Can't tell for sure...but this picture has me wondering if I might be leaning a little to the Left.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/09/26/161841771/how-income-divides-democrats-republicans-and-independents

gr-pm-repsndems-462.gif


http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/OutOfTheSpotlight.aspx?id=f733d09b-6808-4115-9b88-8c89262c7b3d

With the 2010 midterms come and gone, one question we at OOTS asked is how low-income Americans voted. According to CNN’s national exit polling, the lowest income bracket, those making under $30,000 a year, voted 56 percent Democrat compared to 41 percent Republican. This gap closes in the next income bracket, between $30,000 and $50,000, in which voters prefer Democrats over Republicans by a margin of 51 percent to 46 percent.

It’s worth noting that in this election only those earning less than $50,000 voted in the majority for Democrats. Above the $50,000 income line, voters swung Republican. Among those earning $50,000-$75,000, voters chose Republicans over Democrats at a rate of 52 percent to 46 percent. Those earning $75,000-$200,000 voted Republican 56 percent to 42 percent. And those making more than $200,000 voted for Republican candidates 62 percent of the time.

By comparison, in CNN’s 2008 polling, the results showed that all income brackets for those earning less than $100,000 broke Democrat by a rate of 56 percent to 41 percent. Individuals earning more than $100,000 voted Republican only 50 percent to 48 percent.

While OOTS always finds this data interesting, we also know that many Americans are waiting to see how leaders of both parties plan to confront poverty in the new Washington.
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That NPR info is interesting because it stands in contrast to the graphics I posted a few posts above that. I grabbed those from a few different sites and didn't cite the sites, which was probably not a great idea, and I'm not about to go back and redo the search. Forbes was one of them, the NY Times was another, and I can't remember where the third was from, the one with the two columns.

 
Does it tell us much to post electoral maps and maps shaded by income levels? We still don't know who is voting for whom and why.

The way I see it if a person possesses more than two of the attributes listed below they're more likely to vote for the given party:

Republicans

  • White
  • Rich
  • Poor
  • Southern
  • Plains States
  • Fundamentalist Christian
  • Catholic
  • Cuban
  • Male
  • Old

Democrats

  • Western
  • North Eastern
  • Great Lakes Region
  • Jewish
  • African American
  • Hispanic
  • Female
  • Young
  • Poor
  • Rich

So for example: An old, male, poor, pentecostal Oklahoman probably votes Republican. While a young African American female from New Jersey probably votes Democrat.

If an attribute isn't listed like "middle class" of a generic "protestant" that's because it's more or less a crapshot and of course it isn't perfect, there will be people who don't fit the mold.

There's some evidence to support the general trends and it's not all stereotyping. To the issue which you all are debating which I believe is the extent to which the GOP and conservatives rely on the poor I'd say they absolutely do rely on them, especially poor, white Chrisitians from the South and Midwest. I'm not sure how anyone could think that they don't.

Now as to whether or not the GOP supports/enacts policies that actually help those people...whether they're just taking them for a ride or not...that's a different question and one that is much more difficult to answer. I happen to think that the GOP does take many of these people for a ride and it annoys me that they often gain their votes by playing on religion, specifically Christianity, only to go on and support crony capitalism, probably the least Christian economic system around.

 
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Here is an interesting study that talks directly to our discussion.

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/ssqfinal.pdf

As a result, richer states now tend to favor the Democratic candidate, yet in the nation as a whole richer people remain more likely than poorer people to vote Republican.
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Much has been made of Barack Obama’s recent success among highly- educated voters, but as E. J. Dionne (2005) has observed, the Democrats’ strength among well-educated voters is strongest among those with house- hold incomes below $75,000—
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knapplc said:
Bucky said:
Does it tell us much to post electoral maps and maps shaded by income levels?
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The maps have pretty colors.
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Yes they do but hey they're just maps.

Here's a fun one. Poland most recent electoral map:

Civic Platform, PO, (orange) is the moderate to moderately conservative pro-EU party while Law & Justice, PiS, (blue) is the moderately-conservative to far-right-wing euro-sceptic party.

poland-2007-parliamentary-elections.png


Best maps of Poland's income I could find:

map1_04_gdp_head_pps.jpg
eu-gdp08-pps3.png


As far as religious and ethnic considerations we can mostly rule those out as Poland is pretty homogeneously Polish and Catholic.

So from comparing those two maps it seems pretty obvious right? Eastern Poland, excluding Warsaw, is voting for PiS because they're poorer.

But wait. Everyone say hi to the Kaiser!

german-empire-map-1914-1000.jpg


Maps. Combine!

polvotmap1.jpg


So yea. Maps can be decieving and junk.

 
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Maps can't lie. They're unalterable truth (with pretty colors).

Here's another map of the electorate. I think this was from the Taft Administration because it's mostly in black and white.

posY3jG.jpg


 
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