Some voting charts from the GSS

How I created these charts:

* GSS years 2000-2008.
* Uses variable RACEN1 which asks the respondent his or her primary race. Hispanic is an option on this question. Before 2000, people could only select white, black, or other.
* All Asian and Pacific Islander responses, including Indians, are lumped together.
* Independents who lean Republican or Democrat are counted as being Republican or Democrat.
* “Prole” means respondents without a college degree.
* “College educated” means respondents with a college degree or a graduate degree.

Statistics for DEGREE = (Prole)
Cells contain: -Row percent -Weighted N		PARTYID
		1 Democrat	2 Republican	3 Neither	ROW TOTAL
RACECEN1	1: White	36.3 2,690	40.4 2,995	23.3 1,723	100.0 7,408
	2: Black	75.9 1,110	7.0 103	17.1 249	100.0 1,462
	3: Native Amer	60.4 75	14.9 19	24.7 31	100.0 125
	4: Asian Pac Isl	44.9 113	26.2 66	28.8 73	100.0 252
	5: Other	49.3 26	11.5 6	39.2 20	100.0 52
	6: Hispanic	42.6 290	19.3 131	38.1 260	100.0 682
	COL TOTAL	43.1 4,304	33.3 3,320	23.6 2,357	100.0 9,981

Statistics for DEGREE = (College Educated)
Cells contain: -Row percent -Weighted N		PARTYID
		1 Democrat	2 Republican	3 Neither	ROW TOTAL
RACECEN1	1: White	39.9 1,130	48.0 1,361	12.1 343	100.0 2,834
	2: Black	80.5 178	7.1 16	12.5 28	100.0 221
	3: Native Amer	73.5 9	21.8 3	4.7 1	100.0 12
	4: Asian Pac Isl	55.7 129	16.7 39	27.7 64	100.0 232
	5: Other	50.0 7	17.9 3	32.1 5	100.0 15
	6: Hispanic	65.5 56	9.8 8	24.6 21	100.0 85
	COL TOTAL	44.4 1,508	42.0 1,429	13.6 461	100.0 3,398

WHAT THESE CHARTS ARE TELLING US

Whether or not one is prole or college educated has surprisingly little effect on which party one identifies with. College educated whites are slightly more likely to be Republican than prole whites, but college educated non-whites are more likely to be Democratic than prole non-whites.

The college educated are less likely to be independent. My explanation is that smarter people understand the issues better so they better understand which party they support. This probably explains why political candidates try so hard to dumb down their campaigns; they need to market themselves to the proles because college educated voters are less likely to change their votes.

Non-whites vote Democratic. Asians vote the same way as blacks, even though they have nothing in common beside their non-whiteness. College educated non-whites are more likely to vote than Democratic than prole non-whites.

I think the GSS is biased in favor of sampling Democrats, because Republicans certainly didn’t do as poorly in elections during this decade as the GSS would suggest.

SAME CHARTS FOR YEARS 1972-1978

Statistics for DEGREE = 1(Prole)
Cells contain: -Row percent -Weighted N		PARTYID
		1 Democrat	2 Republican	3 Neither	ROW TOTAL
RACE	1: WHITE	53.4 4,255	31.5 2,515	15.1 1,203	100.0 7,973
	2: BLACK	79.1 898	8.8 100	12.1 138	100.0 1,136
	3: OTHER	46.7 23	30.3 15	22.9 11	100.0 49
	COL TOTAL	56.5 5,176	28.7 2,630	14.8 1,352	100.0 9,158

Statistics for DEGREE = 2(College Educated)
Cells contain: -Row percent -Weighted N		PARTYID
		1 Democrat	2 Republican	3 Neither	ROW TOTAL
RACE	1: WHITE	46.4 598	42.3 546	11.3 145	100.0 1,289
	2: BLACK	83.6 55	9.3 6	7.1 5	100.0 66
	3: OTHER	42.2 8	12.4 2	45.4 9	100.0 19
	COL TOTAL	48.1 661	40.3 554	11.6 159	100.0 1,374

In the 1970s, respondents were more Democratic (it was a bad decade for Republicans), but the pattern was quite different. In the 1970s, college educated whites were significantly more likely to be Republican and less likely to be Democratic than prole whites (although even among college educated whites, a slim majority identified as Democratic).

The Republican Party has changed from being the preferred party of the rich to just being the preferred party of white people.

The Republican Party would also seem to be doomed, because every year whites are less of a majority than the year before, due to immigration and higher birth rates of Hispanics.

Comments

[Abe]

"The college educated are less likely to be independent. My explanation is that smarter people understand the issues better so they better understand which party they support."

I disagree. If this were the case, the average college graduate would be intelligent and independent enough to carefully and rationally decide the issues that he identified with. I'm highly doubtful of this. Secondly, if smarter people were understanding issues better, one would not expect such separations between the races. Political issues are (for the most part) class-based, and not race-based.

Rather, I think college serves to connect people with similarities. These cliques undergo group polarization (wiki it), whereby people in groups act to synergistically strengthen their attitudes.

The Republican party is doomed for multiple reasons. It is definitely becoming stigmatized as a party solely for Whites, discouraging minorities from identifying with it. And institutional attitudes in colleges have been discouraging the formation of Republican groups to begin with for most of the last 50 years.

