n article of faith among Democratic Party strategists (and a source of apprehension among Republican Party strategists) is that high voter turnout helps Democratic candidates. According to this conventional wisdom, Democratic electorates are less likely to vote than are Republican voters. Thus low turnouts naturally favor Republican candidates. As turnouts push higher, the reasoning goes, a larger number of potential Democratic voters will go to the polls, creating a better opportunity for Democratic candidates. Therefore, as turnouts go up, so should the Democratic percentage of the vote.
Test this conventional wisdom by regressing obama08 on to_0408 using the states data. The variable to_0408 is the percentage-point change in presidential election turnout between 2004 and 2008. States in which turnout declined between 2004 and 2008 have negative values, while states in which turnout increased have positive values. For example, Mississippi's turnout increased from 51.1 percent to 56.4 percent, giving Mississippi a value of 5.3 on to_0408. The outcome variable, obama08, is the percentage of the vote cast for Democratic candidate Barack Obama.
Interpret the results of the regression and provide a conclusion about whether the conventional wisdom is correct. Be sure to include a nicely formatted table of the regression line along with confidence bands.