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Table 7

How Libertarians Voted for U.S. House and Senate, 2000­2004 (percent)

2000

2002

2004

Swing

House

Democratic candidate

23

23

44

+ 21

Republican candidate

73

70

53

­ 20

Independent/3rd-Party/Other candidate

4

6

3

­3

Senate

Democratic candidate

23

15

43

+ 28

Republican candidate

73

74

54

­ 20

Independent/3rd-Party/Other candidate

4

10

4

­6

Source: Authors' calculations from ANES Panel and Time Series Data.

Who Are the Libertarians?

that in House races, the libertarian vote for

The Pew study presented a demographic

Republican candidates dropped from 73 per-

In House races,

breakdown of all four ideological groups, plus

cent in 2000 to 53 percent in 2004, while the

the libertarian

the "ambivalents." (Note that this study found

libertarian vote for the Democratic candi-

dates increased from 23 to 44 percent.40 We

a smaller percentage of libertarians than most

vote for

observe the same for Senate races.41

studies do, but the demographics may still be

Republican

similar.) According to Pew, libertarians are

Many commentators noted the high

candidates

more numerous in the younger generations.

turnout in the 2004 election. Nationally,

voter turnout increased 6.1 percent.42 That

That raises the question of whether they will

dropped from 73

become more conservative on personal free-

might help explain some of the swing in

percent in 2000

dom issues as they age, or indeed whether they

2004. According to ANES data (Table 8), lib-

will become more "conservative"--more sup-

ertarians reported turning out to vote at

to 53 percent

portive of the New Deal/Great Society/

higher percentages than total respondents in

in 2004.

2000 and even higher in 2004.43

Compassionate Conservatism welfare state--

on spending issues. In general, we think not. As

This libertarian swing trend is particularly

baby-boom demographer Landon Y. Jones

pronounced by age. Libertarians aged 18­29--

wrote, citing the pioneering sociologist Karl

many of whom were new voters in 2004--

Mannheim, "The crucial question regarding a

voted 71­42 for Kerry. Libertarians aged

person's politics--or a generation's--is not how

30­49 voted almost completely the reverse,

old the person is but when the person was

72­21 for Bush (Table 9).

Table 8

Voter Turnout Statistics for President (percent)

2000

2004

Increased Turnout

Actual voter turnout1

54.2

60.3

+ 6.1

Reported voter turnout, all respondents

71.6

76.2

+ 4.6

Reported voter turnout, libertarians

78.2

86.1

+ 7.9

Libertarian difference

6.6

9.9

+ 3.3

Source: ANES Times Series and Michael P. McDonald.

1

Michael P. McDonald, George Mason University, http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm.

14