Swing Districts Are Spending $13.5 Million More of Stimulus Than Non-Swing Districts

How much more stimulus money is spent in swing districts? A lot. Using the data from Recovery.gov and data about swing districts, we see on the chart below that swing districts on average have reported spending $13.5 million more of stimulus funds than non-swing districts. The numbers are the following:

Stimulus funds to the average swing district: $437,371,451.46

Stimulus funds to the average non-swing district: $423,870,363.65

Swing district premium: $13,501,087.81

The list of swing districts comes from the Real Clear Politics map of congressional districts. They have a breakdown of districts using a dark blue to dark red scale and toss-up districts are in gray. They also do a very credible breakdown based on polling to show which districts belong where. Check it out here. The Recovery data comes from recovery.gov and is available for download here.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that this additional $13.5 million spending in swing districts is intentional. It could be a coincidence. (After all why would a political bill be used for political reasons?)

Also, notice that the vertical chart axe starts at $415 million.