Democrats may now be the more intelligent party

I previously wrote that Republicans are more intelligent than Democrats. It seems that may have been a hasty conclusion based on looking at the entire General Social Survey (GSS) dataset, and ignoring the trend. It seems that the Republicans used to be the more intelligent party, but that may no longer be true.

To determine IQ I use the score on the ten item Wordsum vocabulary test administered to approximately half of the GSS respondents.

The charts below show the breakdown of party identification for low, average, and high IQ respondents. Note that the median Wordsum score is 6, so the 6-7 bracket is slightly above average for the GSS sample. However more intelligent people are more likely to vote, so 6-7 probably best represents the IQ of the average voter. Respondents who identified as “other” (a very tiny number) are excluded from the analysis.

Nixon/Ford/Carter Years 1974-1978
Cells contain: -Column percent -N of cases		WORDSUM
		1 0-5	2 6-7	3 8-10	ROW TOTAL
PARTYID	1: Democrat	48.0 830	41.4 614	32.7 349	41.9 1,793
	2: Independent	33.1 572	36.7 544	39.3 419	35.9 1,535
	3: Republican	18.9 326	22.0 326	28.0 299	22.2 951
	COL TOTAL	100.0 1,728	100.0 1,484	100.0 1,067	100.0 4,279

Reagan/Bush Sr. Years 1982-1991
Cells contain: -Column percent -N of cases		WORDSUM
		1 0-5	2 6-7	3 8-10	ROW TOTAL
PARTYID	1: Democrat	43.5 1,457	35.1 1,088	31.7 641	37.6 3,186
	2: Independent	34.1 1,142	33.9 1,052	35.3 713	34.3 2,907
	3: Republican	22.4 751	31.1 964	33.0 665	28.1 2,381
	COL TOTAL	100.0 3,351	100.0 3,104	100.0 2,019	100.0 8,473

Clinton Years 1993-1998
Cells contain: -Column percent -N of cases		WORDSUM
		1 0-5	2 6-7	3 8-10	ROW TOTAL
PARTYID	1: Democrat	38.5 838	33.1 760	32.3 469	34.9 2,067
	2: Independent	36.8 802	36.3 832	36.1 524	36.4 2,158
	3: Republican	24.7 538	30.6 701	31.6 459	28.7 1,698
	COL TOTAL	100.0 2,178	100.0 2,293	100.0 1,452	100.0 5,923

George W. Bush Years 2004
Cells contain: -Column percent -N of cases		WORDSUM
		1 0-5	2 6-7	3 8-10	ROW TOTAL
PARTYID	1: Democrat	36.9 174	32.1 187	37.9 138	35.2 499
	2: Independent	40.5 191	33.3 194	33.5 122	35.7 507
	3: Republican	22.7 107	34.6 202	28.6 104	29.1 413
	COL TOTAL	100.0 472	100.0 583	100.0 364	100.0 1,419

NIXON/FORD/CARTER YEARS

The 1970s were bad years for Republicans. Only 22.2% of respondents identified as Republican compared to 41.9% as Democratic. Although they were bad years for winning elections, they were good years for the Republican Party’s IQ. As respondents move into the more intellectually capable bracket, their likelihood to identify as Republican increases significantly.

REAGAN/BUSH SR. YEARS

The Reagan Revolution vastly increased the number of respondents who identified as Republican. This is the only time span in the analysis in which high IQ respondents are more likely to be Republican than Democratic. However, Reagan was even more successful attracting average IQ Americans to the Republican party, so overall the average IQ of the Republican Party decreased slightly.

CLINTON YEARS

Even though Clinton was in the White House, the Democratic Party continued to lose support. 34.9% of respondents identified as Democratic compared to 37.6% in the Reagan/Bush Sr. years and 41.9% in the 1970s.

But even though the Republicans gained overall compared to Democrats, among those in the high IQ bracket the story was the opposite; Republicans lost high IQ respondents to the Democrats. Once again, the average IQ of the Republican Party decreased compared to the previous period.

GEORGE W. BUSH YEARS

Unfortunately, there are only 1,419 respondents in this analysis, so the results aren’t as reliable. Nevertheless, we see a huge drop in the percent of high IQ respondents who identify as Republican and an even bigger increase in the percent of high IQ respondents who identify as Democratic.

At the same time, average IQ respondents flocked to the Republican Party, and now a greater percent of this bracket identifies as Republican than identifies as Democratic. (It should be noted that this is not the first time this occurs for a single year. It also happened in 1989, 1991, and 1993.)

CONCLUSION

Once upon a time, the Democratic Party was the party of the less intelligent and the Republican Party was the party of the more intelligent.

But today, the Democratic Party is the party of both the less intelligent and the more intelligent while the Republican Party is the party of the middle. This doesn’t seem to me like a stable situation.

It remains to be seen if the 2004 data is a fluke: either a statistical fluke or related to a specific antipathy that high IQ respondents have to George W. Bush and not to the Republican Party as a whole.

Comments

[michael vassar]

Of course, you should keep in mind that by the "middle" you mean people too dumb to graduate from a selective college with a real degree (e.g. not education, accounting, sociology, or the like), people who probably report on polls that they believe in angels, Satan, etc, and who can't identify Canada, the UK, or China on a map (Can they identify the US?). People who actually know ANYTHING that MIGHT be relevant to making informed decisions as voters lean Democrat.

