A year ago, I analyzed the education levels of Democratic and Republican voters for a total of five Presidential and Midterm elections. In that analysis, I had concluded that people at both the high and low ends of the educational spectrum had tended to favor Democratic candidates, and therefore, that the assertion that liberals were smarter than conservatives was an overly simplistic notion with little basis in the actual data. Below, I have republished the original article in its entirety, and have also included new data from the 2012 Presidential elections. Not surprisingly, last year’s conclusion still holds.
A surprising amount of anti-conservative bigotry on the web asserts that conservatives are inherently less intelligent than liberals. Admittedly, some prominent conservatives make statements that go against the mainstream scientific consensus on topics such as global warming and Darwin’s theory of evolution. That said, these examples do not mean that being a conservative automatically implies a lower IQ or education level than being a liberal does.
I decided to run the numbers to test this assertion, and it turns out it is not true. However, a far more interesting pattern emerges that confirms a theory I have always held, but had never taken the time to test.
In my opinion, certain liberal policies appear to have an underlying paternalistic tone. They hold that the poor and uneducated need the help of wiser government bureaucrats to protect them from themselves. Many liberals believe it is unfair for society to hold people accountable for their own condition. Therefore, the ignorant and benighted conservative voter should just fall in line and let the ivory tower intelligentsia dictate how society ought to run people’s lives. The intellectual is, after all, so much smarter than the average working stiff.
Of course, average working stiffs and/or business owners who have some college or are college graduates have made their own way in the world, have taken risk, and have a strong desire to control their own fates. They resent fiats from a central authority led by a group of over-educated individuals with little or no prior business experience.
To implement this idealistic worldview, mainstream liberalism needs muscle, and that muscle comes from the undereducated masses who stand to benefit from a dogma seeking to redistribute the income earned by others directly to them.
As such, the distribution of liberal and conservative education levels should differ sharply. Liberal education levels should have fatter tails at the low and high ends of the educational spectrum, while conservative education levels should be more concentrated in the middle.
To test my theory, I looked at education levels by voter in the 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012 presidential elections, as well as the 2006 and 2010 midterm elections. In every case, the share of people with no high school education was higher among people voting for Democratic candidates than it was among people voting for Republican candidates. On the opposite end of the spectrum, in every case, the share of people with a postgraduate education was higher among people voting for Democratic candidates than it was among people voting for Republican candidates.
The voting trends by party and education for each of these elections are listed below:
The 2000 Presidential Election
The 2004 Presidential Election
The 2006 Midterm Election
The 2008 Presidential Election
The 2010 Midterm Election
The 2012 Presidential Election
Based on the above data, it seems clear that people at both the high and low ends of the educational spectrum tend to favor Democratic candidates. Therefore, the assertion that liberals are smarter than conservatives is an overly simplistic notion with little basis in the actual data.
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The differences I think are statistically insignificant – as you already alluded. I think that there are similar disparities between other groups, say between whites and blacks for example in the various education categories. Would those liberals who use the argument you referred to also say that whites are ‘smarter’ than blacks because of these disparities? I’d like to hear them say that out loud (and make it public!).
Ah, such supreme cognitive dissonance!
Liberals would never make such an argument even though it is entirely logically consistent with their argument that liberals are smarter than conservatives.
Yes, and as a matter of fact the disparities between black/white and even men/women in the sciences are even MORE significant than the minor and mixed data that you have cited. For instance, it is well known that men vastly outnumber women in engineering and the sciences (especially in physics) — an issue that has been discussed to death in various professional journals — but liberals would not dare conclude from these that men are MUCH smarter than women. There are far more complex social and other issues that come into play that might account for these significant differences — but bigoted or sexist conclusions aren’t one of them.
Interesting post. I would add that “more educated” does not mean “smarter”. In fact, in the public policy arena, “more educated” often equates to “dumber”, especially when false liberal premises are followed to their logical conclusions. Flawed policies always flow from false premises.
John,
I totally agree. I hope all is well!
Same to you, Sean. Happy New Year to you and your family! (PS–I posted this in several FB groups. Some interesting comments are coming in…hopefully, you’ll be seeing an increase in “hits”.)
