IRCPPS in the Links: Income and Voting, US 2010 Midterm Elections

voteview blog has two pieces analyzing some of the determinants of voting in the 2010 US mid-term elections:

Below we show the relationship between income and voting in the 2010 Midterm Elections using the Current Population Survey (CPS, November 2010: Voting and Registration Supplement). In the graph below we plot participation by family income level (1 to 16, beginning at $5000 with the top 5 categories being $60,000, $75,000, $100,000, $150,000, and $250,000 or more). The relationship between voting and income is quite clear. Around $30,000 family income about 50% in the category vote with the participation rising to 70% at higher income levels.

Abstracting: The Democratic Deficit in US States

In the Monkey Cage, Andrew Gelman passes along an article by Jeff Lax and Justin Phillips:

We study how well states translate public opinion into policy. Using national surveys and advances in subnational opinion estimation, we estimate state-level support for 39 policies across eight issue areas, including abortion, law enforcement, health care, and education. We show that policy is highly responsive to policy-specific opinion, even controlling for other influences. But we also uncover a striking “democratic deficit”: policy is congruent with majority will only half the time. The analysis considers the influence of institutions, salience, partisan control of government, and interest groups on the magnitude and ideological direction of this democratic deficit. We find the largest influences to be legislative professionalization, term limits, and issue salience. Partisanship and interest groups affect the ideological balance of incongruence more than the aggregate degree thereof. Finally, policy is overresponsive to ideology and party—leading policy to be polarized relative to state electorates.

IRCPPS in the Links: More on US Senate Rule Suspensions

Gregory Kroger has a detailed history of the procedure in the Monkey Cage:

...By itself, last night’s precedent is not a major reform.  The “right” to vote on suspending the rules after cloture is invoked was almost never used until last year.  And since this “right” has only been used to record senators positions on defeated proposals rather than, you know, change public policy for the better, I am reasonably confident** that the republic will survive.  The minority party can still force votes on pet amendments, but now the bar to do so has been raised.  Instead of a single member filing a motion to suspend the rules and subsequently forcing a vote on the motion, now the minority party must band together and vote against cloture until they are guaranteed a vote on their priorities....

IRCPPS in the Links: How Divisive is too Divisive in US Presidential Primaries?

Jonathan Robinson writes in the Monkey Cage:

The “Niggerhead” incident and related mudslinging among the GOP presidential candidates prompts the question: how competitive is too competitive when it comes to primaries? Political scientists have long studied what is called the divisive primary hypothesis, and John wrote a post back in early 2008 (see also the comments) that presented some relevant research. John suggested that divisive primaries had little effect on the nominee’s performance in the general election...

IRCPPS in the Links: How US Political Campaign Advertising Works

John Sides writes on the subject in 538:

So what do we know about campaign advertising? There is a better answer to this question. Just as Mr. Beane turned to math geeks, we can turn to a different species of geek: political scientists. Here are the lessons of their research about when campaign advertising does and does not matter.

1. Campaign ads matter more when the candidates are unfamiliar...
2. Campaign ads matter more when a candidate can outspend the opponent...
3. Campaign ads can matter, but not for long...