Guessing someone’s voting.

[Shira]

If If you randomly pick out a 2004 voter and then ask “what is the probability that this individual voted for Bush?” The answer would be simple and clear: 0.51, since Bush got close to 51% of the popular vote. That’s the case when the voter is absolutely random. If, however, you know one item of information about this voter, then the probability would change. If, for example you know that that the person is from Texas, then the probability goes up to 0.61. If the only information you have is, that the person is black, then the probability goes down to 0.11. Etc…. We don’t have problems with these numbers since these are the official ones. But there are several other categories which could indicate how someone voted but these are not official numbers, and every one can assign his/her subjective probabilities.
Here are some categories.
What is the voting-for-Bush probability you would assign to a voter if you know
   1 - that this person  earns $150,000 per year ?
   2 - that this person  earns $50,000 per year ?
   3 - that this person  is older than 70?
   4 - that this person  is younger than 25?

   that this person :
   5 -Lives in a town of 7,000 residents
   6 - Lives in a city of 700,000 residents
   7 - Has never been out of the US.
   8 - While driving to work listens to NPR?
   9 - Goes to church at least once a week.
   10 - Does not go to church.
   11- The color of the person’s eyes is light blue.
   12 -The color of the person’s eyes is brown..
   13 -The person’s last name is Kaminski.
   14 -The person is a truck driver.
   15 -The person is a high school teacher.
   16 -The person is a lowyer.
   17 -The person is a physician.
    18 - The person has invested $600,000 in the stock exchange.
    19 - The person listens to Rush Limbaugh during launch hour.
    20 -The person watches CNN one hour per day.

The following are my subjective probabilities to the above:

1 - 0.4
2 - 0.55
3 - 0.4
4 - 0.3
5 - 0.75
 
6 - 0.4
7 - 0.8
8 - 0.4
9 - 0.8
10 - 0.35

11 - 0.6
12 - 0.3
13 - 0.3
14 - 0.7
15 - 0.2

16 - 0.4
17 - 0.5
18 - 0.7
19 - 0.9
20 - 0.4

[Shira]

Where is this from? The eye color thing is VERY interesting.

Again:
These are my subjective estimates.

[Shira]

I wonder what the odds on me are:

Male
White
Heterosexual
Protestant
age 20
makes $10k a year
Lives in a city of 45k

You are around the 0.5

[Shira]

They never left the U.S. (80% for Bush) one is clearly wrong and is an attempt to paint the average Repubican as parochial.  The most frequent world travelers are business travelers- A group that would favor Bush.  Furthermore, the urban black and poor don't make it to the other side of the Atlantic very often either.  The eye color thing is not verifiable but you must remember that there are lot of Irish, German, English Italian etc etc that have brown eyes.   
High School teacher is also way off.  Maybe 60-40.  There is no way Kerry would get 80% likelihood.

Say someone asks you what is the probability that voter X voted for Bush. You have never seen this person you don't know where he/she lives. In other words you don't have any information about him/her. In this case your answer must be 0.51.

Now, assume you get some limited information: the person has never left the US. Will you, in this case continue with the 0.51 or will you change it?

[Shira]

-white male evangelical in the South - 0.8
-lesbian Jew in New England - 0.1
-male with long hair - 0.4
-alum of Ivy League school 0.6
-has 10 siblings - 0.3
-regular user of pornography 0.2
-white without high school degree - 0.35
-black, income over 100K - 0.15
-NASCAR fan - 0.6
-black, married to a white - 0.1
-white, married to a black - 0.2

I tend to agree with you except for
-regular user of pornography - 0.2
-white without high school degree - 0.35

I would assign:
-regular user of pornography - 0.5
-white without high school degree - 0.65

[Shira]

By using Shira's method, I should be a Kerry voter.

More accurately: a likely Kerry voter.
The probability of Jews or Blacks or teachers etc. voting for Bush is low but not zero.

Nationally you belong to the 51%, but among people meeting your categoties you are a tiny minority.

[Shira]

We are having fun here, but the issue of who is a Republican and who is a Democrat is a very serious one. The nation is sharply divided.
The first indicator is the geographical contiguity of the red and blue states. The battleground states are mostly on the bordering area between the two countries. Florida is deep in the south area of the red country, but Florida itself is geographically divided into two states.
More important are the behavioral, mental and cultural differences between the “reds” and the “blues”. It is the same situation as in Canada, except for the lingual differences. Everyone who visited Quebec noticed that the difference with the rest of Canada is not only French vs. English but much deeper than that.

[Shira]

Where is this from? The eye color thing is VERY interesting.

Who are the people with brown or dark eyes?

African-Americans,  Hispanics,  Asian-Americans, majority of Jews and the majority of people whose decadency is from Mediterranean Catholic or Greek-Orthodox counties such as  Greek, Italy, French, Spain etc. All these groups are tending to vote Democrats. Needless to mention that there are Germans or British with brown eyes, but they are in the minority as to the color-of-the-eyes category.
BTW: Kerry and Edwards, both have light-blue eyes.

[Shira]

They never left the U.S. (80% for Bush) one is clearly wrong and is an attempt to paint the average Repubican as parochial.  The most frequent world travelers are business travelers- A group that would favor Bush.  Furthermore, the urban black and poor don't make it to the other side of the Atlantic very often either.  The eye color thing is not verifiable but you must remember that there are lot of Irish, German, English Italian etc etc that have brown eyes.   
High School teacher is also way off.  Maybe 60-40.  There is no way Kerry would get 80% likelihood.

Say someone asks you what is the probability that voter X voted for Bush. You have never seen this person you don't know where he/she lives. In other words you don't have any information about him/her. In this case your answer must be 0.51.

Now, assume you get some limited information: the person has never left the US. Will you, in this case continue with the 0.51 or will you change it?

 Bush .45 seems more reasonable only because people from the N.E. and California do tend to travel aboard slightly more than some other parts. 

I said that among those who were not abroad the ratio Kerry:Bush is 20:80.
This does not mean that among those who were abroad the ratio is 80:20

[Shira]

Wonder what my odds are in voting Bush.

-Male
-Caucasian
-Age: 24
-Disaffected Roman Catholic from a practicing family
-Heterosexual
-5-10
-250 lbs.
-Family mixed in ideology
-From union/labor background, but went to 12 years of -Catholic schooling then went ot a secular/state college
-Has lived in mostly white neighborhoods with a spritz of racism (i.e. some of my neighbors were borderline neo-Nazis)
- Lives in very large, African American and Democratic controlled city (remember most whites resent this)

Looks like you voted Kerry (probability 0.7).