“The Republicans should pray for rain.” This is a commonly used phrase among the political sphere, and often is upheld as a truism. However, there is little empirical evidence that leads to a concrete decision on the truthfulness of this statement. The article, The Republicans Should Pray for Rain: Weather, Turnout, and Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections, opts to put an end to the confusion surrounding the accuracy of inclement weather negatively affecting voter turnout. Together, Brad T. Gomez, Thomas G. Hansford, and George A. Krause, work to find the long sought after answer to if weather has a real effect on voter turnout and how or if the reaches of that effect extend to the political parties. The group chose to measure their dependent
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Yes. They were very thorough with the controls that they employed. They made sure to control for how daily weather habits in different regions of the country would lead to a different public view of “bad weather”, they subtracted the average daily rainfall/snowfall from the rainfall/snowfall on the election days. They also controlled for several socioeconomic factors, such as: percent High School Graduates, median household income in the county, and percent African American, how rural an area is, all known registration requirements, and all other important elections around the same time that would drive up voter turnout. I could not find any important factors that would nullify all the data that was not already control …show more content…
It is now safe to assume that the conclusions reached from the data gathered are accurate and do not represent a spurious relationship. The findings from this testing conclude that weather does have a direct effect on voter turnout and voter turnout has a direct effect on party vote share. All of the conclusions are considered statistically important but at times also found to be meaningful. When there is higher voter turnout the Republicans are given an edge over the Democrats. This affected many elections in the biggest way possible, through the Electoral College, and in several instances, in the last half of the 20th century, have also affected which candidate ended up in the white house. Had weather been a little more rainy, or perhaps dryer on other days, the course of history could have been quite different. The results are a true testament to the sensitivity of voters and how easily the political system can be swayed one way or another. The authors of this study were clear and concise in their explaining of it and left nothing to be wondered, using straightforward and unambiguous wording. I can confidently say that I agree and support these
Yes. They were very thorough with the controls that they employed. They made sure to control for how daily weather habits in different regions of the country would lead to a different public view of “bad weather”, they subtracted the average daily rainfall/snowfall from the rainfall/snowfall on the election days. They also controlled for several socioeconomic factors, such as: percent High School Graduates, median household income in the county, and percent African American, how rural an area is, all known registration requirements, and all other important elections around the same time that would drive up voter turnout. I could not find any important factors that would nullify all the data that was not already control …show more content…
It is now safe to assume that the conclusions reached from the data gathered are accurate and do not represent a spurious relationship. The findings from this testing conclude that weather does have a direct effect on voter turnout and voter turnout has a direct effect on party vote share. All of the conclusions are considered statistically important but at times also found to be meaningful. When there is higher voter turnout the Republicans are given an edge over the Democrats. This affected many elections in the biggest way possible, through the Electoral College, and in several instances, in the last half of the 20th century, have also affected which candidate ended up in the white house. Had weather been a little more rainy, or perhaps dryer on other days, the course of history could have been quite different. The results are a true testament to the sensitivity of voters and how easily the political system can be swayed one way or another. The authors of this study were clear and concise in their explaining of it and left nothing to be wondered, using straightforward and unambiguous wording. I can confidently say that I agree and support these