2008 Presidential electoral map, $100k+ only

One of my more instructive (and favorite, personally) posts shows hypothetical electoral maps from the 2008 presidential election when varying selected demographic restrictions are introduced. I'll do the same this November and as a refresher for doing so, here is a look at how things would've shaken out if only those from households earning at least six figures had been eligible to vote:

In this scenario, McCain wins 298-240. In reality, of course, Obama crushed McCain, 365-173.

Half Sigma has on several occasions spoken of how the wealthy are increasingly turning away from the GOP and towards the Democratic party, repelled by the former's increasing Palinism. That sounds a bit dated nearly four years later, with the ascension of the tea party movement, the transformation of the Obama image from a SWPL into a racialist redistributor, the relegation of the former Alaska governor to bit segments on Fox News, and the elevation of a sharp, sober, successful, socially moderate guy to the top of the Republican ticket, but I'd argue that he oversold it at the time as well, as the map above illustrates.

Idaho's conservative conservatives

Following up with thoughts from the previous post, that the electoral tendencies of moderates are defined in large part by the political atmospheres of the states they live in doesn't necessarily mean the same holds true for their more ideologically committed cohorts. Conservatives are sparse in California, but the state still produces hard-liners like Tom McClintock and Brian Bilbray.

The following table ranks states by the percentages of their liberals who voted for Obama in the 2008 presidential election. The states are colored according to their contemporary political profiles, with purple states representing those in which Obama's total vote share ranged between 46%-54%. Due to insufficient sample size, Utah is excluded:

State	Obama %
1. District of Columbia	98
2. Delaware	95
3. Vermont	94
3. Oregon	94
5. Colorado	93
5. Washington	93
7. Illinois	92
7. New Mexico	92
7. New York	92
7. Minnesota	92
11. Hawaii	91
11. Maryland	91
11. California	91
11. Florida	91
11. Wisconsin	91
11. Pennsylvania	91
11. New Hampshire	91
18. Massachusetts	90
18. Connecticut	90
18 Virginia	90
18. Montana	90
22. Rhode Island	89
22. Iowa	89
24. Michigan	88
25. Nevada	87
25. New Jersey	87
25. Indiana	87
25. North Carolina	87
29. Maine	86
29. Texas	86
29. Missouri	86
32. Georgia	85
33. Tennessee	84
33. South Carolina	84
35. Ohio	83
35. Kansas	83
37. Idaho	82
38. North Dakota	81
38. Alaska	81
38. Oklahoma	81
41. South Dakota	80
42. Nebraska	78
43. Mississippi	77
43. Louisiana	77
43. Alabama	77
43. Wyoming	77
47. Arkansas	76
48. Arizona	75
49. Kentucky	74
50. West Virginia	71

The correlation between how a state voted and how its liberals voted is .79 (p = 0)--not quite as robust as for moderates, but still very strong for a measure like this. It's not just that blue states have relatively more liberals and fewer conservatives than red states do--blue state liberals also tend to be more liberal than red state liberals tend to be. Conversely, as the next table shows, red state conservatives are both more conservative and relatively more numerous than blue state conservatives are. Due to insufficient sample size, DC is excluded:

State	Obama %
1. Hawaii	41
2. Vermont	33
3. Illinois	29
3. New Mexico	29
5. Massachusetts	28
6. Connecticut	27
7. Delaware	25
8. Maryland	24
9. California	23
9. Rhode Island	23
9. Maine	23
12. Michigan	22
12. Ohio	22
12. Mississippi	22
15. Florida	21
15. Iowa	21
15. Nevada	21
15. New Jersey	21
15. Texas	21
15. Georgia	21
21. Wisconsin	20
22. Pennsylvania	19
23. Colorado	18
23. New York	18
23. Virginia	18
23. Louisiana	18
27. New Hampshire	17
27. Tennessee	17
27. South Dakota	17
27. Arizona	17
31. Washington	16
31. Indiana	16
31. Missouri	16
31. Alabama	16
31. Arkansas	16
36. Oregon	15
36. Minnesota	15
36. North Carolina	15
36. North Dakota	15
36. Kentucky	15
36. West Virginia	15
42. South Carolina	14
43. Nebraska	13
44. Alaska	12
45. Kansas	11
46. Montana	10
47. Oklahoma	9
48. Utah	9
49. Wyoming	8
50. Idaho	6

The correlation between how a state voted and how its conservatives voted is .81 (p = 0), almost identical to the liberal correlation and modestly weaker than the moderate one.

