Occupations Ranked from Liberal to Conservative

[The Straight Story]

Occupations Ranked from Liberal to Conservative


Using data filed with the Federal Election Commission, Adam Bonica at Ideological Cartography has charted patterns that claim to show where certain occupations fall within the left-right political dynamic. Campaign donations of $250 or greater require a filing with the FEC that includes asking the donor’s employment, and using this information, Bonica has determined people in the oil and gas business and car salesmen tend to be more conservative, while Hollywood types and academics are more liberal. Falling in the middle is a wide range of other occupations. Those employed in some industries, such as investment banking, health care and lobbying, tend to contribute to whichever party they think will win, and so leaned Democratic in the 2008 election.

http://www.allgov.com/Where_is_the_Money_Going/ViewNews/Occupations_Ranked_from_Liberal_to_Conservative_100321



Ideological rankings of occupational categories
February 19, 2010 Adam Bonica Leave a comment Go to comments

The FEC requires any individual that makes a contribution of $250 or more to a PAC or candidate to disclose his or her occupation and employer. This bit of information is probably the easiest to leave blank or just intentionally ambiguous—for instance, writing down ambiguous job titles such as ‘self-employed,’ ‘businessman, or ‘internet warrior.’ Regardless, the disclosure rate for occupations generally hovers around 90 percent.

Combined with the procedure described the previous post, this allows for interesting comparisons of ideological giving patterns across industries/professions.As a first cut, I recovered ideal point estimates for the 3125 PACs and 131,000 individual contributors that gave to two or more unique candidates during the 2007-2008 election cycle and scaled them using the IMWA procedure. The figure below ranks a subset of occupations from left to right based on the mean ideal point of the members of each occupation. As a point of reference, the occupation ideal points are imposed over the density plots for all Democratic and Republican candidates.

http://abonica.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/ideological-rankings-of-occupational-categories/

[Dogmudgeon]

1. What a fantastic web site! Thanks!

Great find!

:yourock:

--d!

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Thanks for sharing this

What I find very interesting? Where Hedgies and V.C.'s stand. My experience with individuals in both of these occupations? From having dated a Hedgie and being around their friends (granted he was Irish and went back and forth between Dublin and NYC) - they are hedonists that 'believe' they work hard and believe that justifies them and everyone else to play hard. Wonder if that drives them towards personal freedoms? V.C.'s - well they don't care what it is as long as it makes them a lot of money. Green Energy ideas? Green insulation for homes? etc. etc. I know two people at this time engaged in this occupation - Green is where it's at. They see the 'green' in 'green' product development. Climate Change/Reducing dependence on foreign oil . . . these are things I *think* might push them towards the left.

Just my thoughts this Sunday morning . . .

[The Straight Story]

3. One reason they are seeing green in green is because of Obama and crew

Investments, tax cuts, grants, etc.