Partisanship: A Data-Driven Learning Guide

Application

In this exercise, you will examine the relationship between demographic characteristics (age, race, income, and gender) and party identification using crosstabulation and interpreting graphs.

In this dataset, party identification (V043116) is measured on a 7-point scale where "Strong Democrat" is coded as 0, "Independent" is coded as 3, and "Strong Republican" is coded as 6. To simplify the analysis, we created a new party identification variable consisting of three categories: Democrats (coded as 1), Independents (coded as 2), and Republicans (coded as 3). The new variable is called "PARTY.CAT."

Partisanship and Age

For this exercise, the age variable (V043249A) was recoded into six categories: 18-29 (1), 30-39 (2), 40-49 (3), 50-59 (4), 60-69 (5), and 70+ (6). The new variable is called "AGE.CAT."

Run a crosstab of PARTY.CAT and AGE.CAT. Does this sample of survey respondents have more Democrats, Independents, or Republicans? Which party appears to have a larger share of members under 30?

Take a look at the line graph of the same data. You will see that the percentage of each age group by party category is plotted on the y-axis (vertically), and the age categories are plotted on the x-axis (horizontally). Does there appear to be a greater difference in partisanship between those under 40 or those over 60? How can you tell this?

Partisanship and Gender

Research on partisanship concludes that women are more likely than men to identify as Democrats. Is this conclusion supported by the crosstab of PARTY.CAT and gender? Do men and women differ in their attachment to a particular party?

Partisanship and Race

We recoded race (V043299A) into a dichotomous variable called "RACE.BINARY." In the new variable, race is coded as "White" or "Non-white."

Look at the crosstab of partisanship and race. What percentage of whites report being Republican? Are whites or non-whites more likely to be Independent?

Partisanship and Income

In the ANES, the variable measuring household income contains 23 categories. We recoded household income into a new variable with only 4 categories: $0-24,999 (1); $25,000-49,999 (2); $50,000-79,999 (3); and $80,000 or more (4). The new variable is called "HINC4."

Consider the crosstab of partisanship and household income. Compare the highest income level to the lowest income level. Which group is more likely to be Republican? From the group making under $50,000, which party gets the most support?

Note: The online data analysis system (DAS) used on this site uses a system called Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA), developed and maintained by the Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (CSM) at the University of California, Berkeley. Documentation for DAS/SDA can be found on their Web site.

Goal & Concept - Dataset - Application - Interpretation & Summary - Bibliography