Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do (Expanded Edition)

273 Pages·2009·4.96 MB·English

by  Andrew Gelman

REDSTATE,BLUESTATE,RICHSTATE,POORSTATE
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Red State, Blue State,
Rich State, Poor State
WHY AMERICANS VOTE THE WAY THEY DO
EXPANDED EDITION
AndrewGelman,DavidPark,BorisShor,
andJeronimoCortina
p r i n c e t o n u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s
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p r i n c e t o n a n d ox f o r d
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Copyright©2008,2010byPrincetonUniversityPress
PublishedbyPrincetonUniversityPress,41WilliamStreet,
Princeton,NewJersey08540
IntheUnitedKingdom:PrincetonUniversityPress,6OxfordStreet,
Woodstock,OxfordshireOX201TW
AllRightsReserved
Expandedpaperbackedition,2010
PaperbackISBN:978-0-691-14393-4
TheLibraryofCongresshascatalogedtheclotheditionofthisbookasfollows
Gelman,Andrew.
Redstate,bluestate,richstate,poorstate:whyAmericansvotethewaythey
do/AndrewGelman;withDavidPark...etal.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-691-13927-2(hardcover:alk.paper)
1. Elections—UnitedStates. 2. Politicalparties—UnitedStates.
3. Politics,Practical—UnitedStates. 4. Presidents—Election.
I. Park,David,1967– II.Title.
JK1976.G45 2008
324.973—dc22 2008013737
BritishLibraryCataloging-in-PublicationDataisavailable
ThisbookhasbeencomposedinNewBaskerville
Printedonacid-freepaper.∞
press.princeton.edu
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
PARTI
THEPARADOX 1
1 Introduction 3
2 RichState,PoorState 8
3 HowtheTalkingHeadsCanBeSoConfused 24
PARTII
WHAT’SGOINGON 41
4 IncomeandVotingoverTime 43
5 InequalityandVoting 58
6 ReligiousRedsandSecularBlues 76
7 TheUnitedStatesinComparativePerspective 94
PARTIII
WHATITMEANS 109
8 PolarizedParties 111
9 CompetingtoBuildaMajorityCoalition 137
10 PuttingItAllTogether 165
Afterword The2008Election 179
NotesandSources 197
Index 241
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PART I
THEPARADOX
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1
CHAPTER
Introduction
OK,buthere’sthefactthatnobodyever,evermentions—
Democratswinrichpeople.Over$100,000inincome,youare
likelymorethannottovoteforDemocrats.Peopleneverpoint
thatout.Richpeoplevoteliberal.Idon’tknowwhatthat’sall
about.
—TuckerCarlson,2007
Carlson was half right. Nowadays the Democrats win the rich
states, but rich people vote Republican, just as they have for
decades.
Whatmakesthestatementinteresting,though,isthatitsounds
asifitcouldberight.Considerthe2000and2004elections,where
GeorgeW.Bushwonthelower-incomestatesintheSouthandmid-
dle of the country, while his Democratic opponents captured the
richer states in the Northeast and West Coast. As we shall discuss,
this pattern is not an illusion of the map—the Democrats really
have been doing better in richer parts of the country, and this
patternhasbecomemorenoticeableinrecentelections.
The paradox is that, while these rich states have become more
strongly Democratic over time, rich voters have remained consis-
tentlymoreRepublicanthanvotersonthelowerendoftheincome
scale. We display this graphically in figure 1.1. Tucker Carlson’s
statement sounds reasonable given the voting patterns in states,
butitdoesn’tmatchwhatindividualvotersaredoing.Ifpoorpeo-
plewereastate,theywouldbe“bluer”eventhanMassachusetts;if
richpeoplewereastate,theywouldbeaboutas“red”asAlabama,
Kansas,theDakotas,orTexas.
Thepointofthisbookistoexplainwherethered–blueparadox
comes from and what it means for American politics. To answer −1
thesequestions,wefirstaskwhovotesforwhom.Itseemsthatthere 0
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