This is the final part of three posts analyzing the congressional districts President Barack Obama underperformed in. It will focus on the movement in Appalachia and the South Central United States. The previous parts can be found starting here.
The 2010 Midterms
Let's take one last look at those districts in which Mr. Obama did worse than Senator John Kerry:
One sees again, as clear as ever, the diagonal pattern of Republican movement in South Central America and the Appalachians.
These districts differ from the northeastern and Florida-based regions examined in the previous post. Unlike those congressional districts, the districts in South Central and Appalachia vote strongly Republican.
This is the first part of three posts analyzing the congressional districts President Barack Obama underperformed in.
Congressional Districts
By most accounts, Senator Barack Obama dominated the 2008 presidential election. He won an electoral landslide, winning Republican-leaning states such as Indiana and North Carolina which his campaign targeted. Compared to 2004, the nation shifted almost ten points more Democratic.
Mr. Obama improved from Senator John Kerry's performance almost everywhere. More than 90% of congressional districts voted more Democratic than in 2004. Yet this means that at least several dozen congressional districts were more friendly to Mr. Kerry than the Illinois Senator. I have mapped these districts below:
In the aftermath of the 2008 presidential election, the New York Times famously posted a map depicting county-by-county changes from the 2004 election. A different version of this map is below:
What is remarkable about this map is the evenness of the Democratic movement - a 9.72% shift to them from 2004. With the exception of a diagonal patch of Appalachia, President Barack Obama improved throughout the country. It did not matter if a county was located in Utah or California, whether it belonged to a dense city or a thinly populated farm, or whether it was poor or rich - almost every county still voted more Democratic than it did in 2004.
If one moves to a statewide basis, the shift is still fairly uniform.
Compared to the county-by-county map, this map lends itself more easily to analysis.
This is part of an analysis of the swing state Pennsylvania. Part three can be found here.
(A note: There will be a lot of maps in this post.)
Philadelphia: Precinct Results
My first post on the swing state Pennsylvania focused on the city Philadelphia, an incredibly Democratic city. At the time, I looked for detailed ward and precinct results but was unable to find any. Recently, however, I have come across a website which maps Philadelphia precinct results across a whole range of elections; it is a literal gold mine. This offers the opportunity to substantially deepen the previous analysis.
Below is a map, derived from the website, of the 2008 presidential election in Philadelphia (by precinct!)
An analysis of this result below.
This is the last part of an analysis on the swing state Florida.
Miami-Dade County
Here is how John Kerry did in south Florida:
Here is how Barack Obama performed:
Broward and Palm Beach are marginally smaller, when compared to Obama's performance. The big difference, however, is with Miami-Dade. Kerry won it by 6%; Obama won it by 16%.
There is no other place in Florida (and, perhaps, the country) like Miami-Dade. Palm Beach and Broward counties are retiree destinations; Miami is home to immigrants and refugees from all Latin America. More than 60% of the population is Latino - and only 3% of them come from Mexico. The Miami accent is unique compared with the nation. Local government is distinct from other counties in Florida.
One would expect Miami to be one of the most Democratic places in the nation, much like New York City or Chicago.
This is part three of a series on the political structure of the swing state Florida.
The I-4 Corridor
If there is a holy grail of Florida politics, it is winning the I-4 corridor. This refers to the Interstate 4 highway, which begins in Tampa Bay, travels though Orlando, and ends in Daytona Beach.
Quite a lot of people live in the I-4 corridor. It's far more populated than northern Florida (and northern Florida itself is relatively dense compared to other parts of the South). While parts of south Florida are far more people-heavy, as an aggregate central Florida has a slightly greater population. The I-4 corridor can be compared to a gigantic suburb, with an unusually high number of retirees. Granted, there are cities, but they are more alike to Phoenix (which is really just a big suburb with skyscrapers) than New York. The picture above indicates counties in which more than 100,000 votes were cast in 2008; it is a rough indication of voting density. There are a scattering of counties with more than a hundred thousand voters in northern Florida; actually Obama does quite well in the highlighted counties. Most of south Florida is also yellow. Then there is an empty region - the Everglades. And above that is the I-4 corridor, which is nearly entirely highlighted. The center yellow counties are actually a rough definition of the I-4 corridor.
The I-4 corridor is often considered to be the "swing" region of Florida. The metropolitan areas that lie inside it are the heart of central Florida, and they have enormous importance. The percentage by which a politician wins the I-4 corridor often mirrors his overall performance in the state.
Florida can be considered as three regions distinct in culture, economics, and voting patterns. Northern Florida is deep red; the I-4 corridor is light red; and the Miami metropolis is moderately blue.
Until recently, Florida was far different from what it looks like today. It was the quintessential Southern state, and it was fairly empty in term of people. Florida's voting record reflected its southern roots. Until Eisenhower won it twice, Florida was part of the Solid South. In 1964, LBJ ran well behind his national average, due to his support for civil rights. The next election, George Wallace took 29% of the vote. Then in 1976, Jimmy Carter resurrected the Solid South for the last time, winning Florida by 5%. That was also the last time a Democrat ran above the national average in Florida.
Northern Florida and the Panhandle Florida still is a Southern state to some extent. This is especially true in northern Florida and the panhandle, which borders Alabama and Georgia. Northern Florida is very conservative; it is not uncommon to see a Republican taking 70% or more of the vote in a number of counties there.
