{"id":639,"date":"2012-11-06T13:20:37","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T20:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/?p=639"},"modified":"2012-11-06T13:22:49","modified_gmt":"2012-11-06T20:22:49","slug":"will-the-weather-determine-the-next-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/local-news\/will-the-weather-determine-the-next-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the weather determine the next president?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Weather
Weather \u2013 The true determining factor of who will be president?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We oftentimes hear about how weather can affect voter turnout but is there truly a link?\u00a0 If there is, who does it benefit \u2013 Republicans or Democrats?\u00a0 Studies seem to indicate that what might be thought of as an urban myth is indeed true.<\/p>\n

In 2005, political science researchers Brad Gomez, Thomas Hansford and George Krause completed the first comprehensive study on the correlation between weather and voter turnout.\u00a0 Their paper, \u201cThe Republicans Should Pray for Rain:\u00a0 Weather, Turnout, and Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections\u201d confirmed the conventional wisdom that weather does affect voter turnout, bad weather benefits Republicans and most interestingly, two presidential elections in the last 60 years may have had different results had the weather been different.<\/p>\n

Looking back at presidential elections from 1948 to 2008, the study takes into account the weather in 3,000 U.S. counties.\u00a0 They in turn looked at key areas of the nation and how weather, good and bad, affected voter turnout.\u00a0 In the end, the study determined that precipitation is the key weather condition to affect voter turnout.<\/p>\n

In part, the study says:<\/p>\n

We find that rain significantly reduces voter participation at the polls by a rate just under one percent per inch. Snowfall also decreases turnout, but only in rural counties. Moreover, we show that the estimated number of voters lost due to precipitation significantly benefits the Republican Party\u2019s vote share and GOP incumbents particularly.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to the study, if there was an inch of rain more than normal in a given area, nearly 1 percent fewer voters turned out and the Republican presidential candidate received an extra 2.5 percent of the vote.\u00a0 For every inch of snow above normal, overall voter turnout was depressed by 0.5 percent and the Republican candidate\u2019s vote share increased by 0.6 percent.<\/p>\n

This certainly validates the thought that Republicans \u201cpray for rain\u201d on election day.\u00a0 The authors theorize that peripheral voters \u2013 those on the fence or not dedicated, regular voters \u2013 stay home when the weather is poor.\u00a0 Those same \u201ccasual\u201d voters tend to vote for the Democratic ticket when they do vote.<\/p>\n

\"Will
Will rain keep voters at home? Studies have shown that yes, it does and it benefits Republicans.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the numbers certainly point to weather being a factor, is it enough to affect the outcome of an election?\u00a0 In most years, no, but historically there have been elections that the outcome may very well have been different had weather not impacted areas of the United States where the election was close.<\/p>\n

In particular the study points to the elections in 1960 and 2000 as ones where different weather could very well have turned the tide to the other candidate.<\/p>\n

In 1960 Democrat John F. Kennedy was in a tight race against Republican Richard Nixon and good weather across much of the nation may have been Nixon\u2019s downfall.\u00a0 The electoral vote was one of the closest of any presidential election and Kennedy\u2019s margin of victory in the popular vote was tremendously close \u2013 only 112,827 votes nationwide separated the two.\u00a0 10 states had votes with less than a 2% difference separating the candidates and of those, poor weather in a few of them like Illinois, Missouri or New Jersey could have kept Democratic voters at home and put those states in Nixon\u2019s column and made him President of the United States.<\/p>\n

In 2000 a heated presidential race against Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore came down to the wire and in all, 139 electoral votes were decided by a margin of victory less than 5%.\u00a0 It was Florida however that held the key to who would be the next president.\u00a0 In the end, Bush won the state, its electoral votes and the presidency.\u00a0 His margin of victory in Florida was only 537 votes out of 5,922,531 ballots cast in the state \u2013 a mere 0.0092%.\u00a0 The weather in Florida on Election Day 2000?\u00a0 Rainy in many of the key counties in the state.\u00a0 Had the skies been clearer, analysis shows that Democratic voters may have turned out in greater numbers and thus given Al Gore the victory and the presidency.<\/p>\n

\"On
On election day, Democrats will hope for sunny weather while the Republicans will pray for rain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the end the old adage that weather impacts voter turnout and poor weather favors the Republicans turns out to be quite true.<\/p>\n

In 2012 there are a number of toss up states that could go to Mitt Romney or Barack Obama.\u00a0 Today the weather in states like Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Virginia and any one of the other 10 swing states could very well determine which voters comes out to vote and ultimately who is next president of the United States.<\/p>\n

For more info:\u00a0<\/strong>National Weather Service<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We oftentimes hear about how weather can affect voter turnout but is there truly a link?\u00a0 If there is, who does it benefit \u2013 Republicans or Democrats?\u00a0 Studies seem to indicate that what might be thought of as an urban myth is indeed true. In 2005, political science researchers Brad Gomez, Thomas Hansford and George … Continue reading Will the weather determine the next president?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,14,63],"tags":[79,77,80,78,31,741],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9449,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions\/9449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thorntonweather.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}