You too, John! And thanks for the shares! I can already see their effect in my stats!
I think it is interesting that in the midterms, high school graduates voting Republican were slightly less than Democrats, while in the Presidential elections they were slightly more. I also think that it would be interesting to break down the post-graduates by their field of studies. My theory is that fields such as Engineering, Medicine and Economics would have a higher percentage of Republicans and fields such as Anthropology, Philosophy and Education would have a higher number of Democrats. I totally agree with John’s comment. Apparently having a higher level of education does not make you less susceptible to campaign rhetoric. I’ll take experience and common sense over an advanced degree every time.
It would definitely be an interesting study. I know for sure that lawyers voted disproportionately Democrat. I also think that more folks in math and science fields would vote Republican.
I feel it is more of what drives a person ideologically then education. I’m a Hispanic. I’m also a naturalized citizen. I have voted Republican since I was allowed to vote. And I am a product of NYC publics school, believe it or not. I was disgusted how many of my Hispanic neighbors would vote for Democrats because of what freebies they would get from them. So I decided to vote against that frame of thought and have not made too many friends since then.
That’s an intriguing perspective, Octavian. I agree that ideology is the key driver. I think education levels don’t drive voting behavior, but are merely correlated with it.
I don’t have statistics, but talking to young Obama voters I am related to, it strikes me at how uninformed they are . They tend to be single issue voters, gay marriage, abortion rights, free health care, etc . Ask them about Benghazi, fast and furious, or the deficit, and they have no clue what you are talking about .
That’s actually very scary, Alan.
Since you are trying to present an argument with a scientific rationale Sean, I think your premise on this subject is seriously flawed based on this comment of yours:
“A surprising amount of anti-conservative bigotry on the web asserts that conservatives are inherently less intelligent than liberals.”
If you’re in an Irish bar and here most people bad mouthing protestants do you automatically presume all Irish people hate Protestants or is it because you think all irish people who bash protestants are catholics? Your sample size – A surprising amount of anti-conservative bigotry on the web – is hardly a representative sample of liberals. And how many of these assertions you have heard on the web comparing liberals and conservatives are just simply reflections of angry people of no established ideology but just railing against some conservatives, not all, specifically the new ranks of the GOP we tend to refer to as the Tea Party?
You and those who seem to support you here appear to be guilty of creating a straw man that you can easily knock down with some data you’ve acquired from a news poll, making it convenient for you to see and hear what you want to.
You’re playing loose with the scientific method Sean. That’s not very nice.
LB,
I’m doing no such thing. First, my contention that “there is a surprising amount of anti-conservative bigotry” was deliberately framed as an opinion, not a quantitative certainty. It has nothing to do with the scientific method, though the data from my analysis does support a more nuanced conclusion.
That said, read any Krugman column or New York Times article, and you’d conclude that Republicans are nothing but a group of anti-science racist reactionaries.
I concur, Sean. I not only see the anti-conservative bias every day in “news” articles from the NY Times and “reports” from ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, but I’m also a frequent target of Left Wing vitriol. I’m not sure how many times I’ve been told to “die a slow and painful death” on Twitter (just for supporting or retweeting a conservative candidate) but I estimate that number to be in the hundreds, just in the 2012 election cycle. There is a mountain of anectdotal and empirical evidence to support your contention should you choose to write a follow up blog on the subject.
“That said, read any Krugman column or New York Times article, and you’d conclude that Republicans are nothing but a group of anti-science racist reactionaries”
Sorry, I disagree. I still think you are reading too much into this. Klugman’s comments are generally aimed at the extremist element in the GOP, which you must admit seems to be how most come across today.
Many of us on the liberal side of this argument have concerns that the GOP of old has been hijacked by an irrational faction and in effect makes the whole Party look bad. There appears to be no more true conservatives anymore, especially along the lines of Edmond Burke. Only Ayn Rand radicals. This too is why the Party can’t garner the support it needs from Independents and moderates in either Party, something they were able to do under Nixon and Reagan.
Take a closer look at this criticism from legitimate sources and I think that is what you’ll see.
“Klugman’s comments are generally aimed at the extremist element in the GOP, which you must admit seems to be how most come across today.”