By the way, with respect to the equation of Liberal with Leftist, Kerry and Gore are MUCH closer politically to George Bush Senior or Reagan than they are to Chomsky, Zinn, Moore, or the like. Leftists are a boogie man with no real power outside of universities. By contrast, Right wing psychopaths almost as vile as Zinn are actually Running our government as we speak.

[Austrian]

"People who actually know ANYTHING that MIGHT be relevant to making informed decisions as voters lean Democrat."

Except, you know, economics.

[jimbo]

The Democrats' base has long been people who feel powerless, at least in social terms. These generally do not do well on IQ tests because they are social minorities loosely connected to the cultural assumptions that underlies IQ teste, or they work under the direction of others in occupations that require little creativity or verbal prowess. To that base they have added another base of people who are very highly trained in verbal occupations - law, education, social sciences, etc., and score highly on IQ tests. These also feel powerless because communications monopolies are being broken by new technologies. The intellectual base may be smaller in numbers, but has a higher intensity in political action

The traditional Republican base was middle America, and especially those in middle America who had some power - bankers, small business owners, corporate managers, farmers. With higher incomes and family connections, these were able to attend college before settling into a role in business. Their IQs, then, would have been above average by virtue of their education and place in society. That base, however, was dwindling proportionately in comparision to the Democrats's growing base of frustrated intellectuals. To that base Karl Rove and others added formerly non-voting white fundamentalists who feel powerless in the face of intellectual dominance of government , academia, and especially the courts. This base, feeling threatened, is now very politically active.

I agree with Austrian about the lack of economic knowledge in the Democrats' base; but by introducing the irrational prejudices of the fundamentalists into public policy and ignoring economics the Bushies are alienating those who do know something about economics and rationality, thereby creating a new group who are frustrated at their lack of power.

Perhaps the instability mentioned in the post portends a rise of libertarianism. Hope so.

"But today, the Democratic Party is the party of both the less intelligent and the more intelligent while the Republican Party is the party of the middle. This doesn’t seem to me like a stable situation."

It might be. You can have a situation where the top and the bottom (at least in class terms) are allied against the middle; witness your own article over the problems with NEST. (Looks like they're going to lose, BTW.)

In many cases this can take on quite sinister overtones as the top mashes the middle into the bottom to keep them from getting too close (as in NEST.)

If there can be Rich-and-Poor party, why not a Stupid-and-Smart party? Certainly the Democrats are having no problem maintaining a base, although winning over the middle is another story.

[JewishAtheist]

Could just be because of Dubya. By this point, you've got to be either pretty stupid or pretty stubborn to continue supporting him.

[Half Sigma]

"Could just be because of Dubya. By this point, you've got to be either pretty stupid or pretty stubborn to continue supporting him."

I was all set to vote for the Libertarian Party candidate in 2004, but the line at the polling place in the Ballston area of Arlington Virginia was so long that I gave up on the idea.

[SciFiGeek]

"Could just be because of Dubya. By this point, you've got to be either pretty stupid or pretty stubborn to continue supporting him."

These results go back a lot further than the recent trouble--and, after all, he did win the popular vote second time around.

The thing you have to realize, JA, is that a lot of the country is way way right. They love their God, they love America, and they think men who don't like football are probably gay. They think gay marriage is an offense against nature and abortion is murder. These things are important to them--would you vote for a Democrat who had previously been a member of the KKK in the next election? White Nationalists oppose corporate power, seeing it at as (you guessed it) a Jewish plot. Would you vote for a Nazi who promises to cut down on private sector profiteering and tax the very rich?

Or, being more reasonable, how about a Democrat inspired by Catholic social thought. Healthcare for all, more taxes on the rich...but no abortion, and homosexuality is wrong.

[JewishAtheist]

scifigeek:

Good point. I've come across many people who could easily be described as liberal save for their opposition to legal abortion. I'm not sure how their IQ would measure as a group -- being against abortion isn't a stupid position. Maybe they make up a significant chunk of the middle-IQ people who remain Republican.

There are of course "pro-life" Democrats, but they couldn't get past the presidential primaries. It's a shame that Republicans get to have a monopoly on that side of the issue.

[Randall Parker]

The Republicans and Democrats are both going to become dumber. The Republicans will need to attract more dumber whites to counteract the Democrats who will gain dumb Hispanics. So the Republicans will pull some dummies out of the Democratic Party while the Democrats gain other dummies.

How this will work out in terms of relative dumbness is hard to say. My guess is that the Democrats will become the dumber party.

[The Superfluous Man]

"These also feel powerless because communications monopolies are being broken by new technologies. "
????

HS, I think voting libertarian is a decent strategy. I do so to in the hope that inflating their rolls yields more influence. The Libertarian Party itself is a bunch of doctrinaire nuts who will not swerve from anarcho-capitalism to get a few votes. There's actually a website dedicated to reforming the LP.

SciFiGeek,
Exactly how much power (or numbers) do you impute to the white nationalists? Besides, judging by American Renaissance internet comments, I don't think they're mostly Nazis. They seem more like whites disgruntled by a turbulent past and precarious present and looking to a political solution. Few of the comments about a Stephen Pinker article about Ashkenazi Jewry for example, were antisemitic.

I fail to see how an IQ difference matters when it is so small.

[perroazul del norte]

At the presidential level both parties have internalized the gestalt of multicult-political correctness-cultural marxism. The real division here is over questions of sexual morality. And on the GOP side they simply sing the tune of the fundamentalists but hardly ever deliver. So the partisan divide is mostly a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.