One of the questions we asked prior to the 2012 election was whether or not state-level unemployment figures would matter much on Election Day. As it turned out, the answer was “probably not much.” … Something else seems to matter more than unemployment right now: demographics. [cont.] Geoffrey Skelley, U.Va. Center […] Read more »
Long-Term Trends, Not Racism, Cost Obama Millions of Votes
In every election over the last 20 years, Appalachia shifted toward Republicans and the West revolted against the incumbent party’s candidate. These patterns continued in 2008 and 2012, but Seth Stephens-Davidowitz argues that these more recent manifestations are due to racism, since they correlate with the prevalence of racist Google […] Read more »
Yes, Racism Cost Obama Four Million Votes
As a graduate student in economics, I have used Google search data to quantify the cost of racism on President Barack Obama’s vote total. I compared the rate at which areas made racist searches on Google to Obama’s vote share, controlling for the vote share of the previous Democratic candidate, […] Read more »
In Political Campaigns, Do You Get What You Pay For?
Mark Hanna, the Republican Party political boss, famously declared at the outset of the McKinley-Bryan campaign of 1896: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember the second.” In the wake of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act and the […] Read more »
Did Obama Lose Votes Because of His Race?
Most observers, with the exception of those who fervently believe in a “colorblind” America, accept the role race plays in perceptions of Barack Obama. His blackness influences supporters—generating enthusiasm for his candidacy—and detractors, from right-wing provocateurs like Rush Limbaugh, to left-wing critics like Cornel West. If there’s still an open […] Read more »
Cook Scatterplots: Visualizing the 2012 Elections
The Cook Political Report has compiled interactive scatterplots visualizing Republican- and Democratic-held House/Senate seats and Governorships according to the current incumbent’s 2012 win percentage and their respective Cook PVI values going into the 2012 elections. These charts are completely sortable and filterable by a variety of parameters, and provide a […] Read more »