Political Structure: Overview, Swing States

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In the march up to the 2012 general elections, there were a number of traditional swing states that played a huge role towards the final outcome. Among these swing states are Wisconsin and Iowa .In coming up with a relevant explanation of why they played such a huge role in the final outcome, their demographic composition had to be interpreted. This involved aspects such as consideration of their age, ethnic, racial, and educational composition of its electorate.
Iowa had an approximate population of about 3.1 million people in the year 2012.Out of this, persons under the age of 18 years constituted 23.4% while those of 65 years and above constituted 15.8% of the total population. This in essence meant that the remaining percentage was made up of individuals between 18 and 65 years-a bulk of the population too at 61 %( United States Census Bureau, 2012). Wisconsin had 22.6%, 15.2% and 63% as the percentage of individuals below 18 years, above 65 years and between 18 and 65 years respectively. Wisconsin has been predominantly won by the democrats, and inasmuch as it is a swing state, the outcome usually has very fine win margins for the party.
The gender distribution for Iowa was more or less even, with females making up 50.3% of the total population. However, males formed 53% of the total voters compared to 47% of the females (New York Times, 2012). In Wisconsin , pure whites forming 82.2%,while blacks and Hispanics formed about 13%.The reasons for a predominantly democrat influence here is down to the presumed liberal nature of the majority white population and a substantial black population too(GAB,n.d).
Iowa’s racial composition is where there is a wide gap in variation. The purely white form a bulk of the total population, standing at aro...