Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do - Expanded Edition

As you would expect from as well known a statistician as Andrew German, the statistical presentation of his analysis and conclusions showing not much more than graphical illustrations is exemplary. I learned a lot about U.S. politics from reading the book.That said, the second edition was published in 2010 and ending with the Obama election of 2008. Fascinating as it is, the book is crying out to be updated for the rest of the Obama elections and, most importantly for those of Trump and Biden.Please, Prof. Gelman, do think of updating the book as a model of simply illustrated and explained political analysis.

Gelman, et. al., offer the political science version of pop-social science, in the Gladwell-Freakonomics vein. They do a fine job, though not quite reaching the captivating levels of Gladwell, etc.Since the 2000 election and the near dead even split in the electorate, the "red-blue" divide has captivated politicos. The blue states voted for Gore and Kerry, and the red states put George W. Bush in the White House. What has amazed a few people is the fact that the poor states are the red states, which seemed to fly in the face of the storyline that the poor normally vote Democratic. Why do red-poor states - those states that actually take more money from the federal government than their inhabitants pay towards the federal government - vote Republican? Some, like Thomas Frank in "What's the Matter with Kansas?," suggested that poor folks were suckered into voting Republican because Party leaders hyped social issues (abortion, gay marriage) to get the poor on board, all the while ensuring tax cuts were passed for the benefit of the wealthy. It is intriguing to note that after the better part of 30 years of time in the White House, Republicans really haven't done a great job of passing conservative social legislation, but have done a fine job with tax cuts that have largely benefited the wealthy (the wealthy do, of course, pay most of the taxes). Well, Gelman and the rest rebut Frank by pointing out that the poor do indeed - in all states - vote more for the Democratic Party than do the wealthy. Again, that is the case even in red states. Granted, there is probably a higher proportion of poor folks in red states voting Republican than they do in blue states, but even in red states the poor are more likely to vote Democratic. It's the WEALTHY who are causing the red-blue divide. That is, the wealthy are more likely to defect from their financial interests, and they do so, obviously, in the blue states. Furthermore, it is the wealthy who are arguing over social policy, and the poor are sticking to their economic interests. Most importantly for the Democratic Party, Gelman and friends point out that, contrary to the arguments of the left, Democrats would not improve electoral outcomes by becoming more liberal. Doing so will only cause more moderates to leave the Democratic Party. Still, as any Democrat has should have learned, the winning strategy is not always the chosen strategy.Regardless, "Red State, Blue State..." is an easy to read book with plenty of citations for any reader who wants to dig deeper into the theory, methodology, and articles of serious public opinion and voting behavior scholarship.My biggest complaints about the book aren't too big. First, the early chapters were particularly choppy and almost read as cut-and-paste efforts. Thankfully the nuggets were interesting, but the overall themes were elusive. Second, for a short book, the price is a bit steep. Don't get me wrong: I love an easy to read short book, but don't charge me a big book price for it. Otherwise, a fine job on an important issue, which may be a little less relevant now with President-electObama's impressive 2008 victory. A few missteps by him, however, and we're right back to the 49-49 split with the increased likelihood of red state led Republican victories.

Gelman challenges what is increasingly the cliched way of viewing American politics--latte drinking, relatively well off Democrats vs. Wal-Mart, religious, working class Republicans. He instead offers clear data that demonstrates that most people on the poorer end of the political spectrum vote for Democrats, while most wealthier people vote Republican. So why the pattern of wealthier blue states and poorer red states? In blue states, a substantial portion of wealthier people vote Democratic, while in red states, most wealthier people stick with the Republicans. Thus in blue states, income doesn't predict all that well who you are going to vote for, while in Red states it does. My first intuition, when faced with this pattern, was to presume that it could be explained in good part by race, i.e. poorer people in red states like Mississippi are often African Americans, who vote heavily Democratic. But Gelman presents evidence that this is not the entire explanation. Notwithstanding everything you may have heard, poorer whites in these states tend to vote Democratic as well (albeit not in as high numbers as African Americans). The culture/taste wars between abortion rights, gay marriage, NPR vs. megachurches and Fox news is mainly being played out among the middle class and wealthy, who are sorting themselves into red and blue counties, and Republicans and Democrats, labels which are more meaningful than they used to be regarding ones social/cultural vision for the country. This is extremely interesting and useful to know, but beyond this point (restated and turned around many times), the book does not have much depth. There is virtually no ethnographic detail, only conclusions drawn from polls (and even those aren't all that fine-grained). To his credit, Gelman examines voting patterns in Mexico as well (American social scientists, and journalists are notorious for analysing the US in a vacuum). But this chapter fails to make much of an impact. Mexico votes in a perhaps less unexpected manner--the wealthier north goes conservative, while the poorer states of the south vote for the left party; but this probably has much to do with the more substantial economic policy differences between the parties in Mexico compared to the US. There is no detailed analysis of the political evolution of particular states in the US. He also tends to leave things at wealthier and poorer voters, without looking at more specific income groups or professions, or considering factors like union membership. If you are skeptical about this analysis, or wish to be clear on how Gelman arrived at his conclusions, by all means read the book. Otherwise you can probably glean enough of the analysis from this and other customer reviews.

I read this book as a psychologist who is familiar with Gelman's work in statistics, and so if this book had been written by someone else, I never would have noticed it. I thought it had a lot of great insights, and a lot of very clever ways of thinking about how to analyze political (or any) data. The book is not full of numbers, in fact I don't think there is a single table of numbers in it - everything is done with graphs.Occasionally I would have liked more information on the analysis techniques used, but I realize I'm probably in a minority.

Perfect book on quantitive research on American Politics. It is focused on the statistical analysis mainly on 2004 and 2008 voting. Basically, it has nothing to do with political philosophy. It is data that tells everything. And in fact, it is Gelman's style!

This book provides an excellent explanation for why states vote the way they do. It's a book that can be appreciated by political scientists but also enjoyed by the average voter.

Excelent explanation of the crude divide in the American electorate.

very good