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MIDTERM PROJECT 2, POLITICAL STRUCTURE

Out of the 9 major swing states from the 2012 election, I chose Iowa and
Florida to understand their political structure using the most recent statistical
data in terms of income, education, ethnicity/race, gender, and age. The
following table provides a side-by-side comparison of the aforementioned
statistical indicators:
STATISTICAL INDICATOR
Median Household Income
Education:
Not a High School Grad.
High School Grad. or
Higher
Bach. Degree or Higher
Ethnicity and Race:
Hispanic or Latino
White
Black
Asian
Native American
Hawaiian
Other
Two + races
Gender:
Female
Male
Age:
18 to 44
45 to 64
Over 64

IOWA
$49,427

FLORIDA
$44,299

9.4%
90.6%

14.1%
85.9%

25.8%

25.9%

5.0%
91.5%
2.9%
1.8%
0.4%
0.0%
1.4%
2.0%

22.9%
76.3%
16.0%
2.4%
0.3%
0.1%
2.7%
2.2%

1,540,311
1,507,335

9,652,860
9,232,292

34.4%
26.8%
15.0%

34.2%
27.1%
17.6%

Once I understood the demographic and statistical makeup of both Iowa and
Florida, as summarized in the above table, I then researched and determined
the percentage of the presidential vote going to President Obama and
Governor Romney, in both states, as summarized in the table below:
PRESIDENTAIL
CANDIDATES
President Barack Obama
Governor Mitt Romney

IOWA VOTES

FLORIDA VOTES

822,544 (52%)
730,617 (46%)

4,237,756 (50%)
4,163,447 (49%)

I further analyzed the percentages of votes going to both presidential


candidates by gender, which I summarized as follows:
PRESIDENTAIL
CANDIDATES
President Barack Obama
Female
Male
Governor Mitt Romney
Female
Male

IOWA VOTES

FLORIDA VOTES

59%
44%

53%
46%

40%
53%

47%
52%

After compiling the above tables of demographics and voting statistics, I was
glad that I chose to compare Iowa and Florida because even though they are
both swing states, the similarities seem to end there. Both chosen states
vary dramatically in their demographic compositions, such as, race and
ethnicity and overall population size. I guess that I was not too surprised in
realizing is how Iowa is predominately homogeneous (white) while Florida
has more diversity. What I also noticed is that the total number of votes cast
for each candidate was easy to research but harder was determining the
gender percentages of the votes cast. The table immediately above this
paragraph shows me how females in both states voted substantially more for
President Obama while males voted substantially more for Governor
Romney; the gender statistic is very interesting to me and I believe that all
candidates going into the 2016 presidential race should understand this
gender bias and utilize that understanding in forming their presidential
campaign.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Barrone, Michael, Chuck McCutcheon, Sean Trende, and Josh Kraushaar.
"Iowa and Florida." In The Almanac of American Politics, 366 and 636. 2014
ed. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2013.

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