Changing with the Recession
The jump in unemployment heightened worries about a recession and put the struggling economy into sharp focus. Indeed, it seems that a recession provided voters a reason for to change direction, to move from a Republican presidency to a Democrat presidency. The cluster analysis map looks at both the margin change in election results between 2004 and 2008 with unemployment change over the same period. The map questions if the large unemployment change rate allowed for a larger share of the vote to change to the party that did not win in the previous election. The six clusters of the map show us that unemployment change influenced voting patterns. The region of the Midwest, where unemployment change was not as significant and Republican voting has been continuous clustered together. The areas of California and Michigan of high unemployment change and traditional Democratic voting also clustered together. Interesting clusters arise in the South were voting shifted more Republican but still experienced unemployment. But the general clusters seem to illustrate that areas with high unemployment change clustered together with a shift toward the Democrats.