Barbara
sits middle of the pack
- Score
- −0.28
- More liberal than
- 58% of names
- Measured from
- 95,387 contributors
That ranking compares Barbara with other names. The typical name scores −0.22, because people who donate to campaigns lean left as a group, so a name can sit left of zero and still be middle of the pack. The party splits below use a different yardstick again: each one is measured against an even fifty-fifty.
DIME contributor ideal points, 1979-2014. Negative is liberal, positive conservative.
Barbara versus Barb
People who go by Barb rather than Barbara sit 0.00 to the left of the full name. It is the same name. The difference is what people choose to be called.
How does Barbara compare with someone else's name?
Party, by population
Different groups of people, measured in different ways. They do not always agree, and the disagreement is usually the interesting part.
Federal contributions, 2016 to 2026. Donors skew older and wealthier than the country.
Actual party registration, which is a choice people make at the DMV rather than with a chequebook.
Party registration again, in a state with a very different mix of people. Florida and North Carolina agree on which way a name leans 88% of the time.
Ohio has no party registration, so this is the last primary ballot each voter chose to pull.
Another set of donor records points the same way. Among Washington state and local donors, Barbara is 61% Democratic where that pool averages 55%, across 2,832 people. Worth a flag: among donors to 527 organisations, Barbara tilts the other way. It is 70% Democratic there, but that pool averages 71% overall, so Barbara sits right of its centre while the federal records put it left of theirs.
Is it the name, or the people who have it?
Names carry age, sex and ethnicity, and those predict politics on their own. Comparing every Barbara in North Carolina against other registrants of the same age, sex and race leaves +0.00 that the demographics do not explain. For this name, almost nothing survives: the name is standing in for who happens to carry it.
Related spellings
Where Barbara leans differently
| State | Democratic share of donors | Against that state’s own donors |
|---|---|---|
| CA | 65% | −0.01 |
| FL | 45% | +0.27 |
| NY | 75% | +0.22 |
| TX | 36% | −0.06 |
| PA | 59% | +0.17 |
| WA | 68% | +0.14 |
| MI | 55% | +0.14 |
| IL | 64% | +0.12 |
The right column compares Barbara with other donors in the same state, so it is not just telling you which states are Democratic.