Dataset of the Day: Voting Trends for Women in Swing States

The biggest story in political news lately has been Sarah Palin, John McCain’s choice for Vice President of the United States of America. To understand how McCain’s choice in VP could impact the election we need to look at a few issues, including demographics in the key swing states; specifically Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico Michigan, Indiana, and North Carolina.

The Palin target demographic seems to be women under the age of 50, which makes up between 12-15% of the total population, which could have a serious impact on the race. This however assumes that the women in this demographic would vote for a McCain/Palin ticket, which is tough to call regardless of the demographics.

Here we have the Census data showing us women between the ages of 18-50 using the thematic map with points showing cities with women serving as Mayor. This doesn’t show a clear correlation between this 18-50 year old women demographic and the number of women that go on to serve in local government, but there are some indicators. Washington DC , Utah, and Georgia all have a very high percentage of this demographic, and yet they have no female Mayors. This seems to suggest that women don’t necessarily vote for women and other factors take priority such as age or policy issues.

The way that women vote is obviously still important and the Palin choice could still have an impact for the McCain Campaign, especially in key swing states noted earlier.

This map shows women ages 18-50 which are likely to vote normalized by total population that is likely to vote, showing us which states would be impacted most by women’s votes . From here was can look at the swing states where this demographic could have the greatest impact (Orange and Yellow States). Based on this, my guess on the battleground states would be Colorado and Virginia followed by New Hampshire, Indiana, and North Carolina.