Home thoughts from abroad

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Aug 9th 2008
From Economist.com

Could expatriate voters influence America's presidential election?

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AMERICA'S presidential candidates have made a point of travelling far afield this year, in part to win over voters sceptical of their foreign-policy credentials. Barack Obama took his campaign on a tour of Europe and the Middle East; John McCain, to much less fanfare, travelled to Mexico, the Middle East and Latin America. Whatever the polls of opinion in other countries show—and they are usually highly favourable towards Mr Obama—the only votes that really matter are those of Americans. But not all of those voters are back at home.

American expatriates may have had only a small impact on the past few elections but they are keenly following this one. So far they have contributed much more money than in previous campaigns. And there are signs that by polling day in November, they may also turn that interest into power at the ballot box.

Roughly 6m Americans live abroad. This scattered diaspora, taken as a whole, wields a voting power larger than half of the states in the union. The overseas population includes well-heeled bankers in London and other financial centres around the world. But it is also composed of several hundred thousand soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, or stationed at other overseas military bases. In recent elections, though, these potential votes have not shown up in significant numbers on election day.

The 2006 election that saw Democrats sweep to power in Congress did not come close to drawing the kind of attention that this year's presidential race has seen—whether at home or abroad. The overseas vote two years ago was tiny. Of those 6m Americans overseas, not even 1m were registered to vote.

Technical problems, bureaucratic hoops (voters must register with the state where they last resided) and the difficulties of actually getting a vote to count all played a part in keeping turnout low. Two-thirds of the ballots fell foul of these problems. Another 10% missed the deadline altogether. All told, only 330,000 ballots (5.5% of American expats) actually wound up counting in a total of 82m ballots cast that year. That is roughly the same as the total population of just one mid-sized American city, such as Tampa, Florida.

Since then the campaign teams, as well as various pressure groups, have noticed the problems and the potential rewards of winning over Americans abroad. Mr Obama runs a blog for Americans abroad on his campaign website. The Democrats have a group that is attempting to organise supporters in foreign countries: the party held a “global primary” in February with a record turnout of more than 20,000. They favoured Mr Obama heavily. Overseas Democrats will send 22 delegates to the national convention in August. Gwyneth Paltrow, a Hollywood actress, has made an advert urging American expats to vote for Mr Obama. George Clooney will host a fundraising event for Mr Obama in Geneva, in September. The Republican Party has its own group that oversees chapters around the world and is helping to rally Mr McCain’s supporters.

The candidates are chasing money from abroad, too, either by turning up open-palmed themselves or by sending prominent advisers and friends to fundraising dinners abroad. Britain is by far the top fundraising destination. Rudy Giuliani—a failed candidate for the Republican nomination—led the way. He made headlines last September when he visited London to raise funds. Even Ron Paul, a libertarian and a long-shot for the Republican nomination, managed to raise more than $100,000 from overseas voters.

Though some candidates, such as John Edwards, struggled to prise cash from overseas Americans (only American citizens, not foreigners, can contribute money) the field as a whole set new records. By the end of April, they had raised a total of more than $2.6m, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics, a think-tank in Washington, DC.

Unsurprisingly, the charismatic Mr Obama has also done the best, raising more than $1.4m from expats. That is peanuts compared with total funds raised—Mr Obama raked in $52m in June alone—but the overseas tally has increased markedly this year. The total raised is more than double that of 2004 and five-times the figure from 2000. The candidates’ global search for supporters is yet another twist in a campaign for the presidency of a country sometimes reluctant to look beyond its own shores.