Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do (Hardcover)

~ (Author), (Author), Boris Shor (Author), Joseph Bafumi (Author), Jeronimo Cortina (Author)
Key Phrases: richer voters, rich voters, zero line correspond, United States, Democratic Party, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

As the 2008 election season reaches its peak, media pundits will speak gravely of the deep ideological divisions reflected in a political map of red and blue states, but according to Gelman (statistics & political science, Columbia Univ.), much of the analysts' glib assessments is misguided and does little to advance our understanding of why Americans have voted as they have. He crunched U.S. survey and election data as far back as 1952; compared his data where appropriate to similar data from Mexico, Canada, and other countries; and discovered that the economic status of individuals and the economic conditions of each state as a whole lead to two different conclusions: on the one hand, the less wealthy a voter is, the more likely the voter is to cast a ballot for a Democrat; the better-off the voter, the more likely he or she is to vote Republican. Yet states with a higher average income are more likely to support a Democratic presidential candidate. He discovered that wealthy voters in a poor state (e.g., Mississippi, with many poor) consistently support Republicans, while Connecticut, with many wealthy, regularly backs Democrats. Ohio is near the center of income distribution and alternates between the parties. This seeming paradox is lost on the media's talking heads because they focus only on the state-level data, leading them to the simplistic red-blue paradigm, ignoring the importance of individual voters' decisions. Gelman finds that the above relationships hold on a county level as well. After examining other factors such as religiosity and cultural values for clues to explain voting behavior, he offers suggestions about how the Democratic Party can improve its chances in the 2008 election. This is a fascinating, well-written, and thoroughly researched work that deserves a wide audience. Highly recommended for all libraries.—Thomas J. Baldino, Wilkes Univ., PA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

If you're interested in understanding the state of the art in the geography and demographics of American public opinion as we head down the final stretch of the presidential race (and who isn't!), this is a book you shouldn't miss.
(Will Wilkinson The Fly Bottle )

Gelman works his way, state by state, to help us better understand the relationship of class, culture, and voting. The book is a terrific read and offers much insight into the changing electoral landscape.
(Sudhir Venkatesh Freakonomics blog )

Attempting to explain 'why Americans vote the way they do,' Gelman and a group of fellow political scientists crunch numbers and draw graphs, arriving at a picture that refutes the influential one drawn by Thomas Frank, in What's the Matter with Kansas?, of poor red-staters voting Republican against their economic interests. Instead, Gelman persuasively argues, the poor in both red states and blue still mostly vote Democratic, and the rich, nationally speaking, overwhelmingly vote Republican.
(Leo Carey The New Yorker )

The thesis of this topical book is that how Americans vote depends on where they live as well as who they are. Gelman makes this argument clearly and repeatedly in colloquial language, in black and white graphics and in maps coloured red and blue. . . . A major strength of the book is that it shows the importance of changes in America in the past half century.
(Times Higher Education )

The most creative analyses in Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State use Gelman's multilevel methods. But the technical background is nearly invisible: Here there are no equations and few numbers--rather, one finds dozens of revealing graphics, all of which are very clear. The book is unusual in aiming to enlighten the general lay reader through a step-by-step analysis, not merely to engage in a debate with other political scientists. Through a clear and crisp writing style, it quotes and refutes many widespread views of journalists and political pundits, even as it builds on the political science literature . . . this fun-to-read book may become a minor classic.
(Terry Nichols Clark and Christopher Graziul Science )

The aim of this book, Mr. Gelman tells us, is to debunk the media's oversimplified account of what happened in red and blue states in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Writing in the same spirit as Freakonomics authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Mr. Gelman sets out to 'correct' the received wisdom. . . . This is the Freakonomics-style analysis that every candidate and campaign consultant should read.
(Robert Sommer New York Observer )

According to Gelman, much of the analysts' glib assessments is misguided and does little to advance our understanding of why Americans have voted as they have. He crunched U.S. survey and election data as far back as 1952 . . . and discovered that the economic status of individuals and the economic conditions of each state as a whole lead to two different conclusions: on the one hand, the less wealthy a voter is, the more likely the voter is to cast a ballot for a Democrat; the better-off the voter, the more likely he or she is to vote Republican. Yet states with a higher average income are more likely to support a Democratic presidential candidate. . . . This is a fascinating, well-written, and thoroughly researched work that deserves a wide audience. Highly recommended for all libraries.
(Thomas J. Baldino Library Journal )