Parenthetically, the contemporary liberal/moderate/conservative trichotomy lacks nuance and is necessarily both historically and geographically disconnected. I get that. However, it has become part of the both the vernacular and the media lexicon in the US, and it works pretty well as a general framework for understanding and describing the political landscape of the country in a uncomplicated way. It satisfices.

Moderate is a moderate is a moderate?

Do liberals, moderates, and conservatives respectively vote Democratic, split, and Republican in roughly equal proportions across states, the difference being that the Wyoming breakdown is 14%/47%/39% while Vermont's is 32%/44%/24%? Or do Vermont's liberals, moderates, and conservatives all tend to be more liberal than Wyoming's liberals, moderates, and conservatives tend to be? To formulate an answer, let's ask the question "Is a moderate a moderate is a moderate in the US, or is the definition of 'moderate' contingent upon the political atmosphere said moderate exists in?"

The proceeding table ranks states by what percentages of their self-described moderates voted for Obama in the 2008 presidential election. The states are colored according to their contemporary political profiles, with purple states representing those in which Obama's total vote share ranged between 46%-54%.

State	Obama %
1. District of Columbia	92
2. Hawaii	75
3. Vermont	69
4. New York	68
5. Oregon	67
5. California	67
5. Delaware	67
5. Illinois	67
9. Rhode Island	66
10. Washington	65
11. Nevada	64
11. Maryland	64
13. North Carolina	63
13. Colorado	63
13. Iowa	63
13. Wisconsin	63
13. Michigan	63
13. Maine	63
13. Connecticut	63
20. New Mexico	62
21. Missouri	61
21. Ohio	61
23. Indiana	60
23. New Hampshire	60
25. Massachusetts	59
26. South Carolina	58
26. Georgia	58
26. Virginia	58
26. Minnesota	58
26. Pennsylvania	58
26. New Jersey	58
32. Florida	57
33. Montana	56
34. Mississippi	55
35. Kentucky	53
35. Texas	53
35. South Dakota	53
38. Utah	52
38. Arkansas	52
38. Kansas	52
38. Arizona	52
38. North Dakota	52
43. West Virginia	51
44. Nebraska	50
45. Alabama	49
46. Idaho	48
46. Tennessee	48
48. Louisiana	45
49. Alaska	44
50. Oklahoma	43
51. Wyoming	40

The correlation between how a state voted and how its moderates voted is .93 (p = 0). That is, the relationship is nearly perfect, as a cursory glance at the table pretty clearly illustrates. As 2008 was a good year for Democrats, it's not surprising that a moderate majorities across most of the country went for him.

But the state-level differences are pronounced and predicted by the general political climate of those states to a significant degree. To some extent, moderates probably go with the flow. Put in another way, conditions 'on the ground' are more determinative of what a moderate is than Fox News and CNN definitions of "moderate" are. For an extreme example of this, consider that Wyoming's liberals were nearly three times as supportive of McCain as DC's moderates were.

Diversity is Strength! It's also ... inequality

I'll justify ripping off VDare's recurrent article naming theme by segueing into congratulating the site for getting a much needed aesthetic makeover, and I'll even do so upon discovering that this humble blog has apparently been dropped from VDare's roll as, I hope, an incidental consequence of the revamp. Anyway, I wanted to publish a few odds-and-ends correlations, so instead of cramming them all into the title, I'll just filch it.

At its essence, to celebrate diversity in the contemporary West is to celebrate the portion of the population that is non-white. Contingent upon context, it might also refer to the portion of the population that is non-heterosexual, non-Christian, non-Western European, etc. But in its most recognizable form, diversity is basically synonymous with non-whiteness.

Using that as the definition, the correlation between diversity and income inequality (as measured by the gini coefficient) at the state level in the US is .43 (p = .00).

