Same-Sex Marriage Ballot Measures and the 2004 Presidential Election

Did ballot measures banning samesex marriage swing the 2004 general election to George W. Bush? In 2004, activists and state legislators placed anti-gay marriage questions on the general election ballots of 11 states. All of the ballot measures passed easily, receiving on average roughly 70 percent support.1 Pundits argued that the marriage measures on the November ballot would be a major motivating factor in the election and would help ensure Bush’s reelection. The measures, so the logic went, would receive broad support from social conservatives who would be mobilized to go to the polls primed to vote for Bush, who was fi rmly aligned with the issue. Merging county-level religious, socioeconomic, and political data with the 2004 election results, this article examines the electoral effects of same-sex marriage ballot measures in two key neighboring presidential battleground states, Michigan and Ohio. In both states, the anti-gay marriage measures passed easily, and overall statewide turnout increased from the 2000 election. However, Bush prevailed only in Ohio. To test the impact of the anti-gay marriage measures in both states, the analysis proceeds in three stages, examining fi rst the county-level voting patterns on the gay marriage bans, then patterns of countylevel turnout in 2004, and fi nally the countylevel support for President Bush in 2004.