iam1969

Election weather presents challenges in swing states

North Carolina’s right-leaning coast looks to get the state’s worst weather, with 70 percent chance of rain forecast for the city of Wilmington. Meanwhile the Democratic precincts in the more Democratic-leaning Raleigh-Durham metro area have a 40 percent chance of rain. Obama and McCain are tied in North Carolina, according to RealClearPolitics’ average

The effect of weather on voter participation has been long debated by political strategists. A 2007 study by researchers at the Universities of Georgia, Pittsburgh and California found that rain lowers turnout by 1 percent per inch of rain, and that it helps Republicans more often than Democrats.

Researchers Brad Gomez, Thomas Hansford and George Krauses studied turnout information and more than 22,000 weather reports and found that every inch of rain beyond average Election Day levels benefited the GOP presidential candidate by an extra 2.5 percent of the vote.

Gomez suggests that, according to traditional turnout models, registered Democrats are more likely to be “peripheral” voters, less engaged in the political process than Republicans. Others have speculated that, since a larger percentage of Democratic voters are poor and do not own cars, Democrats are less likely to walk or take public transit to polling places and vote.