PVI for New England Towns

[homelycooking]

I have been working on a rating system very similar to Charlie Cook's Partisan Voting Index, which is used for congressional districts, and applying it to New England towns. It is calculated in the same way, but the average of the town's previous two election returns is compared against its state's averaged results. It is, to say the least, very time consuming to calculate PVIs for the almost 2000 New England towns, but so far, I have calculated and mapped PVIS for CT, MA and RI and currently am working on VT. The scale on the map is vague (bright blue=R+10+, light blue, R+0-R+9, light red, D+0-D+9, bright red D+10+), but if you'd like to know exact PVIs for any towns, I'd be happy to give you the information.

Update: New England is complete. The map is beautiful.

[homelycooking]

Those are very small, rural towns (Salisbury, Cornwall, Sharon) that are much more in line with the politics of Western Massachusetts than the rest of Litchfield County. Cornwall is the most Democratic small town in Connecticut (D+14)

[homelycooking]

Thats a great map.

Let's make it better, shall we?

Here's the PVI for CT, RI, MA and now VT.

http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/4802/newenglandpvi.png

[homelycooking]

It's important to note that the Cape is far more conservative in summer months than in the winter. The people who live there all year round are not unusally wealthy, and there's a very strong GLBT presence there besides.

As a general rule, the further out you go on Cape Cod, the more Democratic it gets. Provincetown, the town farthest out, is, to say the least, fabulous. The PVI is D+26.

PVIs for New Hampshire tomorrow.

[homelycooking]

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/4802/newenglandpvi.png

All states now except Maine.

[homelycooking]

PVIs for Maine on Tuesday.

[homelycooking]

It's finally all done. That was a solid fifteen hours of work.

[homelycooking]

The PVIs are based on presidential elections only.

NH has few strong Republican towns because overall the state is more Republican than any other in New England. An R+10 town in NH must be about 41% Democratic, based on the average of the previous two election results, while an R+10 in Vermont is about 53% Democratic. Most southern Maine towns are between R+3 and R+8, or between 52% Democratic and 47% Democratic. It all depends on how liberal/conservative each town is compared to the state as a whole.

[homelycooking]

nice map. is there simply not enough data for NW Maine?

There is no data because no one lives in those areas!

[homelycooking]

Actually, I could compare all towns to the total New England av rather easily. This I can do within a day.