If Hillary Clinton Wins You Can Thank Wine Drinkers

Posted by Tom Wark on Nov 7, 2016

Have you noticed? Wine drinking and winemaking correlate to the Democratic party. In fact, if Hillary wins the 2016 Presidential election, it will be on the backs of wine drinkers and winemakers.

Consider the map below. It highlights the states that most pundits and history and polls predict will be Hillary Clinton’s most likely path to a victory:

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

The states in blue are those predicted to go to Hillary (D) in an electoral college win. Now, take a look at the top 15 states with the highest per capita consumption for wine:

District of Columbia
New Hampshire
Vermont
Massachusetts
New Jersey
Nevada
Connecticut
California
Rhode Island
Delaware
Hawaii
Oregon
Washington
Florida
Alaska

Of these 15 states, only one will surely go Trump (R): Alaska. The rest are predicted to go to Hillary if she wins.

Now, consider the top ten states by wine production:

California
Washington
New York
Pennsylvania
Oregon
Vermont
Ohio
Michigan
Kentucky
Texas

All but Ohio, Kentucky and Texas are predicted to go Democratic in a Clinton win.

Now, consider the top ten states by number of wineries:

California
Washington
Oregon
New York
Virginia
Texas
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Michigan
North Carolina

All but two, North Carolina and Ohio, are predicted to go to Democratic in a Clinton win and its conceivable that both Ohio and North Carolina could go Democratic in a Clinton win.

So what explains this significant correlation between Democratic presidential election voters and wine drinking and wine production? Well, there is somewhat of a correlation between household income and states that tend to vote Democratic. In general, the greater the household income, the more likely they are to Vote democratic. And there is also a correlation between household income and likelihood of buying wine. So, there’s that.

I spoke to a Trump supporter and their explanation of the correlation between Democratic voters and wine drinking and winemaking. They suggested that Democratic voters tended to be drunk more often and their reasoning was impaired. Possible.

Whatever it is that explains this correlation, it is there. And if Hillary Clinton wins the election, I would hope she’d celebrate with wine since, after all, it will be wine drinkers that put her over the top.