Mississippi whites who vote Democratic

[Adam Griffin]

Pretty much the same groups that vote Democratic in other Deep South states: there are just fewer of them due to no major metro areas or large cities (and fewer small cities/areas of density due to larger/fewer counties than a state like GA).

That's of course the case because Mississippi's economy is one of the weakest nationally, which is caused in part by a relative lack of educational attainment (which, likewise, drives down white rural support lower than in places like AL & GA).

[Adam Griffin]

Educational attainment for rural MS whites shouldn't be any worse than for rural Whites in AL/GA.  The fact that the uber-White Mississippi counties stick out on that map compared to AL/GA has something to do with whatever racial turnout dynamics you're using.

Why do some almost-monolithically Black counties (Noxubee, Holmes, Claiborne) seem to have an unusually-high % of White Democrats?  I think it has something to do with how you're modelling Black turnout/partisanship.  What sort of assumptions are being made there?

Reagente and I used pretty fundamentally different models for calculating white support in 2016 and 2012, respectively. Yet, by and large, we saw the same patterns emerge in the Deep South: elevated white Democratic support in rural counties that are heavily-black.

I've written about why I think this dynamic exists numerous times, but it's important to point out that just like in MS, we see the same patterns in AL & GA - and in GA, we have voter turnout data by race, gender and age all the way down to the precinct level. In many of these rural black GA counties where I found Obama getting 20-30% of the white vote, there were virtually no non-black/non-white voters to contend with in calculating. In other words, there was very little room for error in calculating support (especially when Obama was winning very close to 100% of the black vote and you know exactly how many black voters turned out). I originally talked about this issue at length in my 2012 project thread, where you can find a lot of information about what I mentioned above.

I really wish I could find my old quoted posts on this subject (since they're more detailed), but essentially my belief from these findings is: in these heavily-black counties, polarization actually decreases because whites have no reasonable chance of usurping black power structures. They also have had plenty of experience with black leaders in their counties, making them less "afraid" of Democrats in the modern sense - and more willing to support Democrats at all levels. In rural counties where blacks tend to be 20-50% of the population, there is considerably more tension and polarization because whites can actually win at the ballot box and elect their own candidates.  

While admittedly not the largest sample size, when I ran some analysis on Georgia and Alabama (and maybe MS; can't recall) rural counties years ago, this was by and large what I found:

[Adam Griffin]

Educational attainment for rural MS whites shouldn't be any worse than for rural Whites in AL/GA.  The fact that the uber-White Mississippi counties stick out on that map compared to AL/GA has something to do with whatever racial turnout dynamics you're using.

^^^ And FWIW, Mississippi whites in 2012 statewide in my calcs were one shade lighter/less Democratic than AL whites (another big topic I've covered in the past is how the AL exit polls in 2008 had to be wrong by a considerable sum, underestimating white D support): 16% versus 11%. That's enough to essentially explain the difference in shading between MS & AL rural counties in 2012, and when comparing to GA, again, I believe that GA having more/smaller counties and more small cities as a result produces a slightly (~5%) more Democratic rural landscape than in MS.

I know MS looks weird on the map, but to me, it makes sense. There are other places where the map abruptly cuts (between GA/NC, for example, which is definitely accurate; along the 35th parallel in general across the eastern US, etc) but are nevertheless not the result of flawed modeling.


I was wrong about the rural educational levels, though - at least when basing it off of jimrtex's UCC delineations and the data from 2015. I might argue that there is some skewing here (again, because it uses county-level data and Mississippi's counties are geographically larger/a much greater % of the population in MS falls into the "rural" category), but alas:

Code:

AREA	POP		COLLEGE	%
GA-Rural	2669107	548545	20.6%
GA-Urban	7530893	3011255	40.0%
GA-State	10.200 m	3559800	34.9%

MS-Rural	1835885	442656	24.1%
MS-Urban	1148115	401816	35.0%
MS-State	2.984m	844472	28.3%

[Adam Griffin]

Are rural areas in the south losing blacks or whites faster?  I've seen some evidence that blacks are abandoning the rural areas faster than whites.

I think it's highly dependent on the specific area and what influences are causing the loss. For example, Southwest GA almost certainly is losing blacks at a much faster rate than whites (and the broader trend is probably true for all rural parts of the state).

[Adam Griffin]

Educational attainment for rural MS whites shouldn't be any worse than for rural Whites in AL/GA.  The fact that the uber-White Mississippi counties stick out on that map compared to AL/GA has something to do with whatever racial turnout dynamics you're using.

Why do some almost-monolithically Black counties (Noxubee, Holmes, Claiborne) seem to have an unusually-high % of White Democrats?  I think it has something to do with how you're modelling Black turnout/partisanship.  What sort of assumptions are being made there?

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Glad to see some new data corroborating this broader trend:

https://twitter.com/MattGrossmann/status/1035895543233429504

[Adam Griffin]

Trump won the white vote in every county of Mississippi. In Louisiana, unlike Mississippi, Clinton won the white vote in New Orleans. Why are MS whites so Republican, even in Jackson?

Are you a bot?

[Adam Griffin]

Trump won the white vote in every county of Mississippi. In Louisiana, unlike Mississippi, Clinton won the white vote in New Orleans. Why are MS whites so Republican, even in Jackson?

Clinton won the white vote in very few counties in the South in general, including none in most of the states that border Mississippi.

What are some examples of counties where she won it?

2016 & 2012

Specifically, though:

1 ) Orleans, LA
2 ) Davidson, TN
3 ) Dekalb, GA
4 ) Clarke, GA
5 ) Buncombe, NC
6 ) Orange, NC
7 ) Durham, NC
8 ) Travis, TX
9 ) Alachua, FL
10 ) Broward, FL
11 ) Dade, FL
12 ) Albemarle, VA
13 ) Norfolk, VA
14 ) Williamsburg, VA
15 ) Richmond, VA
16 ) Fredricksburg, VA
17 ) Fairfax, VA
18 ) Loudoun, VA
19 ) Falls Church, VA
20 ) Arlington, VA
21 ) Alexandria, VA

[Adam Griffin]

the NE used to have more whites voting democrat than the rest of the state. Obama prob won something like 18% rather than 10%. Although Clinton got the usual 10%.

If you take the 4 most NE counties (Tishomingo, Prentiss, Alcorn & Tippah), Obama won 15% in 2012 (as opposed to 11% statewide); expand that to include Union, Pontotoc, Lee & Itawamba and he won 12% of whites.