AP Analysis: Fla. foreclosures cost McCain votes

ORLANDO, Fla. - Alicia Smith has been unable to find work since she left a job as a convenience store cashier to have a baby two years ago. She voted for Democratic president-elect Barack Obama, hoping he'll create more jobs.

"I've tried to find work but it's hard out there," said Smith, 27, of Orlando.

With the state's unemployment rate at a 14-year high and Florida hard hit by foreclosures, the economy was on the minds of many voters who cast their ballots in the presidential election. An Associated Press statistical analysis shows Obama benefited from the gloomy economic conditions at Republican John McCain's expense.

The analysis compared a county's economic data with its presidential election results. It showed a correlation that for every 1 percent of Florida households in foreclosure in September, McCain lost 16 percentage points to Obama.

Obama won Florida with 50.9 percent of the vote, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to do so since Bill Clinton in 1996 and only the third in 11 elections since 1964.

"The worse things are (in a county), the more likely there is to be a vote for Obama," said David Denslow, a professor and research economist at the University of Florida.

Of the six Florida counties with the highest foreclosure rates, four were won by Obama. Two of those counties — Hillsborough, home to Tampa, and Osceola, south of Orlando — were won by Republican George W. Bush in 2004. Osceola County led the state in September with 1 out of 69 homes, or 1.4 percent, in foreclosure.

The unemployment rate showed a weaker correlation with election results. For every 1 percent of the work force that was unemployed, McCain lost 1.8 percentage points to Obama.

The rate of unemployment claims in each county in September showed no correlation with election results.

Why the strong correlation of foreclosures and election results?

"I suspect that foreclosures might be a surrogate for some other kind of conditions, like really bad consumer confidence," said Stan Geberer, an economist at Fishkind & Associates in Orlando. "Foreclosures may have more associative properties of whatever else is going on in the economy and may be a better surrogate than unemployment."

Foreclosures in Florida also have grown much more dramatically than the other economic variables since the last presidential election in 2004 when Bush beat Democrat John Kerry with 52 percent of the state's vote.

Florida had almost 48,000 foreclosures in September, the last month figures are available, compared to 10,350 foreclosures in January 2005 when Bush was sworn in as president — more than a fourfold increase. Unemployment claims in Florida have not increased that dramatically.

In November 2004, when Bush won Florida, the state had almost 47,000 claims compared to 94,000 claims last September, a twofold increase.

The same goes for the unemployment rate. It was 4.5 percent when Bush won Florida in 2004, while it was 6.6 percent last September.

Not every Florida voter thought Obama was the right man to steer the economy. Retired teacher Tim Roach voted for McCain because he thought the Republican would let the economy fix itself with minimal interference.

Hairdresser Diane Sealey, 53, isn't facing a foreclosure and she still has a job, but she is feeling the effects of the economic downturn in Florida. She voted for Obama.

"I want a president who will take care of the little person like me," Sealey said. "People aren't getting their hair done like they used to. It's at the bottom of the list."

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