Hudson County NJ PVI Shifts 2004-2012

[traininthedistance]

That D+10 on Secaucus is surprising.  I'm used to thinking of that town as significantly more suburban and R-friendly than anywhere else in the county, and having basically an entirely different culture due to the concentration of automobile-oriented commercial and industrial stuff along 3 and by all the outlets.  (Well, I suppose Kearny is suburban, too.)

I wonder if that giant townhouse development by Secaucus Junction actually moved the needle a couple points all by itself.

[traininthedistance]

Maybe Hoboken is the next Nutley where its was a Dem town but now Nutley is trending Republican at least it was from the 2008 stats.

Hoboken was more Dem than Kearney in 2004 but now its reversed.

Hoboken and Nutley have absolutely nothing in common. I don't believe Nutley was ever particularly Democratic, either, though it has not moved towards the Democrats like its neighbors as it has remained heavily ethnic white (Italian, Polish, etc.) while the Hispanic population has exploded in neighboring towns.

Came here to say this.  Actually, I can believe that Nutley was once Democratic, since it's heavily Italian and Catholic, and that's one demographic that has shifted Republican for sure since the JFK days.  

And, as for its neighbors, Lyndhurst and North Arlington are still heavily white, though not quite to the extent of Nutley, in large part b/c Nutley is a bit more affluent.  

If I had to guess, I'd say Hoboken trended R for similar reasons as, say, Greenwich CT.

[traininthedistance]

The particularly odd thing is that Hoboken is less Democratic than, say, Battery Park City. But maybe the sort of people who move to Hoboken are more tax-conscious (avoiding NYC income tax) and thus somewhat more likely to be Republicans. I can also imagine the sort of people who put a premium merely on living in Manhattan may be more likely to be Democrats than people who are otherwise demographically identical but fine with living in a similarly urban part of NJ.

...and the people who're otherwise mostly identical but put a premium on notionally being suburbanites and not living in Manhattan are probably going to be actually R-leaning. *Possibly* not for President, though.

I don't think anyone in Hoboken thinks they live in the suburbs or puts a premium on not living in Manhattan.

This.  Hoboken is for yuppies who would like to live in the Upper East Side but can't afford it.

Wacky theory: maybe Hoboken is the one town where Sandy actually hurt Obama, because the response of PATH to the storm was bungled, and they didn't have service for weeks afterward.