Republicans Drive Mini-Coopers?

“Volvos have become more plush and bourgeois, which is a Republican thing to be,” said Mickey Kaus, a dual expert in politics and cars … [Democrats drive old Volvos]

[B]uyers of American cars tend to be Republican – except, for some reason, those who buy Pontiacs, who tend to be Democrats. [WHY?] Foreign-brand compact cars are usually bought by Democrats – but not Mini Coopers, which are bought by almost equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. [I do not believe this!]

Porsche owners identified themselves as Republican more often than owners of any other cars, with 59 percent calling themselves Republicans, 27 percent Democrats and the rest either calling themselves independents or declining to answer. Jaguars and Land Rovers also registered as very “Republican” vehicles. …

Scarborough also determined that Volvos were the most “Democratic” cars, by 44 to 32 percent, followed by Subarus and Hyundais. …

Jeep Grand Cherokee S.U.V. was more than half again as likely to be bought by a Republican than by a Democrat, at 46 percent to 28. Among Hummer buyers, the Republican-to-Democrat ratio was a whopping 52 to 23. …

[S]taunch Democrats drive S.U.V.’s too, but they tend to prefer smaller, foreign-made ones. Republicans generally like them bigger and American-made, or at least bearing the name of an American company, even if they were built elsewhere.

[M]inivans skewed blue … At first glance, this might seem odd, because Republican car buyers tended to have more children – 3.5 on average, versus 1.7 for the Democratic buyers. Explaining this apparent contradiction offers a look into the increasing exactitude marketers seem to be applying to the question of who drives what.

“You might think with all the kids, they’d want the practicality of a minivan,” said Art Spinella, the president of CNW. But practicality was not the Republican customer’s highest priority, as Mr. Spinella’s company discovered by tracking the customers throughout the buying process.

“There is a certain resistance that male new-car buyers have to minivans even in a household with two or three kids,” Mr. Spinella explained. “For the most part, red-state households are more male-dominated when it comes to decision-making for a vehicle. In blue states, it’s more of a joint decision-making process.” Because the Democratic women get more of a say in the decision, their families end up with more minivans than S.U.V.’s.

Saab and Subaru were the first and most visible to aim advertising at gay drivers.

All surveys found that nothing is more Republican than a big pickup. “The No. 1 vehicle bought by millionaires is the Ford F-Series pickup truck,” Mr. Spinella said. “They’re farmers, ranchers, contractors, independent businesspeople. They basically work for themselves and they have substantial assets.”

Political Bumpers spotters, who recorded bumper stickers in favor of or against any of the candidates in the 2004 election, found that the drivers of pickup trucks and large S.U.V.’s were overwhelmingly right-leaning. But the leader of the project, Ryan MacMichael, of Leesburg, Va., said his biggest surprise was the pronounced Democratic skew of bumper stickers on economy cars (71 percent were left-leaning) and station wagons (67 percent).

The most left-leaning models with at least a dozen sightings in Mr. MacMichael’s project were the Honda Civic (80-20 left-leaning), Toyota Corolla (78-19) and Toyota Camry (74-26). The list of most right-leaning was led by another Toyota, but a midsize S.U.V., the Toyota 4Runner (86-14), followed by the Ford Expedition (76-24) and Ford F-150 (75-25).