Alabama

[Stranger in a strange land]

For example, how Winston County- roughly 99 percent white- gave "only" 81 percent to McCain? Maybe, but I'd guess that whites in most black-majority areas voted well over 90 percent against Obama; and metro Birmingham probably had equally extreme polarization, especially in the outer suburbs.

Rural northern Alabama may include the whitest areas of the state, but I don't think we can extrapolate statewide numbers from those counties.

It's a noticable pattern, that in very white areas in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, Obama managed to get 15-20% of the white vote. Meanwhile, in areas that are majority black, or 50\50, Obama managed to get only 5-10% of the white vote, so the exit polls may not be wrong.

Perhaps. These are the top 5 AL counties in terms of raw number white population:

                               number of whites  Obama % black% est. white Obama%
Jefferson County   AL   352,991     52.2%        41.5%       12.4%
Mobile County   AL   244,899     45.3%        34.7%       12.0%
Madison County   AL   218,331     41.9%        24.0%       18.9%
Shelby County   AL   156,441     22.8%        10.6%       12.6%
Baldwin County   AL   148,448     23.8%        10.1%       14.1%

For MS:   
                           white pop. 2008   Obama %   black%   est. white Obama%
Harrison County   MS   119,673   36.6%     24.0%     13.6%
DeSoto County   MS   111,226   30.5%     22.1%     9.3%
Rankin County   MS   107,295   22.8%     20.5%     3.1%
Jackson County   MS   91,924   32.7%     23.0%     10.6%
Hinds County   MS   77,884   69.2%     67.0%     4.9%


The estimated white Obama vote presumes blacks being 96% Obama, as national exit polls say. In any case, it looks somewhat more positive for Ala. than Miss.

Well thats partly because those counties in Alabama may have some younger voters and a few urban whites. If I'm not mistaken, some of the Alabama counties have college campuses as well that may have some liberal whites, which will bring his white vote % up. The counties in Mississippi don't have college whites or urban whites, so that's my guess as to why there's a difference.

Northern AL has very few actual liberals, but it does have a few labor union type whites. Also, it has few blacks, so poor whites don't have to compete with poor blacks for jobs or services.