(Chart: Bloomberg Politics)
Talk about a political football. With midterm elections right around the corner and football season well under way, how better to commemorate fall than by marrying the two obsessions?
Bloomberg Politics joined forces with Resonate Insights, a Virginia-based analytics firm, to determine the political leanings of the various fan bases for teams within the National Football League.
Resonate Insights looked at party affiliation and the voting likelihood of residents of relevant turf — that is, congressional districts within an NFL team’s “designated market area.”
It determined the NFL is made up not only of red teams and blue teams but also swing teams — namely the Cincinnati Bengals, New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles.
The analytics firm also found that although the typical football fan is a Republican, there are more fan bases that identify as Democrats than identify as Republicans. According to Bloomberg Politics, however, the fan bases of 23 teams have a tendency to vote more Republican than their voters say they do. By comparison, six fan bases vote more Democratic.
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(Chart: Bloomberg Politics)