Commentators on both the left (Thomas Frank) and the right (David Brooks) have theorized about why working-class Kansas farmers and latte-sipping Maryland suburbanites vote against their economic interests. Gelman says, 'Both sides on this argument are trying too hard to explain something that's simply not true.' The real paradox, he says, is that while rich states lean Democratic, rich people generally vote Republican; while poor states lean Republican, poor people generally vote Democratic.
(Alan Cooperman Washington Post Book World )

Looking at the numbers as far back as 1952, this book debunks much of what we think we know about voting trends. Buy one today! Amuse your friends! Annoy your enemies! Bring cocktail party conversations to a grinding halt.
(Susan Campbell The Hartford Courant )

Andrew Gelman's Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State can be summed up with extreme concision: Rich people vote Republican, but rich states vote Democratic. Poor people vote Democratic, but poor states vote Republican. That's pretty weird. But to Gelman, it's worse than weird. It's unknown. . . . At the most basic level, this is an argument for complexity. The country is not as simple as some would have it, and if that means political discussion segments need to be lengthened from two minutes to four minutes, then tough. But it's also an argument for data, and for increased rigor among the chattering class.
(Ezra Klein Barnes and Noble Review )

Full of interesting arguments and insights that will turn many deep-seated beliefs about American politics on their head, and make a lot of people reconsider their assumptions and biases.
(Stefan Fergus Civilian Reader )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; illustrated edition edition (July 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 069113927X
• ISBN-13: 978-0691139272
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #188,411 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #55 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Political Science > Elections
  #92 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Statistics

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear and accessible; Important argument, September 22, 2008

By	Ed Wingenbach "political scientist" (Redlands, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a wonderful book for those interested in American politics and elections. While drawing heavily on the existing research in political science and advancing that research in significant ways, the book is written for a general audience. I found it refreshingly clear without dumbing down the material. I decided to use the book in my introductory level political science class this semester and my students have responded very well. They were excited by the argument and able to develop an understanding of how to do good research on political questions. The many graphic representations of data were particularly useful, as the students were able to use those graphs and charts to reconstruct Gelman's argument on their own, which made this an even more valuable learning experience.

This book advances an important argument, and should be required reading for journalists. Just last week I heard a talking head prattle on about rich people voting for democrats and poor people supporting republicans, something that, as Gelman shows definitively, is completely false. By removing this false assumption, Gelman is then able to show what's really going on in our polarized politics: cultural and religious differences among middle class and wealthy voters drive the red/blue division. His suggestions for how this information should be used by campaigns and researchers are useful.

In short, non-specialists and students will find this book engaging, accessible, and full of interesting and counter-intuitive arguments. Specialists should find the book useful for the compilation of data and previous research in one place, and if they teach political science will want to consider using this text in lower division American politics and methods courses.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting material, but read the academic paper instead, October 13, 2008

By	Stephen R. Laniel (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I like it when books make clear that there's a paradox in the everyday way we discuss things. In Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State, the paradox is as follows: rich people vote Republican, but rich states vote Democrat. Why is that?

Isn't that a lovely little problem? The answer is just as interesting: partisanship is much more important in poor states than it is in rich states. The poor in Texas and Mississippi are Democrat, while the rich are Republican. The poor and the rich in Connecticut -- the canonical other end of the wealth spectrum -- are about equally Democratic. Ohio, which is halfway between Mississippi and Connecticut on the income, is also divided in its party affiliation.

A host of questions fall out of this, among them: why, then, is Connecticut uniformly Democrat? To put it more precisely: why are the wealthy in Connecticut Democrats, where elsewhere they would be Republicans? Why are the wealthy Republicans? Why are the poor Democrats? And why does this partisan divide appear more in poor states than in wealthy ones?

The answers Gelman comes up with are quite interesting, but I'm not sure I'd recommend that you read this book to get them. Instead I might point you to Gelman's earlier paper, "Rich State, Poor State, Red State, Blue State: What's the Matter with Connecticut?". (The title is a hat tip to Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.) The paper is a quicker read, and as such doesn't feel quite as repetitive as the book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a light read, November 10, 2008

By	C. P. Anderson (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is really just a warning for those of you out there who, based on this book's catchy title, might think it's another Blink, Nudge, Click, etc. It is most definitely not. There is a LOT of data here, and it's not always discussed in the friendliest fashion possible. Yes, there is tons of interesting stuff, but it's really not very accessible.

The writer's style seems to be one of an academic trying to write a popularization. Lots of stops and starts, lots of digressions, lots of repetition, lots of half-digested material. Flow seemed to be the biggest problem, with the author introducing one chart after another, but with very little feel for identifying an argument and advancing it forward.

Overall, very interesting data, but very poor writing.