Centerfield

Rick,

I think that comparing red states to poor counties may be skewing this analysis. If you return to the county-by-county map of the 2004 results here, I think you'll see that most of the counties that show up as most impoverished are on the bluer end of the purple spectrum. I suggest that there are also racial and cultural factors "redding"--or diluting the blue--of those counties in the rural South.

Consider that populations can migrate.
Economic growth rates in red states are better.
Poor people often move to places where opportunities are better...
Perhaps confirming this theory, note thate red states also have significantly larger population growth rates than blue states.

Jaded, if you get a chance can you repost that link? you perked my curiousity, but the link is broken.

actually, you have to admit, it is hard to present yourself as the party of the little man when your funds come from billionares like George Soros and your political support comes from the whacky 527s and Moore (all of which many of us would rather distance ourselves from, and the Dems did themselves no favor by not doing so themselves).

Dang, i didn't realize how prevalent Baptist Christianity was in the southeast. interesting.

The Mississippi Valley kinda contradicts that thesis, as does most of the rest of the mapectoral map here.

Noteworthy to me is that urban poverty is less visible in the map comparisons. Price levels can have a lot to do with that. Using a standard baseline for "poor" fails to reflect that the coastal urban poor in, say, Los Angeles and New York are often living on much higher $ incomes than many people in rural America who are doing fairly well but look "poor" by the baselines.

A house in small-town Texas costs much less than a house in Los Angeles. Food is cheaper. Utility costs are less in the southerly states where the climate is milder. Etc. When friends visit me from Denver, they invariably ask how we can afford such a nice house. I tell them the truth--it's not in Denver, where the same house would cost four times as much, and the property tax level is higher.

Poverty is relative. The county maps line up nicely everywhere but the upper Midwest, New England, and the Pacific Coast.

Typos--The "county by county electoral map" is linked above.

I'm aware that comparing counties to states might seem like comparing apples to oranges. However, in presidential and senatorial politics, only states really count.

What I'm tryng to get at is the extent to which Democrats win by appealing to self-interest versus idealism. Democrats have a self-image of appealing to the poor and working person, yet their support at the state level comes from the most affluent states.

Regional differences in costs of living do complicate this analysis. On one hand, the map may overestimate southern poverty by not comparing it to the cost of living. There's something called "Purchasing Power Parity" that is used for internatinal comparisons, but I've never seen it used to compare US regions.

On the other hand, to the extent that the candidates are talking about tax rates in the IRS schedules, that is uniform nationally.

I don't have a good analytical framework here, or good data. If someone can point me to better data, I'd appreciate it.

But for those who say the Democrats need to get back to populist appeals, I say, show me the numbers. I'm not against it in principle, but I'd like to see some indication that it would work.

Hello, Justin. Are you new to this blog? If so, welcome.

I'm curious, are you from the southeast? The reason I ask is because you were surprised about the prevalence of Baptist Christianity. I think I should note that Baptists are by no means a monolithic group. In many instances, traditional religions have transformed over the last 30 years into nondenominational congregations.

I echo everyone's cost of living comments. That's the practical reason I choose to reside in the south. Besides the economic benefits, I grew up in this culture. It's what I know.

I know quite a few Texans who thought their successful enterprises would translate to CA. They were wrong.

To f/u on Jamie's comments. Last two Baptist presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Most recent Republican presidents, Methodist (W), Presbyterian (GHWB), Christian Church (RR, a moderate denomination) and Quaker (RMN). (I didn't include Gerald Ford). The the most openly "religious" presidents in the past 30 yrs (IMHO) George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton Go figure!!

(An old Joke: if you get two Baptist's in the same room to answer a theologic question, you'll always get three answers.)

I live in a very blue county in a barely red state, Iowa.

It's my intuition that Republicans are winning the majority of votes in areas that are low income because they successfully appeal to ideas that tend to unite people, patriotism, nationalism and religious values. I've read lots of articles that attempt to analyze why so many lower income people vote against their perceived economic interests by voting for Republicans. It seems these writers usually focus almost entirely on pocketbook issues and ignore those of culture. There is sometimes the charge that Republicans exploit race issues, but that's a difficult charge to make against evidence of significant gains in latino votes.

Culturally I think this is a fairly conservative country. And it looks like alot of people put that ahead of economics when they vote.

Tim,

Thanks for your contribution. That sounds exactly right.

Here's more on the disconnect, in an interview in Rolling Stone

GERGEN: Bruce Reed wrote a very interesting piece in the Washington Post pointing out something I did not know. It suggests that we're entering a new period of politics. Of the twenty-eight states with the lowest per-capita income, Bush carried twenty-six. In the past, we would all have assumed that low-income states would mostly go Democratic. The fact that their income status does not seem to be tied to how they vote is a major advance for Republicans -- and something Democrats have to think a lot about.

I found the original piece by Bruce Reed referred to above. It's a good one.

If we're amazed by poor folks voting Republican should we not be equally surpized at Rich folks voting democratic and yet we have many examples of that.