NamePolitics

Joan

sits middle of the pack

liberaltypical nameconservative
Score
−0.28
More liberal than
57% of names
Measured from
40,681 contributors
more liberalevery scored namemore conservative

That ranking compares Joan 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.

How does Joan 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.

Campaign donors, nationwide25,198 people
58% Democratic42% Republican

Federal contributions, 2016 to 2026. Donors skew older and wealthier than the country.

Registered voters, North Carolina4,697 people
46% Democratic54% Republican

Actual party registration, which is a choice people make at the DMV rather than with a chequebook.

Registered voters, Florida19,419 people
46% Democratic54% Republican

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.

Primary voters, Ohio4,111 people
44% Democratic56% Republican

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, Joan is 61% Democratic where that pool averages 55%, across 1,087 people. Worth a flag: among donors to 527 organisations, Joan tilts the other way. It is 67% Democratic there, but that pool averages 71% overall, so Joan sits right of its centre while the federal records put it left of theirs.

Worth noticing: donors named Joan lean Democratic while registered voters named Joan lean Republican. This happens for about a quarter of names, and it is why this page refuses to give you a single number.

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 Joan in North Carolina against other registrants of the same age, sex and race leaves +0.02 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 Joan leans differently

StateDemocratic share of donorsAgainst that state’s own donors
CA63%−0.08
NY72%+0.05
FL41%+0.14
PA58%+0.15
TX37%−0.04
MA82%+0.24
NJ55%−0.18
IL62%+0.05

The right column compares Joan with other donors in the same state, so it is not just telling you which states are Democratic.

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