Dataset of the Day: How Did the Rich Vote?

In my last blog post, I looked at places with the most $1 Million + Homes in order to get an idea of where more people will be affected by Obama’s tax increase. Since the election, some polls have come out giving an idea of how voters with different income levels voted. The CNN exit poll includes incomes of $200,000 and over. These are people who will not receive a tax cut from Obama, and who may actually see their taxes increase.

Was Obama’s tax plan on voter’s minds when they went into the booths last Tuesday, as the McCain campaign was hoping?

I took a quick look at the state by state results of voters earning $200 thousand and more and those earning less than $50 thousand. If voters make a decision based on tax plans only; I would expect that those making above $200 thousand to vote for McCain, who said he would not raise their taxes, and those making less than $50 thousand to vote for Obama, who said he would give them a tax cut.


View these maps here

Interestingly, of the states where income was polled, the results were split. Unfortunately, not all states were included and all of the states that were polled were states that Obama won with the exception of Texas. Of course, I would imagine that in states where the ideology was primarily conservative, wealthy citizens would also vote that way. However, in the states that went democratic overall, they were split between those where the $200 thousand and over demographic voted with their state and those where that demographic voted instead for McCain.

Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, and California are all states that Obama won, but where he lost the vote of those who earn $200 or more. I wonder if his tax plan had anything to do with that. Meanwhile in Nevada, Colorado, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida and New Hampshire, the top earners voted with their state, but technically against their financial interests (in terms of taxes at least).

Analysis by the Red State Blue State Rich State Poor State Blog shows that overall, within the $200 thousand income category, republican votes decreased in the share of total votes from 2004. This is surprising given the current economic environment. Perhaps these Americans see a more even redistribution of wealth as a good approach to fixing the economy even though they will not benefit directly. Or perhaps there is another policy issue on which more wealthy Americans agree with Obama’s policy.

So how about those earning less than $50 thousand?


View these maps here

This map is more predictable. In almost all of the states where Obama won, the lowest earners also voted for Obama. The exceptions are Vermont and Massachusetts where those earning less than $50 thousand voted for McCain even though the state overall went for Obama.

On the other hand, there were quite a few states where those earning less than $50 thousand voted for Obama while the state went for McCain. Since you would think that the majority of people in the country do make less than $50 thousand, it’s surprising then that their preference didn’t win out. That may be because Obama led among this demographic by a smaller margin in many of these states. Either way, it looks like the possibility of tax increases for a minority of Americans did not particularly hurt Obama.

For further analysis, Check out the dataset yourself and play with them in Maker! to see if you can find any interesting voting patterns.

For further discussion on the topic, visit http://www.newsweek.com/id/168333

We also have more datasets on the 2008 election exit poll: religion, education, gender and age, and race.