2000 Nader Vote by County in MN versus swing to Kerry from Gore

[Torie]

Below is the scatter diagram, with the X axis the 2000 Nader percentage by county in Minnesota, and the Y axis is the percentage swing towards Kerry as compared to Gore's percentage. As one can see there is a correlation and a trend line in favor of the hypothesis that the higher the Nader percentage, the higher the swing, but it is very loose, and the R squared factor is only .07, which is tiny. So a LOT more was at play in the swing than the size of the Nader vote.

I am doing this because some of the usual suspects were marginalizing me by suggesting that I was all wet in the notion that Oregon might be close this year, because the only reason it was close in 2000 was Nader. Having gotten beyond themselves, it was time to take off the gloves.

[Torie]

Minnesota is better because it has more counties, and thus more data points. And the size of the trend to Kerry should not affect the degree of the scatter (the R squared factor); rather  just where the intercept is, and the  slope.

[Torie]

Well to appease the clammering throng of tendentious enfant terribles, I will "do" Oregon in due course.

[Torie]

That is all splendid Beet if one assumes that both 1) Nader voters are Gore/Kerry voters, and 2) the fewer Nadar voters in a county, the more Bush 2000 voters went to Kerry. If true, that would all be extremely curious. But yes, one way to neutralize my data is to assume that there was some other factor behind the curtain that offsets the swing of Nader voters to Kerry, and thus on the surface makes it appear to disappear, but it's really there! 

[Torie]

Yes, that is why a lot of data points are good. Either there is a pattern or there isn't, and then one can speculate why. I already said there were polls that had 40% of Nader voters going to Gore, and 20% to Bush, but that was greeted with skepticism. There is this desire to unduly demonize Nader for the ascension of Bush.

[Torie]

The Nader thing does appear to be more robust in Oregon. I hate when that happens! More at 11, or something.