Miles' Election Map Thread

[Miles]

Well, I'm a bit surprised here. I wasn't expecting south Charlotte to trend R. This kinda complicates my "NC-09 will be truly competitive within the next 10 years theory."

Romney's improvement seemed to radiate out from the South Park neighborhood, where I went to high school. South Park is a very wealthy area, so it makes sense that Romney would rebound there.

Generally speaking, Romney was a much better fit for south Charlotte than McCain. Romney's greater appeal coupled with Obama's overperformance there in 2008 made for a pretty noticeable Republican swing.

I was a bit disappointed with my own precinct, 114. If you look at the trend map, near the southern corner of the county, 114 is the light blue one directly on top the bright red precinct that looks like downward-facing crescent.

Despite swinging 20 points to Obama and voting Against Amendment 1, it trended about 4% Republican. Its pretty upper-middle class, though not nearly as wealthy as South Park, and heavily white, so Romney was a good candidate for the precinct.

For reference, here's how my precinct voted in the past:

2000: 66/34 Bush
2004: 67/32 Bush
2008: 57/42 McCain
2012: 61/38 Romney
Amendment 1: 53/47 Against

[Skill and Chance]

Well, I'm a bit surprised here. I wasn't expecting south Charlotte to trend R. This kinda complicates my "NC-09 will be truly competitive within the next 10 years theory."

Romney's improvement seemed to radiate out from the South Park neighborhood, where I went to high school. South Park is a very wealthy area, so it makes sense that Romney would rebound there.

Generally speaking, Romney was a much better fit for south Charlotte than McCain. Romney's greater appeal coupled with Obama's overperformance there in 2008 made for a pretty noticeable Republican swing.

I was a bit disappointed with my own precinct, 114. If you look at the trend map, near the southern corner of the county, 114 is the light blue one directly on top the bright red precinct that looks like downward-facing crescent.

Despite swinging 20 points to Obama and voting Against Amendment 1, it trended about 4% Republican. Its pretty upper-middle class, though not nearly as wealthy as South Park, and heavily white, so Romney was a good candidate for the precinct.

For reference, here's how my precinct voted in the past:

2000: 66/34 Bush
2004: 67/32 Bush
2008: 57/42 McCain
2012: 61/38 Romney
Amendment 1: 53/47 Against

Romney did seem to overperform in most of the Southern educated suburb counties that were touted as big D trending areas in 2008.  The federal government areas of VA were the only real exception to this.  What was also interesting to me was the D trend in the rural South this time in areas removed from coal mining.

[Benj]

Here's what it looks like when a Republican wins a D+25 district:

So it looks like Cao did well with liberal whites, I'm I reading that right?

Cao won almost literally every non-black voter in the district in 2008.

[Bacon King]

Democrats should have sued when Jindal tried to help Republicans by scheduling a needless runoff election in December.  There was no reason not to have the primary in early October as usual and then the general election/or runoff on election day in early November. 

There was one really big legitimate reason that the elections got delayed, you know:

[old timey villain]

Does anybody have some precinct level data on Atlanta or metro Atlanta? Obama didn't lose too much ground there and some counties swung towards him, but I'd like to see it broken down.

[Miles]

Does anybody have some precinct level data on Atlanta or metro Atlanta? Obama didn't lose too much ground there and some counties swung towards him, but I'd like to see it broken down.

I haven't done any GA maps in the past, though I'm trying to cobble together GA-12. Maybe after that I'll look at Atlanta. The problem with GA is that the names of the voting districts don't always match the shapefiles that I get from DRA.

Basically with Landrieu, there are a few things. There are a lot of people in some of the bigger parishes, like Livingston, Lafayette and Ouachita who I really don't think would ever vote Democrat. Her base obviously Greater New Orleans; she's been making inroads in other cities, like Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Lake Charles to help offset those three aforementioned parishes. She's also very popular along the River Parishes and along the Delta. The Cajun last name also helps in Acadiana.

[Bacon King]

Does anybody have some precinct level data on Atlanta or metro Atlanta? Obama didn't lose too much ground there and some counties swung towards him, but I'd like to see it broken down.

any specific counties you'd like to see?

[old timey villain]

Does anybody have some precinct level data on Atlanta or metro Atlanta? Obama didn't lose too much ground there and some counties swung towards him, but I'd like to see it broken down.

any specific counties you'd like to see?

Gwinnett, Cobb, North Fulton. I doubt south dekalb/south fulton are that interesting and the data on the outer suburbs would just depress me.

Oh yeah, maybe douglas, newton, henry, rockdale

[Miles]

Nash County has the distinction of being one of only a handful of McCain -> Obama counties in the country.

[Miles]

Cumberland (Fayetteville) and Robeson (Lumberton) counties, both strongly Democratic, swung to Obama.

Though Robeson was one of Amendment 1's best counties, it swung almost 4 points towards Obama. In fact, while southeastern NC was a very pro-Amendment 1 area, several other counties there actually swung towards Obama too. Ergo, I don't think Obama's stance on marriage was as detrimental to his standing in the state as some were making it out to be.