As the picture indicates, northern Florida constituted the place in which McCain performed best. There were no counties in which Obama won over 70% of the vote, although he comes fairly close in majority-black Gadsden County (where he won 69.1% of the vote).
Gadsden County provides a neat encapsulation of all that makes northern Florida tough going for Democrats. Like much of the Deep South, voting is racially polarized. If a county is like Gadsden, it votes blue; if, on the other hand, a county does not have many blacks, it is usually deep red. There are not many independents in this region; voting habits are deeply entrenched. The "average" voter and the "average" county is a hard-core Republican.
The result is something like this:
This is northern Florida in the 2008 presidential election.
There are three noticeable blue areas (out of five Democratic counties). One is Gadsden County, which is majority black. The other two are homes of major public universities: Tallahassee hosts Florida A&M University and Florida State University, while Alachua County is home to the University of Florida.
This is the Democratic "base," such as it is. Blacks and college students have historically been the most faithful Democrats, and in northern Florida they are the only Democrats.
A final note before moving on to central Florida. Although Jacksonville most always votes Republican, there is a substantial black minority within it that, unfortunately, has had historically poor turn-out. A strong Democrat can mobilize these voters and essentially erase Republican margins in this county. Barack Obama was extremely successful at doing so, which is why the red circle is relatively small in the map. On the other hand, John Kerry was not as successful; he lost Jacksonville by 17 points, as the picture below indicates.
--Inoljt, http://thepolitikalblog.wordpr...
Over the holidays, SSP readers seemed to have a lot of fun with the vulnerable House Republicans and vulnerable House Democrats threads. This left me wondering, as so many things seem to do, "is there a way to quantify that?" In other words, is there a data-driven way to approach the question instead of just relying on perceptions (and also to make sure that potentially overlooked races don't fall through the cracks)?
Here's what I tried. It's actually a bit reminiscent of my PVI/Vote Index, in that it measures representative performance against the district's lean, except here performance is measured by the rep's margin in the last election. (The data for many of the 2008 electoral margins is available in the recent "How'd We Do?" post, conveniently arranged in order from closest to least close.)
Look at the top 20 most vulnerable Republicans to see how it works. As pretty much everyone would expect, Anh Cao in LA-02 is the most vulnerable GOPer. He had the 5th weakest margin of any Republican who survived 2008 (beating Bill Jefferson by 2.7%, behind only Fleming (0.4%), McClintock (0.6%), Calvert (2.4%), and Luetkemeyer (2.5%). Needless to say, he's in the GOP-held district with the least favorable PVI (D+28, using "old," i.e. 00-04, PVI). At #2 is Jim Gerlach in PA-06; he had the 9th worst margin at 4.2%, and he's in the 6th worst district for a GOPer at D+2. And so on...
District
Rep.
Margin rating
PVI rating
Total
LA-02
Cao
5
1
6
PA-06
Gerlach
9
6
15
IL-10
Kirk
13
4
17
WA-08
Reichert
16
5
21
MI-11
McCotter
17
16
33
MN-03
Paulsen
22
12
34
NJ-07
Lance
24
13
37
OH-12
Tiberi
34
14
48
CA-50
Bilbray
11
40
51
MN-06
Bachmann
6
46.5
52.5
FL-25
Diaz-Balart
18
37
55
CA-44
Calvert
3
55
58
AL-03
Rogers
25
34
59
LA-04
Fleming
1
60
61
FL-15
Posey
31
30.5
61.5
MN-02
Kline
39
23
62
CA-26
Dreier
33
30.5
63.5
MO-09
Luetkemeyer
4
60
64
NY-26
Lee
38
27
65
PA-15
Dent
58
8
66
Is this much different from SSP readers' predictions? No, not much; it's the wisdom of crowds at work. Still, I see a few names on there that didn't get much of any mention in our prediction thread: especially Pat Tiberi in OH-12 (34th worst margin at 12.6%, 14th worst district at R+1) who seems to fly under the radar every single freakin' election. Other names revealed by this list that wouldn't necessarily be intuitive picks include Thad McCotter, John Kline, Mike Rogers (AL), and Bill Posey, who benefited from our big-time recruitment failure in the FL-15 open seat.
Here's the flipside: the Democratic seats that seem likeliest to flip, based on 2008 numbers. Some of these may not be much cause for alarm; Chet Edwards, for instance, is probably not in any imminent danger except in case of a 1994-sized event, but he's probably doomed to uncomfortable margins for all eternity. On the other hand, time will tell whether Walt Minnick can quickly fortify himself, or if we're only renting ID-01 for a couple years.
It's that time of the year when people start contemplating "Oh, no! What if there's a tie in the Electoral College?" (It's actually not that far-fetched. Take the Kerry states, add Iowa, Colorado, and New Mexico, subtract New Hampshire and you get 269 each.)
As you might or might not be aware, the 12th Amendment states that in the event of a tie (or no one getting a majority because of a 3rd party), the House of Representatives decides who becomes President. However... it's not done by individual votes. Instead, each state delegation gets one vote. So, let's assume there's no horse trading going on behind the scenes, or strangely principled decisions to honor the will of the state's voters rather than one's party designation, and see which party controls which party delegation: the Dems control 27, the GOP controls 21, and there are 2 ties. (This is already a dramatic improvement over the situation going into the 2006 elections, when the GOP controlled 30, Dems controlled 17, and there were 3 ties.)
