These are great. Thanks for putting in all this work. I’m excited to see how central Indiana looks.
Overall here are a few interesting notes:
-I think there needs to be more discussion around Indianapolis's southern suburbs. They're quite vast and growing, however, seem a lot more akin to working class Macomb County suburbs rather than high education suburbs zooming left. They swung pretty hard right between 2012 and 2016 but then Biden got some pretty heavy swings in them. While Indiana is unlikely to become competative statewide, Dems doing better there could give them a few extra legistlative seats.
-Despite their collapse, Dems def still have some residual support in Southern Indiana rural areas which are noticeably less red than rurals a few counties north
-For not being a college town, Dems actually do pretty well in South Bend considering a lot of the suburbs have been blueified. On the flip side, Republicans net a lot of votes from Ft Wayne area, but it has been narrowing. Also the GOP does insanely well in Elkhart right next to South Bend. I wonder if there’s some political sorting between the communities.
-Indiana rural areas are very consistently dense throughout
Very interesting stuff, and I agree that Indiana politics is often underdiscussed. IIRC a lot of industrial towns in Indiana, especially the north, are kind of historically not-too-unionized areas where industry has been a bit more robust even in recent years, and I think that's a profile that often results in Republican voting because it means there are a lot of non-degreed workers with middle class incomes. IIRC Warsaw/Elkhart/South Bend and surrounds have a lot of this sort of economic base, and I think this is true of Fort Wayne too.
South Bend is a college town, fyi.
