AP Government and Politics

What demographic characteristic would disqualify a presidential candidate (e.g., race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.) to the most voters?

1. How accurate was your prediction?

2. What most surprised you about this information?

3. What was the most hated presidential demographic feature?

4. What was the least hated presidential demographic feature?

5. What is the BIG STORY this data tells?

6. Why do you think that is?

7. What is the biggest consequence of this data?

8. How different do you think these opinions would be for Democrats and Republicans?

9. How does this information impact US electoral history?

10. Which of all the demographic features above, describes someone who has been president?

11. Which of the demographic features above do you think will never ever ever in a million years be president?

12. Based on the figures above, construct the perfect presidential candidate:

13. Based on the figures above, construct the worst possible presidential candidate:

14. Mitt Romney (Republican), a Mormon, ran for president in 2012. Hillary Clinton (Democrat), a woman, ran for president in 2016. What advice would you give the Democratic and Republican parties about running people like Romney or Clinton in the future:

15. Why do you think people hate atheists so much????

16. Bernie Sanders is a Socialist and he almost won the Democratic nomination for president. What's up with that?

17. How do you think this data has changed in the past 5 years?

18. What does this information tell us about American voters?

19. How do you think this data has changed over time?*

20. If you hate haters does that make you a hater?

*Bonus chart of voter hate over the past half century

Learning Extension

Read the Gallup report on presidential voting

Action Extension

Do some research and try to find an atheist running for any political office in the entire United States. I bet you can't do it. Share what you find with class or online.