Public Option Popular in Most Blue Dog Districts

Posted by Kos , Daily Kos at 6:00 AM on September 10, 2009.

Nate Silver takes data from our public option polling to perform one of his regression analyses, finds that the two most relevant factors are support for Obama and poverty levels, and concludes:

We can systematize these results by means of a regression analysis that accounts for the Obama vote share and the poverty level in each district. (Technically, we'll be using a logistic regession, treating each of the voters included in one of these surveys as a separate data point.) This analysis finds that support for the public option nationwide is about 55 percent, against 36 percent opposed, similar results to what I believe to be the most reliable polls on the subject.

What's more interesting, though, is where we project the public option in individual districts. We find that:

-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 291 of the 435 Congressional Districts nationwide, or almost exactly two-thirds.
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 235 of 257 Democratic-held districts.
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 34 of 52 Blue Dog - held districts, and has overall popularity of 51 percent in these districts versus 39 percent opposed.

Nate estimates that in the Arkansas 4th Congressional District, home of Blue Dog Mike Ross -- new opponent of the public option (after supporting it earlier this year), that support for the public option would be 49-41. I'll see about polling the district the next few weeks to see if the analysis holds up. Below is the map Nate created, with public option-supporting districts in Blue, opposing ones in Red.

Visit the post for district by district numbers.

Tagged as: democrats, republicans, obama, health care, blue dogs, public option

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