Democrats – the Party of the Rich?

Donald Lambro wrote in the Washington Times:

Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional districts … But in a broader measurement, the study also showed that of the 167 House districts where the median annual income was higher than the national median of $48,201, a slight majority, 84 districts, were represented by Democrats.

Wow! Of the 435 districts in the U.S., 167 had median incomes that were greater than the national median. And just over half of those were represented by the Democrats!

John Hindraker strives to find an explanation of this observation:

Of course, these numbers are skewed somewhat by the fact that Democrats tend to represent urban districts where average incomes are higher. But there is no disputing the trend: prosperous Congressional districts are increasingly turning blue, across the country.

Greg Sargent is mocking these two noting: (1) being above the national median isn’t exactly rich; and (2) the difference in the total districts that sent a Democrat to Congress and the difference in the districts with median income above the national median likely is not even statistically significant. The author this ho-hum study just happened to be Michael Franc of the Heritage Foundation. Franc tries to claim that the Democrats will come to represent the interests of the wealthy rather than the rest of us. Yea, right!