[Skill and Chance]

That's all very fascinating to me, Miles.  What do you think was behind the swing toward Obama in East NC?  It also looks like it was mainly a rural phenomenon save for Fayetteville... 

[Miles]

That's all very fascinating to me, Miles.  What do you think was behind the swing toward Obama in East NC?  It also looks like it was mainly a rural phenomenon save for Fayetteville... 

I think its similar to what happened in the rest of the deep south. McCain was a better fit for those areas than Romney.

[Miles]

Despite being from Johnston County, Rouzer "only" carried it 60/40 over McIntyre while Romney won it 63/36 over Obama.

This compares Romney's margins to Rouzer's:



Romney performed better in every precinct. If Rouzer matched Romney's performance against McIntyre, he would have gone from a 50.1/49.9 loss to a 50.8/49.2 win districtwide.

[Miles]

Happy Friday!

[homelycooking]

Must be nice to be making precinct maps of a state that didn't redraw its precinct boundaries after the Census. Jealous...

[Miles]

Must be nice to be making precinct maps of a state that didn't redraw its precinct boundaries after the Census. Jealous...

Yes! Its quite a luxury!

[Miles]

My beloved Congressional district:

[Miles]

This was probably the closest State Senate race in the country. Rep. Bill Cook upset Sen. Stan White by 21 votes out of about 87,000 cast.

[JacobNC]

Wow, that Mecklenburg County map is really striking.  What happened in South Charlotte?  A few thoughts...

1) the DNC did a really good job of registering new minority voters
2) the DNC may have had a negative effect on downtown?  IDK, did the extra traffic piss everyone off or something?
3) Surprising that Myers Park would swing most heavily against Obama since it was already the most Republican part of South Charlotte... Republicans did not have as much room to improve
4) Hmm, not sure about the theory that Romney was more acceptable than McCain.  Romney seemed like more of a partisan a-hole to me.

Keep the maps coming, though.  A map of Watauga County would be interesting.

By the way - if there is a way to do a precinct map of any Atlanta area counties, as someone else mentioned, that would be interesting.  Since Atlanta, politically, seems like a bigger version of Charlotte, it would be interesting to see if the same patterns and trends place there.

[Sol]

Wow, that Mecklenburg County map is really striking.  What happened in South Charlotte?  A few thoughts...

1) the DNC did a really good job of registering new minority voters
2) the DNC may have had a negative effect on downtown?  IDK, did the extra traffic piss everyone off or something?
3) Surprising that Myers Park would swing most heavily against Obama since it was already the most Republican part of South Charlotte... Republicans did not have as much room to improve
4) Hmm, not sure about the theory that Romney was more acceptable than McCain.  Romney seemed like more of a partisan a-hole to me.

Keep the maps coming, though.  A map of Watauga County would be interesting.

By the way - if there is a way to do a precinct map of any Atlanta area counties, as someone else mentioned, that would be interesting.  Since Atlanta, politically, seems like a bigger version of Charlotte, it would be interesting to see if the same patterns and trends place there.

You can get map of Watauga county here:
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NC/Watauga/43018/114036/Web01/en/summary.html

The pattern is, predictably, Boone vs. the rest of the county.

Oh, and if we're doing requests, Foxx vs. Motsinger would be interesting.

[Miles]

Yeah, those are good guesses.

Obama lost the Myers Park/South Park area 55/45 in 2008; the statewide average is 62/38 in the R's favor. Obama definitely overperformed there in 2008.
  
Watauga is coming!

[Miles]

The pattern is, predictably, Boone vs. the rest of the county.

Yep. Only 3 precincts trended D, and two of those were in Boone.

[JacobNC]

Cool.  Interesting to see that the movement towards Romney was not among college students  but the more rural parts of the county.

[Horus]

Happy Friday!

Looking at the Triangle trend map.. are we seeing the extremely early beginnings of the realignment of the Republican party? Rich, socially liberal fiscally conservative young college grads moving into the center of cities, gentrifying minority neighborhoods and moving the strongest D precincts further out. Or was Romney just a better fit for these voters? Or both?

[Sol]

Cool.  Interesting to see that the movement towards Romney was not among college students  but the more rural parts of the county.

Actually, one of the precincts that trended Romney contained ASU. That was more of a dead cat bounce than anything though.

Watauga County can be divided into several areas and communties, which explain the voting patterns:

-The Town of Boone, which is dominated by the University and the people associated with. It's dominated by transplants and Northern-Influenced southerners, and It tends to be strongly Democratic.

-The Town of Blowing Rock, which is the second largest town in the County. Blowing Rock is very touristy and is dominated by retirees from Florida. It tends to lean republican, although the Democrats can be competitive.

-The rest of the county tends to be fairly Republican and typically Appalachian, with a good smattering of White liberals and moderates who live in the country due to high housing prices in Boone. There are also some more retirees.

To win in Watauga county, a Democrat needs to either rack up large margins in the Boone Precincts and/or make inroads in the rest of the County.