Reason and Radical

Voting Patterns

New data on voting patterns, family income and race:

For blacks and Hispanics, the cutoff point at which more vote Republican than Democrat is $40,000.

For whites, its $23,700.

This is the “what’s the matter with Kansas” crowd that is voting against its own interests. While so-called moral values can account for some of this, blacks and Hispanics tend to be less secular than whites (even more attuned to the moral values arguments). So that doesn’t explain much.
If white voters voted in the same pattern as black and Hispanic voters, Democrats would win every time. So why don’t they? Why do low to middle income white people vote against their own interests to vote Republican?

My own theory is that Republicans, in their typical divisive manner, have spent the last 30 years using very carefully crafted messages that portray them as the party that protects the interests of white people, while making it clear (in equally coded messages) that Democrats protect the interests of “others.”

posted by Leimodnu @ 12:08 PM