Unterstützung für den republikanischen Senatorenkandidaten im Vergleich zur Armutsrate in den Landkreisen Mississippi und Alabama [OC]

**SOURCES**

[New York Times Election Data in Mississippi](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/05/us/elections/results-mississippi-us-senate.html)

[New York Times Election Data in Alabama](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-alabama-us-senate.html)

[National Institute of Health, Poverty Rates in Alabama Counties](https://hdpulse.nimhd.nih.gov/data-portal/social/table?age=001&age_options=ageall_1&demo=00009&demo_options=poverty_3&race=00&race_options=race_7&sex=0&sex_options=sexboth_1&socialtopic=080&socialtopic_options=social_6&statefips=01&statefips_options=area_states)

[National Institute of Health, Poverty Rates in Mississippi Counties](https://hdpulse.nimhd.nih.gov/data-portal/social/table?age=001&age_options=ageall_1&demo=00007&demo_options=poverty_3&race=00&race_options=race_7&sex=0&sex_options=sexboth_1&socialtopic=080&socialtopic_options=social_6&statefips=28&statefips_options=area_states)

**METHODOLOGY**

Google Sheets

**FINDINGS**

I chose to use the last Senate election in both of these states to gauge the partisan leanings. Roger Wicker was re-elected in 2024 and Katie Britt was elected in 2022.

Alabama and Mississippi are both poor states. They’re also both Republican-leaning states. Some people may look at this data and reach the erroneous conclusion that poor people tend to vote Republican.

However, the wealthier residents in these states are more likely to vote Republican than their poorer neighbors. If you break it down by county, you’ll see that the counties with the higher poverty rates tend to vote Democratic, as illustrated by the data trendlines. This is a prime example of a statistical phenomenon known as [Simpson’s Paradox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bArPxj5xhso&ab_channel=AlexKolkena).

In Mississippi, the coefficient of determination for this trend is .389. That is, 38.9% of the variance in Republican support at the county level can be predicted using the poverty rate of said county. In Alabama, the COD slightly higher at 0.42.

Mississippi and some of the surrounding states are different from what happens elsewhere. These states are unique in that they have a lot of rural black counties, which also tend to be poorer (black people on average have lower incomes). Other states’ counties where black people primarily live are urban and thus are richer on average, but the black population isn’t much richer than black populations elsewhere.

So basically what this is saying is that black people vote Democratic and here you have the counties to prove it, whereas you don’t in a state like Michigan or even a diverse state like California.