Palin's popularity

Andrew Gelman, a statistician at Columbia University and author of the new book "Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State," found himself wondering about Sarah Palin's rather extraordinary popularity in Alaska. (Obama supporters who brave the streets of Wasila to tout their man have been getting shouted down with cries of "liberal Communist!") Could this, he thought, have something to do with the small size of the state's population?

Crunching the numbers -- mapping governors' approval ratings on one axis of a graph and state population on the other -- Gelman found that, indeed, small-state governors tend to be more beloved than their big- and medium-state peers. The rising Democratic star Brian Schweitzer, of Montana, benefits from this trend no less than Palin.

The correlation isn't perfect. Still, what accounts for it? Gelman, scheduled to visit Harvard's government department today to talk about new book (which, as you can guess from the Suessian title, explores links between income and voting), offers a few thoughts on his blog: "In a large state, there will be more ambitious politicians on the other side, eager to knock off the incumbent governor; small states often have part-time legislatures and thus the governor is involved in less political conflict; small states (notably Alaska) tend to get more funds per capita from the federal government, and it's easier to be popular when you can disburse more funds; large states tend to be more heterogeneous and so it's harder to keep all the voters happy."

Small-population states already get a disproportionate number of U.S. Senators, relative to population. Now, it seems, structural factors may make it easy for their politicans go gain popularity locally -- and thereby become attractive candidates for national office. Yet another reason for states with large cities to get the blues.