Have the Democrats become the party of the rich?

[Mr. Illini]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/31/democrats-wealth_n_5062088.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

What do you think is the chief cause of this?

Anti-science in the GOP?

Anti-education/intellectualism?

The Tea Party?

Gay Marriage?

A little bit of everything?

Do rich people really care more about these other issues (which impact them a lot less) than having lower taxes?

Or, perhaps there is a change in mindset and the rich now welcome higher taxes on human rights basis?

[IceSpear]

I'd assume rich people that aren't sociopaths or hoarders wouldn't care if they have to pay 3% more in taxes, allowing them to prioritize other issues where they tend to disagree with the GOP.

[bedstuy]

Just looks like a huffpo article that wants to take a factoid out of context for no reason.  Correlation does not equal causation.  There can be a third factor that causes both things to occur with no causation between the original two.

In this case, the richest districts are in major urban centers which skew Democratic by a large margin.  But, if you look within those cities, poor neighborhoods are more Democratic than rich neighborhoods.  Like in Brooklyn, Park Slope only voted for Obama 90% or something versus Brownsville which voted for Obama 99%.

[old timey villain]

It's not that simple to say Dems are the party of the rich and the GOP is the party of the poor, or vice versa. Both parties have support among different classes and income groups. But I will say that the Democrats have done much better among educated professionals in the past 20 years.

[Mr. Morden]

2012 exit poll:

http://edition.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president

household income greater than $100k:

Romney 54%
Obama 44%

household income less than $100k:

Obama 54%
Romney 44%

You can find similar results at the congressional level.  Yes, Democrats do better in wealthy states, and for that matter, in wealthy districts, while Republicans do better in poor states.  Yet wealthy people vote more for the GOP than Dems.  How can both of these things be true?  Read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Red-State-Blue-Rich-Poor/dp/0691143935

Spoiler:

[Nichlemn]

Came here to say what Mr Morden said. There's a fallacy of composition in assuming rich district/state = rich voters.

[Mr. Illini]

Spoiler:

So in some states, the rich do favor the Democrats.

[Skill and Chance]

Spoiler:

So in some states, the rich do favor the Democrats.

Yes, but it's usually idiosyncratic.  MD/VA federal employees skew this big time for example.  It's also worth noting that the places where a $100K or $200K earner is most likely to vote Dem are also the places where they are least likely to feel "rich" on a daily basis.  If you measure at the mansion+personal plane+limo and chauffeur level of "rich" I wonder how they voted?

[Skill and Chance]

It's also worth noting that rich is more about assets than income.  Someone who makes $50K/year but has $200K in assets and no debt is arguably wealthier than someone who makes $500K/year and is $2M in debt.  It would also be instructive to know how indebted vs. debt free people with assets vote at the same income level.

[Nichlemn]

It's also worth noting that rich is more about assets than income.  Someone who makes $50K/year but has $200K in assets and no debt is arguably wealthier than someone who makes $500K/year and is $2M in debt.  It would also be instructive to know how indebted vs. debt free people with assets vote at the same income level.

The point is valid but your numbers are way off. 500k guy is much better off financially, it'd be close at more like $150K.

I prefer lifetime income (or even better, lifetime consumption) as a measure of financial well-being, though it's hard to measure for obvious reasons. A top student at Harvard Medical School likely has low income and high debt, but is in a much better financial position overall than a 60 year old janitor with a modest income and modest savings.

[Skill and Chance]

It's also worth noting that rich is more about assets than income.  Someone who makes $50K/year but has $200K in assets and no debt is arguably wealthier than someone who makes $500K/year and is $2M in debt.  It would also be instructive to know how indebted vs. debt free people with assets vote at the same income level.

The point is valid but your numbers are way off. 500k guy is much better off financially, it'd be close at more like $150K.

I prefer lifetime income (or even better, lifetime consumption) as a measure of financial well-being, though it's hard to measure for obvious reasons. A top student at Harvard Medical School likely has low income and high debt, but is in a much better financial position overall than a 60 year old janitor with a modest income and modest savings.

