Hybrids and Voters in Attleboro

Attleboro is brown and red. That's what we found when we compared data from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles to the voting results in the 2012 U.S. Senate race.

You can see the results in the above map. Large circles represent cities and towns with more hybrid owners per capita, and the red/blue color represents which way those cities and towns voted in November. In Attleboro, 11.8 of every 1,000 vehicles is a hybrid, compared to the state average of 18.

Patch's research suggests Massachusetts has a good number of what could be called "green Republican" communities. More than 40 percent of the communities where Republican Scott Brown carried the vote have an above average numbers of hybrids.

The information is a nice rebuttal to the national trends of hybrid/GOP separation. Niche marketer Experian Marketing Services says that nationally, registered Democrats are 90 percent more likely than registered Republicans to own a hybrid vehicle.

What do you think? Did politics play a part in your car purchasing decision? Do you think you can define people's political beliefs by what kind of car they drive? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.