Battleground Voters: Partisanship, Issues, and Retrospective Evaluations in Florida 2008

In spite of the historic campaign events and election result, 2008 followed some more or less usual patterns in shaping voter choice. Using survey data collected by the Survey Research Center (SRC) in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida in October and November 2008, this analysis shows that Florida voters were strongly influenced by partisanship and retrospective evaluations of the Bush presidency. A few issues were also modestly important in shaping vote choices.