Counties with median household income of $70k+? (user search)
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  Counties with median household income of $70k+? (search mode)
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Author Topic: Counties with median household income of $70k+?  (Read 1828 times)
All Along The Watchtower
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« on: December 01, 2012, 05:06:04 PM »

In 2008, the following counties with median household income of$70k+ voted for Obama:

Santa Clara County, CA
San Mateo County, CA
Marin County, CA
Summit County, UT
Washington County, MN
DuPage County, IL
Kendall County, IL
McHenry County, IL
Norfolk County, MA
Tolland County, CT
Fairfield County, CT
Nassau County, NY
Suffolk County, NY
Westchester County, NY
Rockland County, NY
Bergen County, NJ
Somerset County, NJ
Chester County, PA
Howard County, MD
Montgomery County, MD
Arlington County, VA
Fairfax County, VA
Prince William County, VA
Loudoun County, VA

That's 24 of 54 counties with median household income of $70k or more. McCain won the other 30, presumably. Tongue

How did Obama do in 2012 in these counties? I would assume he lost a few of the above, or had diminished margins, at least.



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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2012, 06:15:40 PM »

Are you using the 2000 numbers? I think there are more counties with more than 70k household income. Contra Costa County is just one of them.

I'm using the NYT Election Explorer numbers, which could very well be the 2000 numbers. Tongue
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2012, 06:22:51 PM »

At a glance, the only Obama -> Romney counties on that list are Summit, UT; Kendall and McHenry, IL; and Chester, PA. Three of those are explained by factors specific to the candidates (either in 2008 or in 2012). A few of the other counties actually swung towards Obama,* and nearly all trended towards him.

*Howard, MD; Rockland, NY; Prince William, VA; Santa Clara, CA; Bergen, NJ

True. Of course, Prince William, VA and Santa Clara, CA (my home county Smiley ) are increasingly less white, in addition to still having quite a lot of lower and lower-middle income people, despite their high median incomes. Fairfield, CT is the same way; the rich white enclaves of New Canaan, Darien, etc. voted solidly for Romney, IIRC.  
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2012, 06:35:24 PM »

At a glance, the only Obama -> Romney counties on that list are Summit, UT; Kendall and McHenry, IL; and Chester, PA. Three of those are explained by factors specific to the candidates (either in 2008 or in 2012). A few of the other counties actually swung towards Obama,* and nearly all trended towards him.

*Howard, MD; Rockland, NY; Prince William, VA; Santa Clara, CA; Bergen, NJ

True. Of course, Prince William, VA and Santa Clara, CA (my home county Smiley ) are increasingly less white, in addition to still having quite a lot of lower and lower-middle income people, despite their high median incomes. Fairfield, CT is the same way; the rich white enclaves of New Canaan, Darien, etc. voted solidly for Romney, IIRC.  

Whites and minorities in Santa Clara vote pretty much the same, though. Most of Obama's improvement was probably due to doing better with Asians rather than demographics. Prince William (and probably also Howard) are explained by minority growth. In Bergen, I think the explanation is again strength with Asians, though the Asian population is not nearly as high in Bergen as it is in Santa Clara, combined of course with the Sandy effect (though Bergen County was not hit particularly hard by Sandy).

Rockland, NY is demographically odd, with the Democratic base being artsy liberals in Nyack and blacks in Spring Valley while the Republican base is super-rich people in the Pearl River area and ultra-Orthodox in Monsey. If Orthodox turnout was down, which it might have been, that could explain Obama's improvement. Although, given the parallel shift with Bergen, NJ just across the border, the change may have been with super-rich voters actually shifting from McCain to Obama, weird though that might sound. (Perhaps impressed with his Sandy response? I don't have a better answer. Precinct results will help tell the story.)


Well yeah, but whites in the Bay Area in general are liberal. The only remotely conservative areas left are outer exurban areas like the San Ramon Valley, and even that area is basically 50/50 to slightly Dem-leaning now. Most of the conservative Bay Area whites have either moved out or died off. The ones who remain tend to be liberal, for many reasons.



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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2012, 06:40:13 PM »

What explains that roughly half of the counties with a median household income of $70k+ voted for Obama and half of them voted for McCain? Is it an urban-rural dichotomy?

Generally, the whiter and more homogenous the suburban area (as most of these areas are basically suburban), the more Republican. The more diverse, more densely populated and more "urban" suburbs tend to be heavily Democratic. The newer, more exurban areas (especially the heavily white ones) are usually strongly Republican.

There's a lot of demographic and growth-pattern differences between, say, Fairfax County, VA or Santa Clara County, CA and Shelby County, AL or Montgomery County, TX.
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All Along The Watchtower
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Posts: 15,417
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« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2012, 06:43:01 PM »

What explains that roughly half of the counties with a median household income of $70k+ voted for Obama and half of them voted for McCain? Is it an urban-rural dichotomy?

Regional patterns. All but two of the rich Obama-2012 counties are in the Northeast/Megalopolis or California. (The exceptions are DuPage, IL and Washington, MN, both of which were very marginal.) The rich Romney counties are in the Midwest and South.

This too, but regional patterns often match up to demographic and growth patterns.
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