Realignments 1980-2000

[minionofmidas]

I did some research (if you can call it that) that was supposed to be about how the nation's largest counties swung 1980-2000. (I wanted it to be 1960-2000, but there's gaps in Dave's data.)
I picked the 109 counties that cast over 200,000 votes in 2000 and, among other things, summed up by how much Dems or Reps led there.
I noticed that the *average* (not aggregate) result of these counties was 2% more Dem than the Nation's through 1980-1988, 3% more in 1992, but 6% more in 1996 and 12%!! more in 2000. (We're talking about the Dem or Rep lead
here. The percentage of the total vote would be half that, except third party candidates sometimes were more urban, sometimes more rural)
Then I looked these figures over, shook my head in wonder because I'd expected something like that but not this much, went back to the raw data and noticed that the swing is strongest in the Suburban rather than the Urban areas that I'd originally been interested in. That looks like a major realignment: In the 70's and 80's the countryside and the suburbs were solidly Rep and the totally Dem inner citys didn't matter. Now the Countryside trends more overwhelmingly Rep but if the Suburbans keep defecting it's not going to help the Reps for long.
An urban-suburban Dem Coalition might be under way.
Now what would rural people do if they are all Reps but have very little chance of getting a president in, as happened to inner-city people under Reagan? The militia movement might be just a small foretaste of what's in store...

[minionofmidas]

Okay, forget the militia comment. That was taking extrapolating a bit too far.
But even most exurban places are becoming less overwhelmingly republican than they used to be. Morris Co NJ or DuPage Co IL, say. *If* these trends continue they'll soon see Dem victories.
What may be true, however, is that we're talking is mostly the suburbs of the really big aglomerations. These areas certainly are overrepresented in the 109-county list.
The general point that compared with 1980 or 1988 there has been massive realignment of the suburbs going left and the countryside right holds, though.
Another question is how much good exactly that will do the Dems in the EC. There aren't that many strongly suburban states they don't have yet: Florida of course, Nevada, Arizona, Virginia... What else? And of course (since a swing compared to the national result always means a swing in the other direction somewhere else) there's losses in Iowa and New Mexico, Maine, Wisconsin to counterset that...

[minionofmidas]

Yeah...The city of Saint Louis isn't even in the data...But the major agglomerations do keep growing, and often growing faster than the state they're in, maybe not in Missouri (okay, very probably not in Missouri, with its fast growing Southwest) but in New York, in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, in Illinois...
Saint Louis is really not a place to draw too many conclusions from. No other major inner city has declined quite so amazingly, not even Buffalo or Cleveland... It had 857K inhabitants 50 years back and 348K now. That's a decline of almost 60% Though my knowledge of the place is largely courtesy of Jonathan Franzen, "the twentyseventh city". Now that's what I call a Novel

[minionofmidas]

Those too are very extreme cases. Take Baltimore by comparison. That City boundary has been fixed where it's now since before Independence. It's not been included in Baltimore County since round about then. It's declinied by about 30% since 1950 and yes, that's the highwater mark. Anyway, that city is probably much closer to typical. (And it narrowly misses the 200,000 votes mark...)

[minionofmidas]

Well, I could claim that "hardly any Reps remaining in NJ" is precisely the point. They were a solid majority in 1988. Delaware and Connecticut similarly swung further to the left than anywhere else and are also basically entirely suburban.
But I had a look at suburban counties in swing states or Rep states. I'm not sure to which extent each of them can be classified as exurban, what system of classification to use. But let's see:
Macomb and Oakland MI swung very heavily Dem, but they had also swung very heavily Rep in the 70s and 80s. Waukesha WI is actually trending Republican. I guess Saint Louis County is too much old suburban, but it swings Dem. So does Johnson KS, very exurban I guess, but the swing is slight there. Florida's left swing in recent years is basically entirely based on suburbs and some "new" major cities like Orlando. Rural Florida swung heavily Rep, and Dade County also swung Rep of late. The only Southern counties of interest outside Florida that are on the list are Cobb and DeKalb GA, but they are difficult to analyse because one is going ever whiter and the other ever blacker. Oh, and Fairfax VA, exurban DC. That trends clearly Dem. So does Jefferson CO.
So basically the picture that emerges is that it's happening there too, but it's not as pronounced as, say, on Long Island.
Of course this doesn't say much on smaller cities' suburbs in these regions. And of course
some of these places are still heavily Rep, only no heavier than in 92. It's swings I'm talking about not current majorities.

[minionofmidas]

I did some research (if you can call it that) that was supposed to be about how the nation's largest counties swung 1980-2000. (I wanted it to be 1960-2000, but there's gaps in Dave's data.)
I picked the 109 counties that cast over 200,000 votes in 2000 and, among other things, summed up by how much Dems or Reps led there.
I noticed that the *average* (not aggregate) result of these counties was 2% more Dem than the Nation's through 1980-1988, 3% more in 1992, but 6% more in 1996 and 12%!! more in 2000. (We're talking about the Dem or Rep lead here. The percentage of the total vote would be half that, except third party candidates sometimes were more urban, sometimes more rural)

I do think the Dems are getting stronger in urban areas. Just wondering in 2000, how many of the 50 largest counties went for Bush? I'd also be interested in how the 50 most densely populated counties (by census) performed, if you have the time.

Well the 109 of my list split 74-35 for Gore as opposed to 82-27 for Clinton 96, 75-34 for Clinton 92, 72-37 for Bush 88, 83-26 for Reagan 84, 75-34 for Reagan 80.
Note that they are based on votes in 2000, not votes in earlier elections, not inhabitants, so there's a bias towards suburban and against inner-city major counties here (exaggerating the rep majorities in the 80s). If you look at how many were more Dem than the Nation that's 74-35 in 2000 of course, 62-47 in 96, 56-53 in 92, 49-60 in 88, 55-54 in 84, 50-59 in 1980. Notice Carter's problems in the urban areas due to Anderson biuting into his votes there but not in rural Dem places, and Dukakis' totally extraordinary strength in the farm belt.
the most densely populated counties? Why don't you do it yourself at the Census bureau website? Correct it for all those independent cities in Virginia though...