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- Title
State Income Inequality and Presidential Election Turnout and Outcomes.
- Authors
Galbraith, James K.; Hale, J. Travis
- Abstract
Objective. This study examines the links among income inequality, voter turnout, and electoral choice at the state level in recent presidential elections. Methods. We introduce two new state-level ecological data sets, estimated annual Gini coefficients of income inequality from 1969 to 2004 and a measure of income segregation across Census tracts within states in 1999. We test for associations among inequality, turnout, and party preference with cross-sectional, fixed-effects, and multilevel analyses. Results. The cross-sectional effect of inequality on voter turnout and electoral choice is ambiguous. However, a fixed-effects analysis links higher income inequality to lower voter turnout and also to a stronger Democratic vote. Multilevel results indicate that higher levels of economic segregation likewise are associated with depressed turnout, after controlling for individual voter characteristics and for state-level income.
- Subjects
UNITED States; INCOME inequality; UNITED States presidential elections; POLITICAL participation; VOTER turnout; EQUALITY; GOVERNMENT policy
- Publication
Social Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell), 2008, Vol 89, Issue 4, p887
- ISSN
0038-4941
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1540-6237.2008.00589.x