I'm working from home on a demographic project for work so I thought I'd throw together some graphs on the four states represented in this year's presidential election, and compare them to US stats. I thought it might shed some light on how the candidates previous experience in their home states could be applied at the national level - and whether their home states are representative of the nation as a whole.

Overall I was surprised by how similar the states were for the most part, however there were some major differences - but nothing eye-opening.

In terms of general population and age/gender it's not surprising that Arizona has seen the most population growth between 2000 and 2006 - it's one of the states that saw ton of homebuilding during the boom years. It's also not surprising that Alaska has the lowest percentage of women - all of those jokes about it being a great place to meet a man are right, I guess! What is surprising is the low percentage of persons over 65 living in Alaska. I have no idea why this number is so abnormally low - it could be that most people leave Alaska for other states when they are of college age or out of college (presumably to find a job as options there are limited). This would mean that retired folks and the elderly would probably need to leave the state to be near their children and other family members. I would say it might have to do with the cold climate in Alaska but Delaware actually has a higher percentage of persons over 65 in this comparison - even above the US average.

In terms of race, nothing surprising here: Arizona has a larger share of hispanic or latino residents; Alaska has more native americans and alaskan natives, and both Alaska and Arizona far smaller share of african-americans than the other states and the US average. Delaware and Illinois have larger shares of African-Americans, which is typical in states that have large urban centers.

In terms of other demographic characteristics, there were some obvious things: Arizona has a larger share of foreign-born and non-english speaking residents (Mexico); Delaware and Illinois have higher rates of Bachelors Degrees (typical in states with large urban centers). And there were some not so obvious things: Alaska has a higher rate of high school graduation; Arizona has a larger share of people under the poverty line; Delaware has a larger share of women than the national average; Delaware has the highest rate of homeownership, and Illinois comes in second to Arizona in both foreign-born residents and non-english speaking residents.

So overall it's interesting to see that Arizona and Alaska both have outliers in a number of categories, and that Delaware and Illinois are pretty damn average. If I were going to be partisan for a moment, I might argue that Delaware and Illinois being more representative of the US averages point to a better grasp of the average American's life... but I'll stop there.