Education Level and the 2000/2004 vote

[nclib]

CTguy, these posts below were very interesting and I thought I'd start a thread on the impact of education level on voting.

There is a difference between Liberal and Democrat.  The 70% of hispanics and 85% of blacks that are voting democratic are not doing so primarily because of social issues or because they are liberal.  They are doing so because democratic policies benefit them economically.  

If you control for this, most people who vote based on ideology that are educated are liberal while people with less education tend to be conservative.  It doesn't take a rocket-scientist to see that many of the precincts Gore won in 2000 were college towns or areas around cities where people hold advanced degrees.    Whereas most of the vast rural expanses that Bush won are culturally social areas where most people didn't go to college.

By the way just on this topic.  I was wondering if anyone read a study I read way back when that said that one of the biggest predictors of how a state voted in 2000 was how many public and private universities are located in that state as a ratio of the population.  States with more universities as a proportion of the population (MA, NY, CT) tended to vote for Gore and those with the least tended to vote for Bush.  

Firstly, I agree about black/Hispanic voting patterns. Many aren't necessarily social liberals yet vote Democrat based on self-interest (such as affirmative action, minimum wage, welfare, immigration, etc.). Controlling for race and economic status, as you say, does indicate a positive relationship between education and social liberalism.

Secondly, I haven't read the study you mentioned, but I don't doubt it. The most liberal communities do tend to be heavily influenced by universities. Nader beat Bush in Cambridge and presumably Berkeley and Gore did very well in Ivy League cities and cities with large universities. The only conservative college towns that I can think of are College Station, TX (Texas A & M) and Provo, UT (BYU).

[nclib]

This map is interesting. It is a map indicating the percentage of people in a given state who hold advanced degrees. Red is above the national average and blue is below the national average.

[nclib]

This model looks very much like the 2000 map. In fact, it is only "wrong" for 11 of the 50 states (and 3 of them were won by less than 1%).

I'd love to hear others' opinions on why proportion of advanced degrees is such a good predictor of political behavior.

[nclib]

This is widely discussed.  Democrats have more undervotes than republicans, because Republicans have a higher overall educational level and thus income.  but when 'advanced degrees' are considered separately, more holders of master's doctorates and professional degrees are democrats.  That map correlates somewhat with democrat and republican plurality states in 2000.  Not surprising.  It is no doubt due to the fact that most phd physicists, chemists, biologists get 100% of their income, either directly or indirectly from the united states government from taxpayers.  It is not surprising that most lawyers are Democrats and most physicians are Republicans, by similar a public vs. private funding analysis, or, in the case of ambulance chasers such as Senator Edwards, the willingness of the Democrats to pass laws favorable to a high standard of living for attorneys, many of whom are politicians.

And the divide is getting bigger...Of the 11 states that voted for Clinton in '96 and Bush in '00, Ten of them were "blue states" on the map that I created.