[Brutus]

Non-whites vote Democratic. Asians vote the same way as blacks, even though they have nothing in common beside their non-whiteness.--Siggie

I'd be interested hearing from other posters on this. I think NEAsians are now officially white.

[Turambar]

Tough luck for Steve Jobs being prole.

"College educated non-whites are more likely to vote than Democratic than prole Asians.

I think the GSS is biased in favor of sampling Democrats, because Republicans certainly didn’t do as poorly in elections during this decade as the GSS would suggest. "

You make the assumption that a party identifier means they vote that way. As you saw from the last post, white democrats have more in common with the GOP than with their own party's stated positions a lot of the time.

Hence the threat of someone like Sarah Palin who appeals broadly to the demographic. Bob Dole and John McCain are unlike to peal off the soccer moms, but Palin is.

[HS: I think that's not quite what I meant to write, so I edited my post. Sorry.]

[Qwerty15]

Not related, but am I the only one who thinks that Sotomayor looks like an alcoholic?

[Brutus]

The Republican party is doomed for multiple reasons. It is definitely becoming stigmatized as a party solely for Whites, discouraging minorities from identifying with it. And institutional attitudes in colleges have been discouraging the formation of Republican groups to begin with for most of the last 50 years.

Posted by: Abe | July 09, 2009 at 07:43 PM

NEAsians and blacks and Hispanics who do not choose to exploit the racial spoils system should be urged to join the R party, where they will--presto--become white. It can be done, Abe.

Problem for the Rs is that it has become the party of fecklessness, and characterized by W who is almost indistinguishable from a liberal Democrat on social issues.

IMO, in the future the American parties will be:

1. Parasites
2. Hosts

Therefore, America is doomed. The center cannot hold.

[Brutus]

Not related, but am I the only one who thinks that Sotomayor looks like an alcoholic?

Posted by: Qwerty15 | July 09, 2009 at 08:26 PM
I totally disagree: she looks like a stupid alcoholic--LOL

[Wilbur Simonson]

Party identification doesn't necessarily mean much if people don't actually turn out to vote. I wasn't able to find a complete set of data, but historically, whites have higher voter turnout percentages. It would be interesting to see a chart of voter turnout broken down by race and education over the last 50 years.

[HS: Educated people are more likely to vote, but Republicans are losing that segment.]

[bookguy]

I used to rush out and get the New York Times after elections in the late 80's and early 90's. I remember being struck that Asians were nearly as Republican in exit polling as Evangelical Christians. The numbers were so small that the sampling was probably inaccurate and just based on every hundreth person in the suburbs.

[Peter]

It could be that the Republican party has become too closely identified with evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity to appeal to Asians. Except for some Koreans, there just aren't that many Asians in those religious categories.

[Rob]

I never have heard before that alcoholics have a "look".

[Petey]

good Sailer article on that joke Sotomayor:

http://www.vdare.com/

[HS: While I hate her politics, from a qualifications perspective she's no more of a joke that Souter was, the guy they called the "stealth justice" because he never wrote anything or contributed anything to legal scholarship.]

[Rotgut]

---I never have heard before that alcoholics have a "look"--

Ted Kennedy. Puffy, red eyes and bloated, flabby skin with prominent capillaries, etc...Take a walk down your local "skid row."

[Robert Hume]

Even if the Republican party is only the party of whites they can still win elections until well past 2042 if whites vote for Republicans as solidly as they do in the South, not to say as solidly as blacks vote for Democrats.

[DaveinHackensack]

The Republican Party isn't doomed. There are a number of policies Republicans can advocate that would appeal to broad majorities of Americans and differentiate the party from Democrats (e.g., opposition to Affirmative Action, opposition to illegal immigration). I mentioned some of this in a recent post, in which I quoted a smart liberal who was concerned with the Right's recent victories in Europe: http://thehackensack.blogspot.com/2009/06/lessons-from-european-parliament.html

Another thing Republicans need to do is not be stupid about taxes or assume Americans are stupid about them. Pitching marginal income tax cuts as way to put more dollars in Americans' pockets, as George W. Bush did, is pointless, for a couple of reasons. The first is that our income tax system is so progressive already that most Americans pay little if anything in net federal income taxes. The second is that Democrats will happily match Republicans on giving transfer payments to lower earners, while giving them a side order of Schadenfreude by raising taxes on the rich.

Republicans should advocate tax (and other) policies that will facilitate economic growth and the creation of more high-paying, blue collar jobs. That means advocating things like a cut in the corporate income tax rate (say, to 25%), and having the confidence to explain that this isn't a giveaway to the rich, but a way to encourage more companies to set-up shop here and hire more American workers.

[Brutus]

I never have heard before that alcoholics have a "look".

Posted by: Rob | July 10, 2009 at 08:26 AM
Quick anecdote: A buddy of mine is a famous celebrity photographer, and he was assigned to shoot Oliver Stone. Stone advised him to "not make me look like an alcoholic." My friend simply replied, "Oliver, I'm not a psychiatrist."

[J1]

Based on your overall stats, it looks like graduating from college dramatically increases the probability one will be a republican. Another interesting blog post on the subject, with stats: http://dabacon.org/pontiff/?p=539

"My explanation is that smarter people understand the issues better so they better understand which party they support"

I'm not sure I'd agree with the assumption that those with a college degree are automatically smarter than those without (any more). That was probably the case 30+ years ago, but there's been an explosion in humanities degrees that aren't significantly more difficult to obtain than a high school diploma.