I agree.  The 28 year old Harvard Med student owing $300K obviously has a much brighter future than a 60 year old who has worked at <2X minimum wage for 40+ years and somehow managed to stay out of debt.  But I was going for 4X income invested vs. 4X income in debt.

That gets back at how the $200K guy in Silicon Valley/NYC/DC who owes $2M on a small house might vote more Dem just because he doesn't feel as "rich" as a $200K guy in Mississippi living on a paid off, refurbished plantation estate.

[Mr. Morden]

Spoiler:

So in some states, the rich do favor the Democrats.

Yes, in wealthier states there isn't so much difference between how income groups vote, and so you can get a case where every income group has a Democratic lean, relative to the national average.

This graph is based on polling data, so the subsample errors are large, but the overall trend is clear:

[Skill and Chance]

Spoiler:

So in some states, the rich do favor the Democrats.

Yes, in wealthier states there isn't so much difference between how income groups vote, and so you can get a case where every income group has a Democratic lean, relative to the national average.

This graph is based on polling data, so the subsample errors are large, but the overall trend is clear:

I think this bolsters my hypothesis.  With the top income bracket in the exit polls being $100K and up, you are including a lot of people in coastal cities who have never thought of themselves as rich.  So in the rural states, you make $100K consistently and you truly don't have to worry about money anymore.  I'll bet the $500K earner in NYC votes like the $100K earner in IA or NE.

[Nichlemn]

Spoiler:

So in some states, the rich do favor the Democrats.

Yes, in wealthier states there isn't so much difference between how income groups vote, and so you can get a case where every income group has a Democratic lean, relative to the national average.

This graph is based on polling data, so the subsample errors are large, but the overall trend is clear:

I think this bolsters my hypothesis.  With the top income bracket in the exit polls being $100K and up, you are including a lot of people in coastal cities who have never thought of themselves as rich.  So in the rural states, you make $100K consistently and you truly don't have to worry about money anymore.  I'll bet the $500K earner in NYC votes like the $100K earner in IA or NE.

Of the top of my head, I don't think so. I believe I recall that no income bracket votes Republican in NYC. They may get more Republican with higher income but I don't think it goes much higher than 40%, if that.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Yes, and they have been since the days of Clinton.  There may be some areas where the rich vote Republican, but the richest states seem to be the most strongly D.

[Indy Texas]

Is there data anywhere on median income in previous iterations of CDs? I'd be interested in knowing how long ago this became the norm. (I'd imagine if you looked at the 10 wealthiest CDs that were in effect from, say, 1922-1932, they'd all be represented by Republicans, for example.)

[traininthedistance]

Is there data anywhere on median income in previous iterations of CDs? I'd be interested in knowing how long ago this became the norm. (I'd imagine if you looked at the 10 wealthiest CDs that were in effect from, say, 1922-1932, they'd all be represented by Republicans, for example.)

About three minutes on Wikipedia and knowing where to look has given me a likely counterexample:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Bloom

The Upper East Side (surely one of the richest areas back then?) started sending Democrats to Congress all the way back in 1922.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Yes, and they have been since the days of Clinton.  There may be some areas where the rich vote Republican, but the richest states seem to be the most strongly D.

Fantastic logic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income#States_ranked_by_per_capita_income

Notice a pattern?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Yes, and they have been since the days of Clinton.  There may be some areas where the rich vote Republican, but the richest states seem to be the most strongly D.

Fantastic logic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income#States_ranked_by_per_capita_income

Notice a pattern?

ITT: completely ignoring that the wealthiest states also mostly have massive income inequality, even by the standards of the United States.

[TNF]

The Democrats have always been a party of the rich, just as the Republicans have always been a party of the rich. The fact that the former also win the support of non-rich Americans by promising to throw them a bone every once in awhile does not fundamentally alter the class character of the party, which is and always has been bourgeois. The Democrats are a shaky alliance between bankers, tech companies, and higher education facilities, which treat labor unions like an expense account, using their funds to undermine their position with things like NAFTA, privatization, and the like, while also singing praises to the 'middle class' and occasionally raising the minimum wage (whenever they can't avoid doing so, that is)

[The Free North]

Like with any other demographic, the 'rich' are not a homogeneous entity.

