More Voters Think Santa Will Give Gifts To Romney Than To Obama

December 10th, 2012 6:18 PM

Barack Obama may have won in November, but more voters think Santa will bring Mitt Romney gifts this Christmas than his Democratic opponent.

Most interesting is that this was reported by the left-leaning pollster Public Policy Polling:

PPP’s new holiday season poll sees voters in giving moods towards both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney - voters believe both men will be receiving presents from Santa this holiday season rather than a lump of coal, with Romney perhaps getting some sympathy presents. Voters say Romney will get presents by a 63/37 margin compared to 51/49 for Obama. 44% of respondents said Santa was a Democrat, to 28% who think he is a Republican.

It's certainly not surprising that a left-leaning pollster would find more voters believe Santa is a Democrat.

But why would these same people think Romney would get more gifts than Obama?

What's also interesting is the poll oversampled women by 57 percent to only 43 percent men.

I guess women feel more comfortable with Romney getting gifts for Christmas than the keys to the White House.

As for those thinking Santa is a Democrat, Arthur Brooks's "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservativism" gives us some insight. Beliefnet.com reported his findings in April 2008:

[C]onservatives gave about 30 percent more money per year to private charitable causes, even though his study found liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year in income than did conservative families. This greater generosity among conservative families proved to be true in Brooks' research for every income group, "from poor to middle class to rich."

This "giving gap" also extended beyond money to time donated to charitable causes, as well. Brooks also discovered that in 2002, conservative Americans were much more likely to donate blood each year than liberals and to do so more often within a year. Brooks found "if liberals and moderates gave blood at the same rate as conservatives, the blood supply in the United States would jump by about 45 percent."


When Brooks compared his findings to IRS data on the percentage of household income given away, he found that "red" states in the 2004 election were more charitable than "blue" states. Brooks found that 24 of the 25 states that were above average in family charitable giving voted for Bush in 2004, and 17 of the 25 states below average in giving voted for Kerry. Brooks concluded, "The electoral map and the charity map are remarkably similar."

Indeed. As the Catalogue for Philanthropy consistently finds, red states regularly top the "generosity index" meaning that they give more as a percentage of income than blue states.

Makes one think Santa is a Republican.