By: Bradford T. Wiggins

1. Did the States with the Highest Poverty Rates Support the Conservative or Liberal Presidential Candidate in 2012? “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.” -Charles Dickens By: Bradford T. Wiggins

2. Thesis… It is a common belief that people who are poor tend to vote more for liberals because they want to take advantage of more welfare programs. For my project, I will look at poverty rates by individual states and compare them to the 2012 presidential election results. If the data shows that the poorest of states vote more liberally than conservatively than this would support the belief. If the data shows the opposite than the belief would be challenged. If there is no correlation than the belief would also be challenged.

4. Literature Review (page 1) Greenwood and Holt argue that the conservative belief of “trickle down” economics has not benefited Americans in the last several decades in the United States. The idea is when the rich get richer, the poor will benefit from their success. Greenwood and Holt argue that in reality, there is what they call a “negative trickle down” effect that makes the poor even worse off economically. Herd talks about how social security has really helped reduce poverty rates for the elderly poor. Social Security, once thought of as a socialist program is now supported by both parties. This article looks at how unmarried elderly persons still remain the most vulnerable group when it comes to poverty even with Social Security. Mills looks at the history of liberalism and how it has historically been favored by minority races. Social inequality was blamed on a “contract” within the white race to support only themselves economically while offering little hope for minorities to climb the economic ladder.

5. Literature Review (page 2) • Monson and Mertens looks at a new way of understanding presidential election outcomes by states. They argue that the make-up of one’s family determines whether or not they vote for a certain party. According to the authors, they support the idea that elections can be determined by how conservative the family make-up is in each state. Traditional family make-ups tend to vote Republican while father-absent families and other non-traditional family make-ups tend to support Democrats for President. • Wen-Hao and Coraklooks at child poverty rates and what factors determine their economic success and failure. Since children can’t vote I found this study particular interesting because their success/ failure depends upon adult voters in the U.S. The authors found that when the service sector, 1 out of the three types of economic sectors, does well, there is a significant decline in child poverty in the U.S. The service sector is the one that provides services rather than end products or the resources for those end products. Voters who keep in mind the welfare of children should find out what ideas democrats and republicans have to encourage growth in the service sector.

6. Work Cited Greenwood, Daphne T., and Richard P. F. Holt. 2010. Growth, Inequality and Negative Trickle Down. Journal of Economic Issues. 44(2) 403-10. Herd, Pamela. 2009. The problem of poverty among older people in America: options for reform. The Journal Of Poverty & Social Justice,.17(2): 125-135. Mills, Charles W. 2008. Racial Liberalism. PMLA. 123(5): 1380-1397. Monson, Renée A., and Jo Beth Mertens. 2011. All in the Family: Red States, Blue States, and Postmodern Family Patterns, 2000 and 2004. Sociological Quarterly. 52(2): 244-267. Wen-Hao, Chen and Miles Corak. 2008. Child Poverty and Changes in Child Poverty. Demography. 45(3):537-553.

7. Data Sources • The data that I used came from the 2012 Presidential Election Results located on the CNN.com website and the Interactive Poverty Map located on the website povertyusa.org that was compiled by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

8. Data Analysis (Page 1) • I opened up Excel 2010 and typed in titles for all variables that I planed on using for my research. • The variables that I used included State, Party, Child Poverty Rate %, Senior Poverty Rate %, Disabled Persons Poverty Rate %, Male Poverty Rate %, Female Poverty Rate %, Overall Poverty Rate, percentage of state citizens that voted for Obama, and percentage of state citizens that voted for Romney. • I typed in the data by hand because the website did not provide the data in a pdf format. This took some time but it could be easily done due to the accessibility of data on the interactive website. • Once all data was made into columns and rows, I dragged down the bar on the top so I could scroll down without having to memorizing the column labels.

9. Data Analysis (Page 2) • I labeled my pages, one as the main data sheet. I placed other related charts and graphs in worksheets 1,2,3 etc. and labeled other pages either Men, Women or Overall. • I arranged each variable being used from smallest to largest. • I made several charts by selecting the appropriate data for each. I repeated this step for each poverty type. • I added a trend line to each chart. • I then reviewed my charts to find if any correlation between the variables could be found.

10. Findings… There seemed to be a correlation found in every chart that consistently challenged my thesis that the poorest of states tend to vote for the Republican Candidate over the Democratic one. Romney was supported by the poorest states overall, and the states with highest poverty rates for men, women, disabled, the elderly and states with the highest poverty rates for children.

22. Conclusions • As the poverty rate increases for disabled persons, children, and the elderly in each state, the more likely that state will support Romney, a Republican presidential candidate. • As the poverty rate increases in each state for disabled persons, children, the elderly, the more unlikely that a particular state will support Obama, a Democratic presidential candidate. • As the poverty rate of men and women increase, Obama % decreases and Romney % increases • Overall Poverty shares the same trend. As overall poverty increases, Romney % increases, and Obama % decreases. • In Conclusion, it was more likely for states as a whole to vote for the Republican candidate Mitt Romney who believed in the success of the “Trickle Down Theory”. The states that supported this candidate and his theory were faced with the worst poverty rates.

23. Suggestions for Further Research. • Do other presidential elections from previous years have similar results? • Out of those voters in each individual state, how many of those were actually considered under the poverty line that voted for Romney (and how many for Obama)? • How many Blacks under the poverty line vs. Whites voted for Romney and Obama? Other races? The elderly? The disabled? Veterans? People who identify with different religious backgrounds? Members of the LGBT community?