I see it more as an urban/suburban divide


The wealthy suburbanites who are mostly WASPs in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maryland are more likely to be traditional/republican.


A lot of the urban rich tend to skew democratic.

[IceSpear]

The Democrats have always been a party of the rich, just as the Republicans have always been a party of the rich. The fact that the former also win the support of non-rich Americans by promising to throw them a bone every once in awhile does not fundamentally alter the class character of the party, which is and always has been bourgeois. The Democrats are a shaky alliance between bankers, tech companies, and higher education facilities, which treat labor unions like an expense account, using their funds to undermine their position with things like NAFTA, privatization, and the like, while also singing praises to the 'middle class' and occasionally raising the minimum wage (whenever they can't avoid doing so, that is)

Sounds better than the party that wants to impose nationwide right-to-work laws, abolish the minimum wage, abolish child labor laws, etc. etc.

[TNF]

The Democrats have always been a party of the rich, just as the Republicans have always been a party of the rich. The fact that the former also win the support of non-rich Americans by promising to throw them a bone every once in awhile does not fundamentally alter the class character of the party, which is and always has been bourgeois. The Democrats are a shaky alliance between bankers, tech companies, and higher education facilities, which treat labor unions like an expense account, using their funds to undermine their position with things like NAFTA, privatization, and the like, while also singing praises to the 'middle class' and occasionally raising the minimum wage (whenever they can't avoid doing so, that is)

Sounds better than the party that wants to impose nationwide right-to-work laws, abolish the minimum wage, abolish child labor laws, etc. etc.

With the possible exception of the first one, there's no likelihood of those actually happening in the near future. Child labor restrictions may be loosened, as we have seen in states like Maine, but there will never be a full on return to child labor without mass and likely violent resistance that will probably force the person dumb enough to attempt it to back off from it. Even a nationwide right-to-work law probably wouldn't muster a constitutional challenge, given that it violates the sacred right of contract that conservatives go on and on and on about.

As for the minimum wage, what's the point of abolishing it on paper when it has already been abolished in fact? No one with a real understanding of the situation we're in today honestly thinks that the minimum wage as it exists is enough to live on, and no one who knows much about the issue seriously thinks that $10.10 would be a raise to a livable wage, because it wouldn't. The minimum wage has been abolished by way of it's value not keeping up with that of the real cost of living, if not by law then by the conditions of the labor market, which continue to throw workers under the bus at the behest of corporate capital.

[windjammer]

The Democrats have always been a party of the rich, just as the Republicans have always been a party of the rich. The fact that the former also win the support of non-rich Americans by promising to throw them a bone every once in awhile does not fundamentally alter the class character of the party, which is and always has been bourgeois. The Democrats are a shaky alliance between bankers, tech companies, and higher education facilities, which treat labor unions like an expense account, using their funds to undermine their position with things like NAFTA, privatization, and the like, while also singing praises to the 'middle class' and occasionally raising the minimum wage (whenever they can't avoid doing so, that is)

Sounds better than the party that wants to impose nationwide right-to-work laws, abolish the minimum wage, abolish child labor laws, etc. etc.

With the possible exception of the first one, there's no likelihood of those actually happening in the near future. Child labor restrictions may be loosened, as we have seen in states like Maine, but there will never be a full on return to child labor without mass and likely violent resistance that will probably force the person dumb enough to attempt it to back off from it. Even a nationwide right-to-work law probably wouldn't muster a constitutional challenge, given that it violates the sacred right of contract that conservatives go on and on and on about.

As for the minimum wage, what's the point of abolishing it on paper when it has already been abolished in fact? No one with a real understanding of the situation we're in today honestly thinks that the minimum wage as it exists is enough to live on, and no one who knows much about the issue seriously thinks that $10.10 would be a raise to a livable wage, because it wouldn't. The minimum wage has been abolished by way of it's value not keeping up with that of the real cost of living, if not by law then by the conditions of the labor market, which continue to throw workers under the bus at the behest of corporate capital.

Child labor was rejected in Maine in March!

[Mr. Illini]

The wealthy suburbanites who are mostly WASPs in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maryland are more likely to be traditional/republican.

Voting maps suggest otherwise.