I found this graphic startling:
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| John Horvick, DHM Research, Portland, Oregon |
Several things jump out:
1. First is the relationship between districts with a high percentage of college graduates and a Democratic member of the Oregon House. More college, more Democratic. Less college, more Republican.
2. A close look at the left axis shows that there is significant variation among the districts in the number of college graduates. The nine Republican-represented districts on the left are in districts with about 20% college graduates. On the right are districts with 60% to 70% college graduates.
3. The middle-ground districts with between 25% to 30% college graduates have a mix of red and blue representatives. My own district six, represented by Kim Wallan, a Republican, is right in the middle of that middle-ground area.
4. The two Democratic seats on the left among with 20% college graduates are districts representing the people of Springfield, the city adjacent to Eugene, and Troutdale, the urban area east of Portland. Springfield and Troutdale are less expensive neighborhoods within the larger, deep blue metropolitan areas. They are urban, so they vote Democratic.
A warning about jumping to conclusions. There is strong correlation in Oregon between population density and party affiliation. City precincts are Democratic; rural precincts are Republican. People who want curbs, sidewalks, and city sewerages are more likely to feel comfortable with the party associated with government: Democrats. College graduates are more likely to hold white collar jobs and therefore live in cities near offices. The operating factor in partisanship might be residential density, not education.
College graduation rates might drive openness to diversity and give graduates wider exposure to different ideas and people. Or, college graduation might be associated with less frequent church attendance. Both of these factors might be the causal agents for partisan segmentation shown in the chart.
A smug Democrat might think at first glance that "smart people vote Democratic." A suspicious Republican might think that colleges indoctrinate students with leftist politics. I don't think either of those conclusions are correct.
More important, to my mind, is that college graduation steers people into different career tracks and social networks. The influence is on the whole person and therefore on the media graduates consume, the neighborhoods they choose to live in, and their attitudes toward the current branding of the two major parties. College graduation isn't the cause. It is a marker of a suite of causes that make people more or less comfortable with the one party or the other.
But the influence and association is dramatic, at least in Oregon.
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3 comments:
I worked in corrections for 30 years and the graph shown also applied to the politics of the staff I encountered. When the correctional officer was a college graduate, the minority of prison staff, they were mostly democrats. Most prison workers are not college graduates and most of them were republicans, with a strong probability of a MAGA tilt. I avoided talking politics with the correctional staff as I wanted a good working relationship with them. It was like a truce as we were brothers on the battlefield and that was the most important aspect.
There’s another big difference between the parties that you can draw valid conclusions from. Democrats support policies that help people, such as rational gun legislation, universal healthcare, regulations that limit pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, the peaceful transfer of power, etc. Republicans oppose them and call inconvenient truths, such as election results they don’t like and climate change, “fake news.”
The problem with Republicans isn’t their lack of education; it’s their lack of values.
Correlation vs causation is always a tricky one isn’t it? In keeping with your questions Peter, I looked up studies about this- and a lot has been written. One article I thought was especially insightful because we just moved from a low-density, manicured suburbia (Red) to an eclectic, densely populated urban beach community (Blue).
The biggest differences I’ve seen is more diversity in gender and gender expression, economics and cultures; but mostly community organizations and activism. There’s much more “we” in the problems we face. My new neighbor who leans Right recently said to me “I’m far from being a progressive…but we need to get together and ……” That’s a very different conversation than I would have had in our former place. Any - cool article below.
https://oxfordpoliticalreview.com/2021/06/28/the-politics-of-place-why-proximity-makes-progressives/
What resonated with me was the quote “Our lived experiences, more than anything else, affect the issues that most concern us – simply because we can’t help but attend to our experiences (which is what makes them experiences). As the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset nicely put it: “Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.”
The political preferences seem to point to whether a place is over or under 800-900 people per square mile.
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