Income, geography, and the amendments: a look at the association between income and voting

There's much map-posting going on about votes on the amendments that were on Minnesota's ballots, with some expressing surprise that the voter restriction amendment fared so poorly in Greater Minnesota.

Having spent much of the summer and fall writing about how the issue was covered in Greater Minnesota newspapers--including the discussion showing up in local papers' letters section--Bluestem wasn't surprised by the "No" votes, since the proposal possibly would cause enormous unfunded mandates for local government, and money is tight as a bark on a tree for local governments in those areas where the property tax base isn't flush.

What surprised us more were those rural counties where citizens said yes,  especially in that large angry cluster of Voter Yes Twice counties north of the Cities but south of the Range, the Really North Woods and the wheat and beet fields of northwestern Minnesota. We're thinking of it as the "We're mean to everybody" zone.

One line of analysis has beenthat  rural Latino communities made the difference in voter restriction vote tallies, but Minnesota Public Radio's Dave Peters dispatches it in Latinos and voter ID:

If you look around the state at other cities with significant concentrations of Latino residents you get similarly ambiguous results. Willmar was slightly against the amendment. So were Le Center and Gaylord. Long Prairie, Melrose and Pelican Rapids voted in favor. All are in the top 10 outstate cites when it comes to percentage of Latino residents.

Voters in those cities uniformly supported Mitt Romney for president and they favored the marriage amendment that was also on the ballot.

So, frankly, I'm not sure what these voter ID results mean. Maybe nothing, other than the conclusion that factors other than race made the difference.

In that vein, check out this comparison between the photo ID and marriage amendment results. Why did the Minnesota River Valley, the far northwest and the extreme southeast vote against the photo ID amendment when similar demographic territory in central Minnesota, southwestern and western Minnesota voted yes?

What's the answer to that? Bluestem was noodling the question around, while GAC math  and computer science professor Max Hailperin was taking more serious pokes at the data.

Per capita income by county seems to be a factor--and those Greater Minnesota counties with lower per capita income that voted no on both amendments tend to be home to large student populations. (The southwwestern part of the state--known as "the six pack"--tends to be very socially, politically and religiously conservative).

Witness the voting no twice in Blue Earth, Rice, Winona, and Nicollet Counties--all home to large student populations:

County	Per Capita Income	%Y, Amend. 1	%Y, Amend. 2
Pine, MN	27,715	57.94	47.43
Mille Lacs, MN	28,036	60.73	53.3
Clearwater, MN	28,534	70.91	54.9
Todd, MN	29,077	71.19	55.1
Wadena, MN	29,226	69.59	57.19
Kanabec, MN	29,751	64.8	52.59
Mahnomen, MN	29,765	61.36	45.77
Aitkin, MN	30,214	62.34	50.42
Hubbard, MN	30,467	61.87	52.05
Lake of the Woods, MN	30,719	62.79	51.64
Carlton, MN	30,783	51.94	42.15
Beltrami, MN	31,381	51.08	45.42
Sherburne, MN	31,382	56.32	60.29
Rice, MN	31,509	46.29	44.09
Morrison, MN	32,027	67.85	56.48
Blue Earth, MN	32,109	45.83	43.6
Crow Wing, MN	32,130	59.75	54.63
Itasca, MN	32,277	55.66	40.86
Red Lake, MN	32,695	67.66	47.06
Chisago, MN	33,514	56.85	56.17
Benton, MN	33,586	55.39	55.11
Meeker, MN	33,796	64.47	50.04
Otter Tail, MN	34,033	66.88	55.91
Stearns, MN	34,147	53.03	52.95
Clay, MN	34,226	50.71	55.49
Winona, MN	34,350	47.03	46.16
Wright, MN	34,697	55.78	58.82
McLeod, MN	34,738	65.71	54.21
Koochiching, MN	35,165	52.67	42.37
Watonwan, MN	35,457	63.54	44.66
Isanti, MN	35,673	60.99	58.18
Becker, MN	35,941	63.26	53.63
Le Sueur, MN	35,970	57.57	49.49
Waseca, MN	36,112	59.78	44.63
Fillmore, MN	36,144	56.82	39.75
Cass, MN	36,193	61.91	53.72
St. Louis, MN	36,302	44.91	38.31
Douglas, MN	36,452	63.74	52.62
Polk, MN	36,505	64.59	55.08
Nicollet, MN	36,877	46.96	40.97
Sibley, MN	37,118	68.7	49.91
Roseau, MN	37,173	69.94	55.52
Brown, MN	37,409	66.84	46
Freeborn, MN	37,417	60.08	46.6
Swift, MN	37,909	60.9	38.34
Nobles, MN	38,458	74.34	60.78
Lyon, MN	38,465	62.31	48.86
Steele, MN	38,491	55.56	48.67
Pope, MN	38,566	63.26	44.51
Mower, MN	38,583	56.78	47.5
Anoka, MN	38,710	50.78	53.8
Marshall, MN	38,982	71.75	43.87
Houston, MN	39,025	57.68	48.94
Wabasha, MN	39,060	59.18	47.97
Lincoln, MN	39,213	70.26	50.72
Cottonwood, MN	39,313	70.03	45.49
Kandiyohi, MN	39,372	62.77	48.76
Big Stone, MN	39,526	67.05	41.94
Lake, MN	39,540	51.01	40.34
Goodhue, MN	39,822	52.41	48.68
Grant, MN	40,215	63.86	45.65
Cook, MN	40,216	39.9	34.49
Rock, MN	40,299	73.54	57.76
Wilkin, MN	40,473	68.58	58.33
Norman, MN	40,569	63.02	45.44
Stevens, MN	41,148	55.66	42.81
Dodge, MN	41,176	58.38	51.92
Pipestone, MN	41,287	75.53	63.2
Pennington, MN	41,418	61.4	51.47
Renville, MN	41,559	66.28	42.86
Yellow Medicine, MN	41,664	65.46	43
Kittson, MN	41,962	66.44	37.15
Scott, MN	42,714	48.93	56.64
Faribault, MN	42,850	64.93	45.03
Redwood, MN	43,159	69.53	47.46
Martin, MN	44,050	67.62	45.77
Chippewa, MN	44,532	63.12	41.53
Ramsey, MN	44,962	36.61	36.03
Dakota, MN	45,022	44.67	50.17
Lac qui Parle, MN	45,593	67.66	39.06
Olmsted, MN	45,808	48.98	51.59
Murray, MN	46,059	71.62	49.41
Traverse, MN	46,652	66.24	44.09
Washington, MN	47,588	44.86	50.81
Jackson, MN	47,841	68.83	48.15
Carver, MN	54,128	50.19	56.15
Hennepin, MN	54,949	35.05	38.01

Hailperin also charted out the association between age and votes in a chart he shared on Facebook, "Can you tell which proposed constitutional amendment is which?"

With white oval = marriage and dark oval, voter restriction amendments on one axis and the percentage of a county's population between 18-24, he produced this chart:

Polling of college students, commissioned by the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG), released May 4, showed that they favored the Voter ID amendment.

So did the rest of the state.

Why did students in St. Peter, Northfield, Winona and Mankato end up voting no on  #2 like residents of Big Stone Township, Big Stone County?

Bluestem is looking more closely at what groups working to defeat the amendment did, with an eye to learning what worked. The look will be a bit more detailed than simply noting "messaging" and "grassroots," as we're learning that the fight for the rural voter was somewhat more complicated than that.

Of course, we'll also dissect what the other side did wrong--and didn't do at all. Stay tuned.

Photo: An aerial view of Big Stone Township. We know a few naysayers there.

Comments

[Max Hailperin]

A hat tip: the idea of looking at income was suggested to me by Kathy Bonnifield.

[Phoenix Woman]

It does seem to be a complex question.

RE: The question whether the number of Latino residents has a bearing on voting yes or no -- I presume much would hinge on whether the Latino residents were part of a Latino community that had existed for some time prior to last Tuesday's election. (And whether the main organizer of a given Latino community was a secular group like a labor union or a local branch of the Catholic Church, which was schtum on the Voter Suppression Amendment and actively for the Marriage Restriction Amendment.)