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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWaPo: Sarah Palin cost John McCain 2 million votes in 2008
Sarah Palin's track record in politics from 2009-on isn't terrible. In the Tea Party wave of 2010, when Palin's popularity among conservatives was near its peak, candidates won in 33 of 64 races where she endorsed. She's had some high-profile wins since and some big losses, including on Donald Trump's current national spokesperson's congressional bid. The value of any one endorsement is often hard to determine, given the number of factors that go into a political campaign, of course.
There was one race in which Palin appears not to have been much help -- and, in fact, hurt the candidate. According to a 2010 study from researchers at Stanford University, noted by Brendan Nyhan, Palin's presence on the 2008 Republican presidential ticket cost John McCain 1.6 percentage points. In an election in which 131 million people voted, that's 2.1 million votes that McCain should have gotten but didn't.
The researchers set out to determine the extent to which voters made up their minds on presidential candidates or on the performance of the party that was currently in office. To answer that question, they tried to figure out how much of an influence the candidates in the election had on moving support one direction or the other.
Part of that process was to look at how candidate favorability ratings changed over the course of the campaign. Below is the chart they created to show Palin's favorability, from the moment she was announced as the vice presidential pick (and introduced to most Americans) to election day.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/19/sarah-palin-cost-john-mccain-2-million-votes-in-2008/
malaise
(269,157 posts)Who is paying her this time?
spanone
(135,874 posts)malaise
(269,157 posts)You know she sounds the way she looks
The ReTHUG party just split wide open - did you watch Rick Wilson on Chris Hayes discussing the party base :rof:
That should be the tweet of the night
spanone
(135,874 posts)maybe trump will bring back cheney for his VP choice?
malaise
(269,157 posts)The party is over - good riddance
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)world wide wally
(21,754 posts)Takket
(21,625 posts)she can do better! let's go for 3 million in 2016!
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)lindysalsagal
(20,730 posts)We're going to be needing her this year!
CommonSenseDemocrat
(377 posts)McCain only fell in the polls because of the Lehman collapse.
Let me preface in my opinion, that if Lehman had not failed (e.g economy not collapsing in September 2008), Obama still would have won, but maybe by not as big of a margin (more like a Jimmy Carter margin against Gerald Ford). We would not have gained as many Senate seats either.
Mendocino
(7,505 posts)Wouldn't any random picks produce about the same number in a republican friendly year?