Economic Growth and Politics

I saw an article in the local Newspaper that referred to this study which gave NY state a D grade in economic growth and my knee jerk reaction was “Of course the growth is bad its’ a Democrat strong hold”. It is not a fair statement because I don’t have any actually data to say Democrat strong holds are bad for grow, so I took a deeper look in to the study. I compared the growth to the Red-Blue state results from the 2004 election and party affiliation of the current governor. I gave the letter grades a numerical value (A+ =4.5, A =4 B=3 C=2 D=1 F=0) and did an average. Would I call the results significant, no. But there is a noticeable difference.

Red Pres 2.1
Red Gov 2.1
Both Red (15 States) 2.2
Blue Pres 2.1
Blue Gov 2.1
Both Blue (13 States) 2.0
Mixed (22 States) 2.0

So those states that gave their electoral votes to Bush in 2004 and have Red Governors have a slight edge in average economic growth grade, while double blue are depressed slightly. Does this make sense? If the stereotypes run true of Republicans being capitalists and Democrats being socialist, then yes it does.

The stat that I think is more significant is the states that report Population grow.

Red Pres 41.9%
Red Gov 36.4%
Both Red 66.7%
Blue Pres 26.3%
Blue Gov 35.7%
Both Blue 30.8%
Mixed 36.4%

Of the states that voted Presidential Red (31) 42% of them reported population growth compared to 26% for Presidential Blue. The states that voted Presidential Red and have Governor Red (15), 67% of them reported population growth versus 31% both Blue (13). What level of growth was not reported in the study but it does stand out to me that the Red States report more of it. I really would have expected the mixed state to have performed better (California is the big stand out) but the numbers don’t support it.

With the 2006 election how does this effect things? I'm not sure, I haven't taken the time to put together the stats and do the compairison.