The media stick to old labels in spite of 2010 Census

The 2011 Census result is out, and I've been listening to the news: the focus seems to be that the south and west grew faster than the northeast and midwest, and since Democratic-leaning states like New York, Massachusetts and Ohio will lose seats while states like Florida, Georgia and Arizona will gain seats, the Republican Party will be extremely pleased while the Democratic Party will be the big loser.

Be very careful before you buy this overly simplistic logic.

They use an undisclosed assumption, which is that the new Floridians are just like the old Floridians, the new Arizonans are just like the old Arizonans, etc., which in turn implies that the migrating New Yorkers are not like the average New Yorker, the migrating Illinoisan is not like the average Illinoisan, etc.

Put differently, they claim that the demographic shift does not affect preexisting "labels". Let's imagine a family living in Massachusetts packed their bags and moved to Arizona. The media seems to think that people vote based on where they live, maybe it's the water they are drinking, or the sun rays they are basking in, but the same family living in Mass. voted Democratic but having moved to Florida would vote Republican. The media tells us: the Party leaning of a state is an immutable truth unrelated to who lives in which state.

We don't know if this assumption is true or not. We do want to know the source of the change in demography. Is it migration from north to south as the media envisioned? Is it higher birth rates of current residents? Is it higher birth rates among certain demographic groups? Is it lower birth rates among certain subgroups?

***

I call this the "stranglehold of labels". States like Florida, Georgia and so on are given Republican labels; and Massachusetts and New York, Democratic labels. What's been forgotten is that voters determine these labels, and to understand the true impact of the 2010 Census, we have to trace the people.

This is the topic of Chapter 3 of Numbers Rule Your World. The media ignored an important source of variability; they have lumped together the type of people who chose to migrate with the type of people who chose not to migrate, but chances are these two subgroups have different voting behavior.

***

This type of thinking infects a lot of decision-making. For example, a business discovers that customers who pay by credit card are less likely to default than those who want an invoice billed later. The business knows if they have more customer paying by credit card (as opposed to invoice), it would be more profitable. So it decides to pay customers currently on invoice to switch their method of payment to credit card. Customers are very willing to take the payment to switch. The question is: if these customers would not pay their invoice in the past, would they be paying their credit card bills now?

Comments

[Gary]

The media gets it wrong on both sides of the census. When the numbers are being collected, completely silly discussions of what statistical sampling. "Sampling picks up minorities who tend to be Democratic!" Which is only maybe relevant.

There is a place where the labels work - which is that typically there is something "in the water" (so to speak) in the places that are adding House seats. What's in the water in many cases is a Republican-controlled state legislature that will redistrict in Republican-friendly fashion - whatever the politics of the incoming voters are. This effect may fade (depending on who moves in) but it will be important in this redistricting cycle.

[Josh]

To be fair to the media, it's not like all of these new voters materialized in their new homes overnight. We have some recent examples of voting behavior (elections in 2010 and 2008) that already reflect the votes of these new residents. John McCain won Texas's 34 electoral votes in 2008 even though most of the new residents of Texas were already voting in that election. The only real change in 2012 is that the Republican candidate will win 38 electoral votes from Texas.

[Mike]

I'm originally from NC and we saw what you are talking about there. While the state was considered red after 2000, Democrats controlled the state legislature for the better part of a century so when new districts were allotted they went to Democrats.

But I agree with Gary that isn't the biggest initial success in the reapportionment that the states who gained the seats are currently controlled by Republican legislatures? By that thinking yes, these "labels" of seats to a "red state" still apply. Hundreds of thousands of liberals from Massachusetts moving to conservative Arizona may tinge the state more purple over the long haul, but in the meantime, a Republican legislature and Republican Governor will draw the new Congressional districts, resulting in more Republicans in Congress.

[Jon Peltier]

The credit card vs invoice issue is more involved than that. If the payment is made by credit card, the vendor gets the money within a couple days, for a small fee. If it is done via invoice, it takes at least 30 days, and handling for the vendor is more labor intensive. And once the credit card payment is already made, it's not going to be forgotten, the way an invoice can keep stretching out. It's also easier to default on an invoice, because the buyer can simply not pay, whereas the credit card transaction has to be canceled.

[SB]

At least NPR recognizes this.
"Neidert said while much will be written about a seismic political shift, "the fact is, if you look at the demographics, a lot of blue people are moving to those red states."

William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, agreed, noting that "these states can change in population, but the populations themselves may change voting patterns."

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/21/132234651/census-data-will-reshape-u-s-political-landscape

[CB]

I agree the media is making the assumption that the individuals moving to red states will bolster Republican election outcomes, but this assumption doesn't necessarily have to be that the people moving to the red states are similar to current residents of the state. It is possible that the political environments of these states influence the new transplants' political behavior. There is evidence of this phenomenon:

http://apr.sagepub.com/content/36/6/880.short

In any case, the media should be discussing how population shifts will affect US politics and not just make assumptions about these changes.

[carpet cleaning scottsdale]

The idea behind these steamers is that they use minimal amounts of water, that way your carpet is only superficially damp as the end result.