LB, Yes, it can be argued that these reports are aimed at the extremist element, but then where are the reports on the “normal” Republicans? The reason most Republicans come across as extremist is because that is how they are portrayed by the mainstream media and entertainment industry. The media no longer reports the culture, it shapes the culture. Where I grew up, most people went to church on Sunday, owned guns, and pretty much lived by the motto, “you reap what you sow”. Most of these people were hard working, honest, compassionate, people of integrity and were considered the “norm”. In today’s culture these same people would be looked upon with suspicion and considered radical.
It was the emphasis on the truly extremist factions of the Republican party, that scared away many moderates. Not that the party has been overrun by them. I think the party lost ground with Independents because they felt the party lacked sincerity in limiting the size and scope of government.
“Klugman” is dead. (RIP, Oscar Madison). Also, your rant is complete hogwash.
What a bunch of BS
Michael, can you please be more specific?
Hi Sean,
I must be missing something. The sources you cite don’t seem to correspond to your bar graphs? Below are the stats for 2008 for example. Your source has Obama taking every category. There appear to be similar discrepancies in 06 and 2012? Any clarity you can provide is appreciated. -Joe
Total
Obama McCain Other/No Answer
No High School (4%)
63%
35%
2%
H.S. Graduate (20%)
52%
46%
2%
Some College (31%)
51%
47%
2%
College Graduate (28%)
50%
48%
2%
Postgraduate (17%)
58%
40%
2%
Joe,
That’s right. I normalized the data, because otherwise, Democrats would have more representation at every educational level. So what I did was calculate the number of Republican voters at each education level and divided by the total number of Republicans. I did the same thing for Democrats. That way, I could compare the distributions of voters by education level on an apples to apples basis.
Does that make sense?
Yes, Thanks. Can I ask how you actually calculated the number of Republican voters at each education level? Or do you mean you calculated the number of voters who voted for the Republican candidate at each education level? I’ve attempted the former and found it a challenge greater than I’m willing to undertake this late at night. :^) Cheers, -Joe
I did the latter. It helps to use Excel. Otherwise, it gets confusing.
Okay, well then I’m not sure the data backs up your theory as much as it may appear. There isn’t actually any way to calculate the number of Republican voters at each education level, which is what you would need to begin to confirm your theory. What we are given is the percent of voters who voted for the candidates, and from that you can derive the number of individuals, but not the party affiliation.
For example, in 2008 we know that 713 (4%) respondents had no high school, and of that 713, 63% voted for Obama. This tells us that 449 people voted Obama and had no high school, but it doesn’t tell us that they are Democrats. For all we know, every one of those 449 voters were Republicans. After all, we know that 514 (9%) Republicans voted for Obama in 2008, but we don’t know their education levels. Perhaps they were all doctors, perhaps not.
What you appear to have done is to assume that voters at every education level only voted for their own party, but this is assuredly inaccurate. After all, what about Independents?
That said, the trend you identify may be correct, especially given the fact that the raw data itself shows more support for Democrats at both ends of the educational spectrum. However, I disagree with you that the data “confirms” the theory you “have always held”. To confirm that theory would require much more comprehensive evidence in my opinion.
I agree 100% with you that I can’t make the argument for Republicans and Democrats. I was sloppy with my terminology in the comments section. In the blog post, I think I was careful to frame it as liberals vs. conservatives (not Democrats vs. Republicans) for the same reasons you mentioned. That said, even that can be problematic, because some conservatives on the margin may have voted for a Democrat and some liberals may have voted for a Republican. However, in today’s hyper partisan environment, I think it is safe to say that the number of these folks is so small as to be statistically insignificant in any given sample.
I’m not so much interested in what level of education those who identify as liberals or conservatives have. I’d be more interested in what school within academia they graduated from. I suspect this would illustrate the real disparity in the educational differentiation between the two ideologies. I speculate that those who graduate with degrees in science and humanities would generally tend to be more liberal, whereas those who graduate in business practicum and economics would tend to be conservative. If you have some way of parsing the data to reflect this, we might have something to converse about. Otherwise, IMHO, you’re not really saying anything substantial here.
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