Monday, July 13, 2009

More Voter Characteristics

Mitofsky's voter profile polling is out!* Contrary to the polls cited by Kate D Artigues, 40 percent of PRI voters are not older than 60; indeed, barely a quarter are older than 50, and the PRI voters were only marginally older than those of the PAN. The major party with the youngest voters was the PRD, with roughly a third of its supporters under 29, almost five points more than the corresponding figure for the PAN. However, Green Party voters are by far the (forgive me) greenest, with 57 percent 29 years old or less. More Green Party oddities: almost two thirds of its supporters were women, and 47 percent of its voters graduated from high school or college. The PRD and PAN, by contrast, barely broke 40 percent in the latter measure, while the PRI clocked in at 35 percent.

What was motivating voters? For PAN voters, just under 60 percent said that the economy was the nation's most pressing problem, compared to 68 percent for the PAN and the PRD. Not surprisingly, almost 90 percent of PAN supporters expressed confidence in Calderón, but less perhaps less expected, almost 60 percent of PRI voters, 45 percent of PRD voters, 60 percent of Green Voters, and 53 percent of PT and Convergencia voters did as well.

*The explanation mark at the end of the sentence announcing new polls comes courtesy of Boz. It really adds spice.

4 comments:

Paul Roberts said...

I'm surprised that the Partido Verde has such a high proportion of college educated people given it is such an opportunistic outfit and has very little to do with real 'green' policies.

As one of the commentators on 'Primer Plano' pointed out a while back, it is the only Green Party in the world to support the death penalty.

pc said...

Hi Paul, welcome back to Mexico, and congrats on the wedding.

I was pretty surprised by that too. I didn't have any expectations, but I certainly wasn't expecting the Green Party, which strikes me as an opportunistic, lowest common denominator sort of party, to have Mexico's best and brightest behind it. I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

Paul Roberts said...

Thanks for the welcome and congrats.

I suppose you could think optimistically that the high proportion of educated people in the Partido Verde reflects a desire for a different kind of party and politics and at least an interest in green issues, but then you would expect more educated people to see through the Partido Verde

To me it a great shame that the Partido Verde gives and will continue to give green politics a bad name in Mexico.

pc said...

It'd be great if the exit polls got a little deeper into the motivations than the binary choice of economy and security, because I wonder about the same thing myself.