Occupations and voting

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

Back-of-the-envelope analysis here.  Feel free to correct/critique this:

Physicians:  swing group, but healthcare law caused them to favor Romney in 2012
http://www.benefitspro.com/2012/10/11/most-physicians-back-romney
Engineers:  My guess is this is a pretty swing constituency as well, with computer science being one of the more liberal and mechanical/industrial engineering probably swinging more conservative (associated with manufacturing and transportation, which tend to lean more conservative as industries)
Accountants:  I'm pretty sure these folks do lean Republican, along with most general business types
Stockbrokers:  probably lean Republican in a normal election year
Dentists:  definitely lean GOP here  ( http://thewealthydentist.com/surveyresults/058-dentists-presidential-election-2.htm )
Nurses and schoolteachers:  Both lean Democratic as evidenced by the unions, but nursing professors tend to be more conservative than other college professors, and there are certainly plenty of GOPers in both fields.
Pilots- my gut is this group leans Republican due to its high male % and the proportion of them ahving military experience.





What's interesting is the big divide between the voting habits of scientists and engineers/physicians.  I think the big factors at play is the smaller factor of government grants for engineers/physicians as well as a much smaller likelihood of having their work tie into the climate change issue.  Religiosity is also a factor; I know multiple scientists who go to my church and am almost certain they are Republicans if they vote.  However, Evangelicals are a much smaller minority among scientists compared to doctors/engineers and thus there's a big political difference reflected in that.  Income and university affiliation also come into play here, as scientists tend to earn less than doctors/engineers, on average.

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

How do other professions such as physicians, dentists, lawyers, stockbrokers, accountants, engineers, pilots, nurses, schoolteachers, etc. break down?

Unfortunately I cannot provide many concrete statistics. However, this is what I've gathered from reading around and on this site over the years:

Physicians: 50/50
Dentists: More Republican
Lawyers: Democrat
Stockbrokers: Republican
Accountants: Lean R?
Engineers: Notoriously apolitical and also depends significantly on the type of engineer
Pilots: No idea
Nurses: More Democrat
Schoolteachers: Democrat

Further...

Psychologists: Solid D
Veterinarians: Solid D
Non-profit execs: Democrat
Academia: Democrat
Construction: Republican
Trades (plumbers etc): I don't really know, lean D?
Pharma business: Republican

Maybe the union ones, but blue-collar skilled trades workers in general tend to vote pretty conservatively and have shifted well to the right in recent decades.

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/presentations/inequality.pdf  (Search for slide with "Occupation")

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/ My profession in 90+ democratic.

The engineering stats are pretty interesting.  Chemical engineers are a tad more conservative than I thought, and unsurprisingly, software engineers are the most liberal of the bunch (given the high presence of tech in Silcion Valley/Bay Area).

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

Just because the far left has discovered a hatred for law enforcement doesn't mean that's a GOP voting bloc.  Cops are government employees who don't make a whole lot, and I'd bet they vote Dem, especially in big cities.  They CERTAINLY vote to the left of business types.

Umm did you see the reaction to De Blasio from the NYPD? White cops at least tend to be very racist in general and have a conservative attitude towards society in general believing themselves to be serving the "upstanding citizens of the community." I think are most likely overwhelmingly Republican.  

My uncle is a cop and while not racist (I like how you just conflate conservatism and racism; very classy) he definitely has "a conservative attitude towards society in general."  He also uses "liberal" as a snarl against judges giving light sentences in California.  Nonetheless, he is a Democratic voter and supported Obama both times.  My guess is that cops are less Republican-voting than you would think based on how "conservative" they appear.

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

I forget who wrote it (Irving Kristol maybe?), but it has been suggested that voting habits are better predicted by connection with/reliance on the state than just income. The data that Intell provided seems to suggest.

This is true and is a good explanation for the heavy tilt of scientists and academia toward the left - the only scientists that aren't Democratic-voting are petroleum geologists and geophysicists, both of which can do very well in the private sector.  Granted, some professions - like software engineers - lean Democrat even though there isn't a strong reliance on the state, but part of that can be chalked up to differences in organizational philosophy and the places where those folks reside (Bay Area as opposed to more conservative areas).