You may have gathered by now that I’m less of an armchair pundit, and more of a person who just really enjoys watching elections for the flow of stats that result.
(Well, OK, I’m an armchair pundit too.)
In my reading today, I encountered this post at Alternet which recaps the 2004 election stats, mapping it on several different demographic variables, and speculating on meaning for the ‘06 elections.
Fun stat from the article — comparing the correlation between the metric of Wal-Marts per capita and states’ political hue. For example, “Deep Blue” states have 0.3 Wal-Marts per million residents, while Red “Big Sky” states have 12.9 Wal-Marts per million.
There are reasons for that, of course, and it would be inappropriate I think to speculate on anything resembling causality there…but it’s still an interesting relationship.
Close election, lots of stats floating around, plenty of junk political/statistical science to debunk. Oh, it’s going to be a fun few days. 