Greens are the future…
[Saw this on an internal Green Party list. -Thomas]
From: David Fairley [email deleted]
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:24:39 -0800
To: [deleted]
Subject: Matt was a hit among young voters
For your interest:
I did a statistical analysis that estimated what fraction of the vote Matt
got in different age groups. The results were pretty dramatic. I estimate
he got more than 80% of the vote among voters 30 or younger, and less than
20% among voters 60 or older. There was a steady drop in the percentage
the older voters got. My estimates are that he got more than 90% of the
vote among < 30 year old Decline to State voters, more than 80% of
Democrats in that age group, and a whopping 2% of Republicans in that age
group.
So the marketing import seems to be: forget the old folks; focus on the
younger crowd—if they’re not wearing a 3-piece suit.
Here are a few details:
I computed the ages of the registered voters in SF and broke them into
deciles (groups of 10%). I counted the numbers in each decile in each
precinct. I fit 2 models. The first assumed that a fixed percentage of
voters in each age group voted for Matt irrespective of where they lived.
The second model took into account their supervisorial district. The
second model fit much better, presumably because people in a given age
group in, say, Districts 2 or 4 will tend to vote more conservatively than
those in Districts 5 or 9.
Here are the decile ranges and the estimated percentage of vote that Matt
got (second model):
Age Estimated
Decile % of vote
18-26 89%
26-30 80%
30-33 77%
33-37 67%
37-41 54%
41-47 41%
47-53 38%
53-60 27%
60-72 21%
72-100 17%
Note that the average percentage is higher than the 47% Matt got. This is
because I used deciles of ALL registered voters, not just those who voted
last December, and younger voters tend to have lower turnouts.
