Andrew Gelman, David Park, Boris Shor, Joseph Bafumi, and Jeronimo Cortina. Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do

Abstract

Although the poor in America tend to vote Democratic and the wealthy tend to vote Republican, the news media often depict Democrats as arugula eating yuppies. Nicholas Kristof, for one, has attributed Democratic electoral losses to the “yuppification of the Democratic Party.” This puzzling disconnect lies at the center of this intriguing book. To explain this phenomenon, the authors compare the behavior of groups across states. Wealthy states tend to vote Democratic, but wealthy individuals tend to vote Republican, a pattern the authors call the red-blue paradox. This paradox, they show, emerged in the 1980s, becoming more stark after 1992, and leading to a great deal of confusion. This book seeks to explain where the red-blue paradox comes from and what it means for American politics. The explanation for this paradox, the authors argue, lies in the behavior of the rich: rich people in rich states have shifted to the Democratic Party over the last 20 years, while rich people in poor states have stayed with or shifted to the Republican Party.