Playing with statistics. (Lies, Damn lies and Statistics, Oh my.)

[TayTay]

Things that make you go huh! This is a chart from the Annenberg Center: http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/naes/2005_03_party-identification-by-state_02-15_pr.pdf that shows 39 of the states and the percentage of Republicans, Democrats and independents. Please note that there are more Democrats registered in Arkansas than in Massachusetts. (Oh and I weep for West Virgina. What the heck is going on there? They have a 43% Dem registration. We have to get WV back into the Pres blue column.) Of course, now you understand why Mass has a Rethug Gov, right?

State Republican Democrat Independent
Alabama 35% 32% 26%
Arizona 37% 30% 25%
Arkansas 26% 37% 27%
California 31% 37% 21%
Colorado 33% 29% 31%
Connecticut 22% 30% 41%
Florida 35% 37% 23%
Georgia 34% 32% 24%
Illinois 26% 37% 27%
Indiana 36% 29% 27%
Iowa 28% 30% 37%
Kansas 43% 26% 26%
Kentucky 37% 41% 16%
Louisiana 32% 40% 24%
Maine 30% 27% 37%
Maryland 28% 44% 21%
Massachusetts 16% 34% 47%
Michigan 27% 35% 28%
Minnesota 29% 31% 28%
Mississippi 39% 36% 16%
Missouri 29% 33% 26%
Nebraska 45% 28% 23%
Nevada 31% 32% 27%
New Jersey 27% 36% 30%
New Mexico 31% 39% 25%
New York 26% 41% 24%
North Carolina 35% 37% 21%
Ohio 31% 35% 27%
Oklahoma 37% 39% 18%
Oregon 35% 33% 23%
Pennsylvania 36% 40% 18%
South Carolina 36% 33% 21%
Tennessee 32% 31% 26%
Texas 37% 30% 23%
Utah 44% 19% 26%
Virginia 33% 29% 26%
Washington 27% 34% 29%
West Virginia 33% 43% 16%
Wisconsin 29% 34% 27%

[fedupinBushcountry]

1. I don't know how

Virginia is in that. We do not declare what party we are affiliated with when we register to vote.

[TayTay]

3. How do you do primaries in VA? n/t

[fedupinBushcountry]

8. Just go and vote

anyone can vote in the primaries.

[TayTay]

9. This sounds a little bit like NH.

You can register the day of a primary as either party and vote in that primary. Then you can 'unregister' and go back to being an independent. Cool!

Annenberg must have messed up on this stat.

[ginnyinWI]

12. same thing in Wisconsin. n/t

[TayTay]

2. Oh and look at what has and *hasn't * changed since

shortly after the election. I know this is a lot of statistics for one night, but this is really interesting stuff. (Karynnj: Can you help us with statistical questions? I only understand it generally, you understand it way more than me.)

http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/naes/2005_03_inauguration_01-17_pr.pdf

Scroll down and look at the questionnaire on Iraq and try to remember that this was last January. (Pay close attention to the stuff on the first Iraqi elections in Jan of this year. Wow! This has only become more pronounced. This is why I don't think the White House is going to get away with trying to finesse the winthdrawal. Wow!)

BTW, the Annenberg site is great. (Well, if you are a wonky person, it's great, she said defensively.) The news media has not caught up with the actual sentiments of the people.

[karynnj]

6. That is fascinating

What is amazing is that the Nov 3 - 11 polling had 54% saying stay and 40 % said leave Iraq, TWO months later (jan 11-13) 46% wanted to stay and 50% wanted to leave. I don't know why they chose to point out that the 46 stay vs 50 leave in January are not significantly different when the fact that there is an 8-10 point swing from November to January towards leaving which is significant. The comparison between the two months is far more interesting.

I think the tuning point was Falujah. I don't remember how soon after the election Fallujah started, so this may understate the shift from Nov 2 to Jan 2005. As some of the later data points may be after that nightmare happened. So, it means Bush made a politically good decision to wait until after the election.

It also is amazing how completely polarized the country was. I think the fact that Bush was such an ungracious winner and because he fought such a dirty fight, few people opted to give him a clean start. I wonder if it would have been so polarized the other way.

[TayTay]

7. It is fascinating. The swing has become more pronounced

as I read it. And it may have been the Fallujah attack that the WH cleverly waited until 11/4/04 to begin. That was awful. Or it could have been just the grind of the war without end, without an exit strategy and without any friggin plans at all.

BTW, I didn't start out to post this. I have been looking for this simple slide show that the DNC showed at their meeting back in March. It cleanly and clearly stated where the Dems ruled on domestic and social issues last fall. (I mean ruled. The message on economics, jobs, social security, the whole deal were overwhelmingly in favor of Sen. Kerry. It was only the security issue and 'the war' that wasn't, and even that was fairly narrow, not like it was portrayed in the press at all. There was NO mandate.) I can't find the powerpoint presentation on these stats yet, but I haven't given up hope. I will find them, cuz they are fascinating. (I will recheck the DNC site. Organiziation is not an enemy, it is a good thing. Finding things is a good thing. Sigh!)

And thanks Karyn for finding this interesting. Us wonky people need to back each other up! Stats are interesting, aren't they?

[whometense]

4. Notice how

MA has more Independents than any other state? Of course, most of them vote Dem, but you can't make them vote dem!

[_dynamicdems]

10. LOL! That is so true. n/t

[Mass]

5. We can be proud of our 16 % registered Republicans.

But it is truly amusing that MA has less dems than OK (when do they get rid of their two GOP senators).

[TayTay]

11. Karynnj: Check this out. Motherlode of stats on young voters

Again, this stuff is positively amazing. Look at the turnout numbers for voters 18-29. It went up 10 percentage points from 2000. Wow!

This is another fascinating piece of the statistical puzzle.

http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/FactSheets/FS_04_noncollege_vote.pdf