to see the break-out of the Roman Catholic vote.

As for the popular vote, how about immigration. See Arizona and look at the votes of the folks who will still be around in 20 years. Yes, there are lots of Republicans there, but they are old and getting nearer the grave each election. The article left out the rapidly swelling Mexican and Central-American vote...and that won't be swinging anywhere from the Left anytime soon.

[KFriedConserv]

Its all nonsense.

Your average NASCAR fan is indeed rural, white, Christian, and working class ... thats not a swing vote my friend, that is the republican base.

[KFriedConserv]

Where I am from (the NE) the majority of Catholic men are working class guys that back labor democrats.

[longtermmemmory]

Interesting how ABC assumes the newest voting block is a group of Democrats voting a certain way.

Seems NASCAR Dads are pretty much repubicans.