Bush's vote rise in Massachusetts and Rhode Island?

[Cubby]

Funny how Winfield and Mitty say its gay marriage and all the red avatars say its something else like a 9/11 bump.

In Connecticut, Bush's rise was because Lieberman wasn't on the Democrat ticket. He would have won Litchfield County last time otherwise (Not that its especially conservative, it just doesn't have any urban areas).

The areas that Nader did strongest in in 2000, such as Hampshire County, MA (home to U Mass-Amherst, Smith College, etc.) swung extremely to the Dems in 2004, so we can discount Nader as a factor for Bush's increase.

I was more surprised by Rhode Island's swing than MA's. RI's Democrat percentage actually declined, while MA's still rose slightly. And Rhode Island didn't have gay marriage as a factor. Any thoughts Winfield?

[Cubby]

Funny how Winfield and Mitty say its gay marriage and all the red avatars say its something else like a 9/11 bump.

In Connecticut, Bush's rise was because Lieberman wasn't on the Democrat ticket. He would have won Litchfield County last time otherwise (Not that its especially conservative, it just doesn't have any urban areas).

The areas that Nader did strongest in in 2000, such as Hampshire County, MA (home to U Mass-Amherst, Smith College, etc.) swung extremely to the Dems in 2004, so we can discount Nader as a factor for Bush's increase.

I was more surprised by Rhode Island's swing than MA's. RI's Democrat percentage actually declined, while MA's still rose slightly. And Rhode Island didn't have gay marriage as a factor. Any thoughts Winfield?

You have raised some very valid points.

Along with the other reasons mentioned for Bush's vote rise in 2004, all good reasons by the way, to expand briefly on my previous entry, RI does have a large percentage of Catholics, over 50%.  Some of these are certainly socially conservative.  I reason Bush likely received a slightly higher percentage of these more socially conservative Catholic votes than he did in 2000, due to his overall more conservative social views, not just based on the same sex marriage issue, but social issues in general.  After all, both John Kerry and John Edwards were publicly opposed to same sex marriage.  At least, that is my reasoning for Bush's vote rise, for what it's worth.

By the way, at this rate of increase for the GOP, presuming it holds steady, the Republican Presidential nominee should win Rhode Island in 2016.

By the way, why the name change? Any significance to the new name?  Just wondering.

Thanks.         

I had been wanting to change it for a while to something more personal. Cubby is my dog's name. He's adorable

I noticed Washington County and Newport Counties trended slightly Democrat while the other 3 went strongly in Bush's direction. How are the first 2 different? I've been to Block Island (New Shoreham) but I doubt thats a good representation of Washington County.   

[Cubby]

Thanks for the insight Seth

I went to Block Island in 2004 and I remember seeing Kerry bumper stickers on the cars and thinking it was a good sign.

One thing common to CT/RI/MA is that Bush did better in what I'll generalize as "working class towns". Although the region as a whole is among the wealthiest in the country, it seemed that the less well off places increased the most for Bush. Like in Litchfield County, all the tiny villages have Manhattan liberals and they swung to Kerry more, but towns where the middle class live and work like Watertown, Torrington and New Milford have a larger populations and they were the cause of Litchfield's switch to blue.