Generic D, Generic R: What does that mean?
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  Generic D, Generic R: What does that mean?
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Author Topic: Generic D, Generic R: What does that mean?  (Read 236 times)
justfollowingtheelections
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« on: December 14, 2012, 12:45:50 AM »

I've noticed that different people have different opinions on what the above phrases mean, so by using the CNN exit poll data I was able to find the characteristics of the "average" Democrat and Republican.  These are actually the characteristics of the average Obama and Romney voter, but obviously Obama voter=Democrat and Romney voter=Republican in most cases.
For most of these I used the median voter, with the exception of a few characteristics where that wasn't possible and I used the frequency (one such example is race).
There are some quite interesting findings.

The average Democrat is:
A straight 44 year old, single white Protestant woman, who attends church a few times a year and whose home has no children under 18.
She is not a union member, works full-time, has some college education and an annual income of $53k.
She is moderate in her political beliefs and opposes the Tea Party.
She believes the most important issue is the economy and the major economic problem is unemployment.  She believes the economy is not doing so good, but is getting better.
She supports increasing taxes for those with an income of more than $250k to reduce the deficit.
She believes the government should do more and that the economic system favors the wealthy.
She believes same-sax marriage should be legal and abortion mostly legal.  The 2010 health care law should be expanded and illegal immigrants should be given legal status.
To her, a good leader is someone who cares about people.
Finally, she believes the country is in the right direction.

The average Republican is:
A straight 49 year old, married white protestant man, who attends church on a weekly basis and whose home has no children under 18.
He is not a union member, works full-time, has some college education and an annual income of $74k.
He is conservative in his political beliefs, but neutral towards the Tea Party.
He believes the most important issue is the economy and the major economic problem is the rising cost of living.  He believes the economy is doing poorly and only getting worse.
He doesn't support increasing taxes to reduce the deficit, not even for those with an income higher than $250k.
He believes the government is doing too much and that the economic system is fair.
He believes same-sex marriage should be legal, but abortion mostly illegal.  The 2010 health care law should be repealed completely, but illegal immigrants should be given legal status.
To him, a good leader is someone with a vision for the future.
Finally, he believes the country is on the wrong track.
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DC Al Fine
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« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2012, 12:00:47 PM »

It'd be interesting if they broke down religion further (I.e. Evangelical vs Mainline, not just a generic "Protestant"), Otherwise, it was a neat survey.
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Indy Texas
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« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2012, 06:54:38 PM »

I'm just annoyed that they didn't bother exit polling half the country because they didn't want to do "safe" states.
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