found out their marriage status ‘was a greater influence on vote choice than any other variable’. For every 1 percentage point rise in marriage, Bush gained 0.2 per cent more votes, and in areas with very large numbers of married people it increased by up to 5.5 per cent. Marriage was such a strong variable that it overwhelmed all others, Hawley concluded, calling it ‘eye-popping’. It also completely countered the ‘education effect’ whereby more schooling tends to make people more liberal, since once marriage was taken into account ‘education ceased to have any statistical significance in
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