More than that (much more than that, actually), though, diversity is also poor academic performance. The correlation between NAEP science and math test scores (that I used to estimate average state IQ numbers) and diversity is a vigorous .77 (p = .00).

Parenthetically, one of my earliest recollections of the formation of a personal partisan leaning was after my dad outlined for me the basic differences between the two major parties. I concluded something to the effect of "So, if people are happy and do well, Republicans should do well, too. If they're unhappy and struggling, Democrats should do well." Relative equality isn't sufficient for happiness, but it's probably necessary. And red states are modestly more egalitarian than blue states are--the correlation between McCain's share of the vote and inequality is an inverse .31 (p = .02).

IQ Wars: McCain voters win

The 2010 GSS data have been released. As Inductivist noted, this is a fun time for quant bloggers. There will be a lot of sifting through special modules for the 2010 battery of questions, but of broader interest are converted IQ averages of voters in the 2008 election. With the post-racial man who putatively put together an autobiographical masterpiece on one side and milfy trailer trash on the other, the last Presidential election should've added an exclamation mark to the trend towards higher IQ Democratic voters and lower IQ Republican ones, yes?

No. Converting the white mean on the wordsum vocabulary test to an IQ of 100 with a standard deviation of 15, the following table shows the average IQ of voters categorized by who they voted for, and then further broken down into groupings based on sex, race, party affiliation, and age (n = 921):

Voted for...	Obama	McCain	McCain's edge
All	99.9	102.5	2.5
Sex
Men	100.4	102.2	1.9
Women	99.6	102.7	3.0
Race
White	103.2	102.9	(0.3)
Black	92.9	n/a	n/a
Hispanic	96.6	n/a	n/a
Asian	107.1	n/a	n/a
Party
Republican	101.3	102.7	1.4
Democrat	99.9	96.0	(3.9)
Independent	98.5	104.3	5.8
Age
18-24	99.4	100.9	1.6
25-34	98.6	101.5	3.0
35-49	100.4	103.7	3.3
50-64	101.0	103.3	2.3
65+	99.2	100.5	1.3

The sample sizes for non-whites who voted for McCain were simply too small to even be considered mildly suggestive and are consequently not included. Of the 351 respondents who report having voted for him, a whopping five are Hispanic, three are black, and two are Asian.

It's not especially surprising that among all voters, McCain supporters have an IQ edge, since despite all the Senator has done to dilute their population share, whites are the only ones who vote for the GOP. More remarkable is the IQ parity among white Obama and McCain backers. That Obama won the $200,000+ income category has been pointed out by Half Sigma as evidence that smart whites are increasingly finding the Republican party repulsive, but Obama's edge among this affluent group was only 52%-46%, nearly identical to the nationwide popular vote (52.9%-45.7%). The partisan divide among wealthy whites mirrors that of the rest of the country.

Traitorous Republicans and Democrats are both revealed to be less intelligent than their truer compatriots, hardly constituting a novel observation. The spread among independents does come as a bit of a surprise. I'm not sure how to account for it. Maybe the "independent conservative" members of the Savage Nation explain the variance.

McCain's IQ advantage is maintained across the generational spectrum. The Obama youth are more vociferous than they are intelligent. Funny how the McCain advantage is slimmer on each end--among kids full of quixotic notions and the elderly who are losing the ability to digest complicated and detailed information, turning instead to presumed probity and aesthetics to guide them--and thicker among the stone cold middle-aged realists!

Notice how even though the white average is set at 100 and NAMs are included in these figures, the racially inclusive averages are at or above 98, which is generally considered to be the nation's mean IQ. Eligible voter participation rates and IQ correlate at .65 (p=0) at the state level, and both educational and income profiles show the average voter to be considerably more educated and wealthy than the average residents of the most educated and wealthiest states.

Parenthetically, the converted IQ average for third party voters (n = 30) is 105.6. That's fairly predictable, since merely seeking these candidates out requires some degree of intellectual curiosity.

GSS variables used: PRES08, RACECEN(1)(2)(4-10)(15-16), SEX, AGE, PARTYID(0-2)(3)(4-6), WORDSUM, BORN(1)