County Level Economic Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections

• Main Author: Sartorius, Martin R
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarship @ Claremont 2015
• Subjects: Economics Voting County US Presidential Elections; American Politics; Econometrics; Political Economy; Regional Economics
• Online Access: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1172; http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2155&context=cmc_theses

This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between county level economic voting and county level economic voting by demographic group on county level vote shares for U.S. presidential elections. Using an entity and time fixed effects regression model, I study the effects that county level growth in real per capita personal income and unemployment rate change have on county level two-party vote share for the Democratic Party. Additionally, I observe the responsiveness of a county’s voting behavior due to the demographic makeup of that specific county. I then compare my initial results to those of Eisenberg and Ketcham (2004) for the 1992-2000 presidential elections. I utilize the same models for the 2004-2012 elections to compare these results to those from the 1992-2000 elections. Additionally, I rerun my model for the 1992-2000 presidential elections, after restricting my economic data to non-outliers, to study the effects that outliers in economic conditions have on my original results.