If you mean security from terrorists, perhaps Hawaii’s dependence on air travel is a factor. Weren’t the islands cut off from each other following 9/11?
Rashak Mani:
Well, if the big swing is in the Filipino community, they may be thinking about terrorism in the Phillipines. One of the most clearly al-Qaeda linked groups operates there, and after 9/11, I believe the Phillipine government got serious US help as part of the war on terror.
Maybe they still have relatives there, or maybe it’s just a feeling of connectedness to their ancestral homeland, not uncommon amongst ethnic sub-groups in the USA.
People, please.
Let’s look at the most recent poll, conducted Oct. 17-20 and reported in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on October 24.
Please look at the caption to the pie graph.
“The telephone survey by SMS Research was taken Oct 17-20 among 612 Oahu registered voters who are likely to vote in the election.” Bolding mine.
Oahu is home to several military bases. The other islands are not included in this survey. There’s your glaring bias right there. I would assume that we all agree that military families would tend to be conservative.
Also, on a related note, this is a “likely voters” poll, not registered voters. Polling outfits each use a different process to determine who is a likely voter, and this poll doesn’t say how it determines likely voters, but these processes tend to introduce a conservative bias.
And the other survey was conducted by Ward Research. Ward released a poll in August of 2000 showing that Bush was leading Gore, 40-35%. Gore ended up taking Hawaii, 56-37%.
Also, neither poll shows GWB with anything higher than 46%. He’s got to have a lot of undecideds break for him on election day to have any hope. And if they’ve had four years to evaluate him and still haven’t decided to vote for him, is there much reason to expect a lot of them to finally decide to vote for him?
While I agree with you about the inaccuracy of the poll, I don’t think it’s for these reasons. For one thing, while Oahu is only one island, it has by far the lion’s share of the state’s population.
Secondly, while there are many military families on Oahu, most of them are registered to vote elsewhere.
Why doubt the accuracy of the poll? While it’s true that Hawaii usually goes Democrat, it’s also true that Hawaii has always voted for the incumbent president…for Carter and Clinton when they ran as incumbents, and for Nixon and Reagan when they did. (Ford is an exception to this, but since he was never elected in the first place, is something of an anomaly.)
I don’t know about where the military families are registered to vote.
But I can tell you that Oahu has 70 percent of the population, and that neither poll gave GWB more than a one point lead. Do you think that when the other 30% of the state is counted, it would still reflect what is basically a tie? Especially given that, as I said, Oahu can be expected to be more conservative than the state as a whole because of the military presence there?
I will say that there are facts on the ground that would help the president. For instance, unemployment is very low–around 2.8%. The islands were more impacted by 9-11 than you would think; first, the “all ground” issued in the wake of 9-11 essentially cut the islands off from each other. Also, the tourist industry was hit hard by the post-9-11 slowdown, and is now recovering nicely. Finally, Filipinos are anxious about the Al Qaida-led insurrection in their homeland.
But I’d still say this state goes to JFK by 10 percentage points, especially now that the campaign is starting to pay attention to it.
George H W. Bush is also an exception to this. Clinton won the state in 1992. And while you’re right that Hawaii voted for Nixon in 72 and Reagan in 84, they both won in electoral landslides. Almost every state voted for Nixon in 72 and Reagan in 84.
Then you shouldn’t assume the military vote as a factor in Hawai’i polling. I was registered in Honolulu while stationed at Pearl Harbor as a naval officer from 1990-1993, but I was an anomaly.
30% is a lot, I’ll grant, but without knowing more about the demographics about the outer islands I wouldn’t take anything for granted, and again I wouldn’t assume Oahu skews to the right because of the military presence. I’d bet the economy of every island except Ni’ihau has military involvement somehow.
You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ll give you that when discussing the military vote on Oahu we’re talking about an unknown, but asserting it has no effect on this poll is pretty darn ludicrous.
Hell, you could find military involvement in liberal San Francisco if you looked hard enough. But that’s not nearly the same as saying San Francisco will veer right in this election, especially when you consider past voting patterns. What large military presence is there on the outer islands to compare with Pearl Harbor or Hickam AFB?
I just don’t think one could plausibly dismiss the fact that it’s an Oahu-based poll. We’ll just have to wait until next Wednesday to see who’s right.
Hawaii is not a swing state. It is not even close. It would shock me if Kerry didn’t win by at least 10 points.
SMS Research is the pits. They only release the poll results and never the actually polling questions or methodology.
They were wrong four years ago and they also credited it to the influx of filipino voters.
:wally :wally :wally
:eek: :eek: 
Meaning an influx of Filipino voters between 1996 and 2000? I thought that post WWII there has always been a steady Japanese & Filipino populations. At least that’s how my friend there whose family is both described it, anyway, and she’s nearly 30. How much immigration could there be in just four years, anyway?
There’s a pretty steady flow of Filipinos into the state. Hawaii’s job market is really tight making many jobs available in the tourism industry what with Japan picking up and Americans looking to vacation within the US.
I think the big draw is that we are a very healthy state with loads of elderly. A lot of Filipinos are taking nursing courses in the Philippines in order to move to this state and work in that field. I wouldn’t be surprised if California isn’t also getting a fair amount. My grandmother had in home nursing for years and has now gone into a care home (in Hawaii you move in with the nurses rather then the dorm style nursing homes on the Mainland) and there were just so many Filipino nurses in that system. There are a amazing amount of care homes run by Filipino nurses in Waipahu alone it was crazy. Thankfully we got in on the first one.
But there’s not enough to swing the state that much. At least I don’t think so. There’s something wrong with those polls.
Not to hijack, but are you saying you have a female friend in her 20s who’s half Filipina and half Japanese?
Do you, uh, have any photos of her?