# Debunk or support this election claim **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 3, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906 "2012-12-03T21:41:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/1 "2012-12-03T21:41:47Z")
At a recent gathering, I overheard the following claim concerning voters in the recent US Presidential Election: Of those whose paycheck comes from any level of government (federal, state, local, etc.) over 80% voted for Obama. (Meant to include not just government employees, but police, most firemen, most teachers, etc.) The person making this claim had some others (e.g. “there are over 1 million US billionaires”) that are clearly wrong, but I was wondering about the one above and haven’t had great success Googling this. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/2 "2012-12-03T21:51:06Z")
You can pretty much just count teachers and troops. The rest is noise. There are about 3.8M teachers and 1.5M troops. So I doubt the 80% number as military people tend to be conservative ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/3 "2012-12-03T21:54:55Z")
There’s no way to prove this. If those numbers come from anywhere they’d have to be poll results. Anyway, it wouldn’t be surprising if it were true. Government workers are probably better educated than the average citizen, and more aware of political issues and the impact of elections, not to mention they’d just be voting for another government employee. So even if true I don’t see what the point of citing the figure would be. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/4 "2012-12-03T21:56:51Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/5 "2012-12-03T22:18:28Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > You can pretty much just count teachers and troops. The rest is noise. There are about 3.8M teachers and 1.5M troops. So I doubt the 80% number as military people tend to be conservative Eh? [2.7 million employee](http://www.opm.gov/feddata/historicaltables/totalgovernmentsince1962.asp)s of the executive branch doesn’t seem like noise. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/6 "2012-12-03T23:02:32Z")
But you can’t count troops, because being in the military is a job, and we all know that the government never creates jobs, right? Anyhow, I doubt it is that high, but I bet it is over 50%, since government workers know they are not the parasites Republicans claim they are. (Or just want to hold on to their jobs if you hate government.) ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/7 "2012-12-03T23:21:49Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > You can pretty much just count teachers and troops. The rest is noise. As Finagle has noted, this omits a substantial number of federal employees. This [US census site](http://www.census.gov/govs/apes/) supplies state and local govt. employment figures for 2011, and includes a total for both categories of 16.36 million (full-time equivalent employment). So that’s definitely more than noise. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/8 "2012-12-04T03:57:32Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > Eh? [2.7 million employee](http://www.opm.gov/feddata/historicaltables/totalgovernmentsince1962.asp)s of the executive branch doesn’t seem like noise. Boy was I wrong ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/9 "2012-12-04T04:05:59Z")
80%? No way. I’ll admit I’m just going on my own experience and observation, but I’ve worked in the public sector before, and there were plenty of staunch Republicans among us. If you bring in the military it will tilt decidedly to the right. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/10 "2012-12-04T04:51:28Z")
Why would you NOT think this guy was making it up? It should be his job to back up his claim. Am I the only guy who calls out “Cite?” at parties? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/11 "2012-12-04T13:26:07Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Why would you NOT think this guy was making it up? It should be his job to back up his claim. > > Am I the only guy who calls out “Cite?” at parties? I did that once (to a guy who was convinced that California was going to dump nuclear waste into an earthquake fault line without asking any seismologists about the danger). Strangely, my cogent skepticism didn’t make me the life of the party. ---
**Author:** ![theR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@theR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theR)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/12 "2012-12-04T15:23:39Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > As Finagle has noted, this omits a substantial number of federal employees. > > This [US census site](http://www.census.gov/govs/apes/) supplies state and local govt. employment figures for 2011, and includes a total for both categories of 16.36 million (full-time equivalent employment). So that’s definitely more than noise. Since people are trying to compare federal employees to troops who are perceived to be more politically conservative, it is worth pointing out that more than 25% of federal employees are veterans. I don’t necessarily buy in to active duty being heavily skewed or federal workers being heavily skewed. I would bet a lot of money that the 80% number is wrong for many reasons. Remember the OP says that includes state and local employees, too. In conservative states, those are going to trend the same way as their larger voting public. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/13 "2012-12-04T15:56:45Z")
[Gallup poll from May](http://www.gallup.com/poll/154883/professionals-pick-obama-execs-business-owners-romney.aspx) of 1802 government workers shows them preferring Obama 51-40. [Rasmussen poll from August](http://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2012/08/poll-obama-leads-romney-among-government-workers/57563/) of 815 government workers shows them preferring Obama 54-37. You can quibble a bit with the numbers here - the polls were taken well before the election, and both are from firms the [seem to have oversampled Republican voters](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/which-polls-fared-best-and-worst-in-the-2012-presidential-race/), but I think it’s doubtful that the actual Romney turnout was as low as 20%. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/14 "2012-12-04T16:06:43Z")
> [@zut](#): > > [Gallup poll from May](http://www.gallup.com/poll/154883/professionals-pick-obama-execs-business-owners-romney.aspx) of 1802 Boy did I read that wrong. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/15 "2012-12-04T17:52:41Z")
> [@zut](#): > > [Gallup poll from May](http://www.gallup.com/poll/154883/professionals-pick-obama-execs-business-owners-romney.aspx) of 1802… > the polls were taken well before the election… Indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2012, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/16 "2012-12-04T19:04:15Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Why would you NOT think this guy was making it up? I was and am skeptical of the claim. But it was part of a tolerably eye-opening post-Thanksgiving conversation with a woman who is a high-school teacher in the Philadelphia area. Her argument (paraphrased): Look, people basically are going to vote their self-interest. Like everyone else, teachers like me and other public employees are naturally going to take a close look at what any candidate is likely to mean for their pay, benefits and retirement. Other issues may matter, but this one is always going to be really important. There are now enough of us to have an important effect on the outcome of any election And we vote. And we vote Democratic. What chance does any Republican have of getting a large percentage of our votes, when any fool can see that our pay and benefits are going to be better with Democrats? The Republicans are dreaming if they think they can change this, or if they think they can win in spite of it. The numbers and the trends are all with us and against them. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2012, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/17 "2012-12-06T21:50:02Z")
Well, I voted against Reagan and George HW Bush (twice) while working for a Defense contractor. I recognized that what was financially good for me personally was a shitty deal for my country and my fellow citizens. Anecdote not data, etc. but people do sometimes knowingly vote against their own best financial interests. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/18 "2012-12-07T20:04:46Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > [indent]Of those whose paycheck comes from any level of government (federal, state, local, etc.) over 80% voted for Obama. Of course, you know that 64.8% of statistics are made up on the spot? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/19 "2012-12-07T20:59:00Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > Well, I voted against Reagan and George HW Bush (twice) while working for a Defense contractor. I recognized that what was financially good for me personally was a shitty deal for my country and my fellow citizens. > > Anecdote not data, etc. but people do sometimes knowingly vote against their own best financial interests. Indeed, otherwise the Republican share of the vote would be around 1%. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-or-support-this-election-claim/642906/20 "2012-12-07T21:11:51Z")
> [@zut](#): > > [Gallup poll from May](http://www.gallup.com/poll/154883/professionals-pick-obama-execs-business-owners-romney.aspx) of 1802 Showed the Anti-Federalists making gains in the mid-term election for the third session of Congress. I thought Washington would have better coattails after his re-election.