Psephology-o-rama: Hangover nerdery edition

notices and features
10 years ago
Categories: election 2014
Tags: numbers, polity

I was really privileged to be able to work with the TV3 election night team last night, providing some quantitative analysis on the results as they came in. One of the things we put together was a tool that could do demographic splits on the results while they were still uploading. I’m reasonably pleased with how the tool performed, in that it let TV3 do first cuts on how the vote came together before other media, and even while the count was still in progress. I mentioned a couple of these results on The Nation this morning.

Now that the battle for election night ratings is over for another three years, here is a table for your entrail-reading pleasure showing the three biggest parties’ vote shares in a few different geographic / demographic segments.

	Labour		National		Greens
Area characteristic	2011	2014	2011	2014	2011	2014
Renters > 50%	41.6	39.7	32.7	34	11.6	11.7
Renters 35 to 50%	30.6	29.1	43.3	43.9	10.3	10
Renters 20 to 35%	22.7	20.7	52.8	53.5	10.4	9.7
Renters < 20%	18.5	16.7	58.7	59.5	11.2	10.1
Maori > 20%	34	34.2	35.4	35.8	8.3	7.9
Pacific > 20%	63.5	60.6	18.4	20.2	4.9	5.4
Asian > 20%	31.5	28.4	48.2	48.8	8.8	9.1
European > 80%	19.8	18.1	55.8	56.8	11.7	10.7
Degrees > 30%	23.1	21.5	51	51.9	16.3	16.3
No quals > 30%	35.9	34.6	37.6	38.7	7.6	7.1
Current students > 20%	30.7	28.4	44.4	44.8	14.3	14.3
Elderly > 25%	23	21.1	51.2	52.6	9.4	8.7
Kids > 25%	41.6	40.8	34.4	35.4	6.6	6.5
Non-religious > 50%	24.5	23	47	47.6	15.5	14.9
Christian > 60%	39.6	37.6	39.6	41.2	6.5	6.4
HH median income < $50k	45.6	45.6	25.5	26.6	8.3	8.2
HH median income $50k to $75k	31.3	29.1	43	43.8	9.7	9.1
HH median income $75k to $100k	21	19.3	55.3	55.9	11	10.4
HH median income > $100k	18.2	16.8	58.2	59.1	14.2	13.8
Auckland	29	26.7	49.7	50.1	9.1	9.3
South Auckland	52.5	50.1	27.6	28.8	4.6	4.9
Wellington	32.7	29.6	40	41.8	16.2	16.3
Christchurch	25	23.2	51.1	51	13	12.6
South Island	25.9	23.9	49.6	50.2	12.5	11.5
North Island	27.3	25.6	47.6	48.4	10	9.7
South Island town	31.4	30.1	41.6	41.8	14.6	13.1
North Island town	27.4	26.3	45.8	46.2	9.7	8.6

Notes

These cuts are based on matching census data to booths, under the maintained assumption that people vote to a booth close to where they live. I realise that assumption is not always true, but it is true on average, which is all you really need to examine the over-time trends above.
The correct interpretation is: “In areas of New Zealand with [area characteristic], the average booth-level party vote for [party] was X% in 2011 and Y% in 2014.”
These data should NOT be interpreted at the individual-level (ie. Any claim about individual people, such “Asian New Zealanders moved against Labour by 2.9%,” cannot be supported by these data.

With apologies to Rob, I’m not going to add the phrase “Polity:” to the front of that mess of a title. How much did you have to drink last night?