Foreclosures and Unemployment Caused McCain’s Loss in Florida

For every one percent of foreclosed homes in Florida in September 2008, Barack Obama took away 16 percentage points from McCain. For every one percent of unemployed Floridians, Obama took away almost two percentage points from McCain. McCain lost Florida, with 50.9 percent of voters delivering their votes to Obama. AP compared counties' foreclosure and unemployment rates to the results of the election and found out significant correlations, although the correlation between foreclosure and election results is much more significant than the correlation between unemployment and election results. Four of the six counties with the largest foreclosure rates were won by Democratic nominee Barack Obama, with two of the counties overwhelmingly won by Republican President George Bush in 2004. According to David Denslow, a University of Florida economist and professor, counties struggling under bad economic conditions have overwhelmingly voted for Obama hoping that the new president can make things different. Stan Geberer, the chief economist of Orlando-based Fishkind & Associates, said that foreclosure became the surrogate for all other economic troubles, such as extremely low consumer confidence and unemployment. When George Bush was re-elected as president in November 2004, there were only 10,350 foreclosed homes in Florida. In September of this year, there were nearly 48,000 foreclosed homes. In 2004, there were 47,000 unemployment claims. In September 2008, the figured doubled to 94,000 claims. In 2004, the unemployment rate was 4.5%. It increased to 6.6% in September. Twenty-seven year-old Alicia Smith has not been able to return to work since resigning from her job as store cashier in 2006 to deliver her child. She decided to vote for Obama, hoping he will do things differently and create jobs. Fifty-three-year-old Diane Sealey has kept her job and has no problems related to foreclosure, but she sees all around her the signs of a bleak economy. She also voted for Obama. Search foreclosure listings in Florida cities:

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• Fort Lauderdale foreclosure listings