f00sion

I think it was on TFP a while back, but sometime I saw a chart that someone posted showing percentages for party affiliation based on the individuals highest education level... anybody have any information or thoughts?

lordjeebus

Google is your friend

http://transformer.cs.caltech.edu/archives/000029.html

f00sion

yeah, i just found that one... that sda tool is pretty hardcore..found lots of interesting statistics.

dy156

I find it interesting and somewhat misleading, given recent elections, how many more total democrats there were than republicans in that data group.
The guy that came up with that noted that there was more support for Democrats from those with either little or a whole lot of education, and more Republican support from those somewhere in the middle. That's like saying " Asians are smarter, blacks are stronger, and whites are somewhere in the middle."
While it might seem stereotypical and intuitively correct, it's a huge generalization that in this instance is not even well supported by the numbers. You can't get more "somewhere in the middle" than those labelled junior college. These people were more likely to tend Democratic, (46.6) than Republican (29.5). Again, overall there were more Democrats in this survey, but it does not really paint a clear picture.
Other studies have shown that lawyers(with 3 years post grad. educ.) and most professors (with alot more than that) are mostly Democratic, but economics profs. and Doctors(4 years, plus residency) are more likely to be Republican.

Scipio

I want to say it's interesting, but it isn't. It doesn't tell us anything.

When it comes to: #Dems > #GOP, I've always heard that if you poll the entire population, more people identify blue than red, but the Republicans have much higher voter turnout, which makes most elections kind of a wash in that area.

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Kadath

I like the fact that the more educated you are, the less likely you are to be independant. With education comes conformity!

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rgr22j

I think you miscalculated -- the last row in the table is "Other Party," so you added together Strong Democrat, Not Strong Democrat, and Independent Near Democrat to get 47.6, but for Republican you added Other Party, Strong Republican, and Not Strong Republican to get 29.5. Removing Other Party and adding in Independent Near Republican adds up to 36.8.

In any case, if you assume Democrats and Republicans are equally represented in the general population, wouldn't this mean that Republicans are underrepresented in the survey, and that 47.6 vs. 36.8 might come closer together? (That assumption, of course, might possibly be wrong, as pointed out in Scipio's post.)

-- Alvin

rsl12

a possible explanation is that democrats have more support from the fringes of the demographic categories, when talking in terms of ethnicity (ie, non-caucasians). perhaps some similar phenomenon is occuring with the education level.

btw, the idea that junior college is the 'middle' is completely wrong--junior college graduates are the exception rather than the rule--people are generally compelled by special circumstances to go to a junior college rather than full college. the special circumstances are often things like lack of funding, need to hold down a job at the same time, couldn't get into a college, have to take care of a baby at the same time, passed the GED and looking for more education later in life.

finally, i do find it interesting that more education means less affiliation with independents. My guess is that, with education, comes the realization that a vote for the lesser evil is, from a practical standpoint, more useful than a vote for a hopeless cause.

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DelayedReaction

Actually, the percentage of independents increases with education. People who consider themselves independent (either purely independent, or independent near a party) make up 30.6% of "Lt High School", 36.3% of Junior College, and 34.9% of Graduate. 38.7% of the total respondents indicated they were independent.

I don't think it would be fair to include "independent near X" as a member of party X. I'm an independent with both democratic and republican opinions, but I don't want to be affiliated with either party.

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Scipio

Or mabye it's more conformist to be a "independant" and "be your own person," just like everyone else?

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Kadath

I was joking. I agree with DelayedReaction's analysis of the categories.

[unnecessary and light-hearted insult]
I applaud your decision to be your own person by using "a" instead of "an."
[/really, I don't mean to be mean]

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MSD

I find that higher intelligence carries a tendency to move to extreme political philosophies. There are some in the middle, but the most intelligent tend to move toward the corners of the scale.

choskins

I find it interesting that graduate degree alums are about 50-50! I would have assumed they were more republican, due to more income (as a group).

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Scipio

How could I take offense at someone pointing out a typo? Such actions are risky! I applaud your boldness!

I'm sure it breaks down by major, but I had always heard that the more education you have (master's or above), the more likely you are to trend democrat.

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