Stata

States Dataset

1. Do our congressional representatives stay in touch with the people they represent and vote accordingly? Or, once elected, do they simply do their own thing (it’s not like most voters are paying attention anyway)? Run a regression. Your dependent variable will be cons_hr. This is a measure of how conservatively a state’s representatives vote while in Congress, with higher values being more conservative. Your independent variable is conpct_m. This is the % of the public in the state that call themselves conservative.

a) Write the equation that Stata estimates:

cons_hr = -42.82 + (2.89*conpct_m)

b) What is the adjusted R-squared? What does that mean in layperson’s terms?

The adjusted R-squared is .4817. It means that about 48% of the variation in the dependent variable is accounted for by the independent variable.

c) What can we conclude based on this analysis about how much congressional representatives reflect their states’ populations in their voting records?

Substantively, this suggests that there is a significant amount (about 52%) of the variation in the voting behaviors of congressional delegations that is NOT explained by the ideological preferences of the citizens those delegations represent. It suggests that congresspeople do more than simply mirror the preferences of their states.

2. Conventional wisdom in political science: when voter turnout goes up, it helps Democratic candidates more than Republicans. Run a regression. Your dependent variable is obama08, the percentage of the vote cast for Obama in 2008. Your independent variable is to_0408, which is the change in turnout from 2004 to 2008 (so a value of 0 would be no change in turnout, a positive value would be an increase, and a negative value would be a decrease).

a) The equation for estimating Obama’s support is 49.5 + .76 *to_0408

b) Is the conventional wisdom supported? Why or why not?

No, because the relationship...