In the 2004 general election, Ohio was one of several states in which a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage appeared on the ballot. This is widely believed to have resulted in an unprecedented turnout among rural white evangelical Christians, which helped George W. Bush win the presidential election. In Ohio, the proposition was known as “Issue One.”

To investigate the matter, I prepared a table comparing the vote for president with the vote on Issue One, county by county. State wide, Issue One received 61.71% of the vote, whereas Bush, officially, is reputed to have received 50.81% of the vote, a differential of 10.90%. Bush ran 469,567 votes (14.10%) behind the “Yes” votes on Issue One, and Kerry ran 675,705 votes (32.71%) ahead of the “No” votes on Issue One.

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