Yes -- I didn't say that rich people don't vote liberal, I asked you to prove that better educated people vote Democrat. I asked for data.
Gelman's data shows that although rich voters vote Republican and poor voters vote Democrat, rich states vote Democrat and poor states vote Republican. This is because rich voters in rich states are 'switching sides' and voting Democrat.
I don't know how that interacts with education, which is why I asked you for sources. However, it's easy to hypothesise that richer votes are generally better educated, and since richer voters tend to vote Republican, better educated voters tend to vote Republican, except in rich states, where they are voting Democrat.
Who is Gelman, btw? Who funded his research? Do we know?
The "richest" Americans vote republican. I would guess that these are the top .10% of the richest. The upper middle class, however, as a group, votes democratic. There's more of an upper middle class income level population in the coastal states, and these happen to be the richest and best educated states.
I'm not saying you're entirely wrong, but I think your argument lacks nuance entirely. And nuance is important. Especially because states are not monolithic voting bodies, except when they have to turn in their votes to the electoral college authorities--within states, there are districts that vote differently according to such factors as education level and income.
Republicans as a voting block tend to be made up of: blue collar or lower middle class social conservatives and superrich corporation owners and other business people. Democrats tend to be made up of: the upper middle class, the inner-city or urban impoverished, professionals of all types including academics.
