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Plus ça Change: Race, Gender, and Issue Retrospections in the 2008 US Presidential Election

Abstract What role did race and gender play in vote choice for US president in 2008? With an African‐American Democratic presidential nominee and a female Republican vice presidential nominee, were the black–white racial gap and the gender gap different in 2008 than in previous years? We find that the racial gap between black and white voters was larger in 2008 than it was in three of the four previous presidential elections, but not significantly larger than the gap in 1996 when white Democrat Bill Clinton won reelection. This gap is still present after we include control variables. On the other hand, the apparent gender gap whereby women are more likely than men to support Democratic candidates goes away once we include controls. Other factors – namely Iraq retrospections, ideological voting, and partisan identification – played a role as large or larger in citizen vote choice as did race or gender in the 2008 general election. Even though a voter’s race was a key predictor in 2008 and even though there may be a widening racial gap, it is important not to overstate the role of race relative to other well‐known predictors of the vote.