Southeastern Utah

[old timey villain]

What makes Grand and San Juan counties in southeastern Utah less Republican than the rest of the state. Obama won Grand county in 2008 and got over 40% of the vote in both in 2012, which was a great showing for him compared to the rest of the state.

EDIT: Just read that San Juan has a large native American population, but it doesn't explain Grand County

[old timey villain]

Another interesting tidbit about these two counties. In 2004, San Juan county voted for Utah's gay marriage ban by a very wide margin while Grand county voted against it. So the two counties are more supportive of Democrats but maybe for different reasons.

[minionofmidas]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moab,_Utah

Tourism industry place and a legacy of environmental degradation. If they weren't also Mormons Republicans would probably struggle to hit 40 in a good year in Grand.

[Franzl]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moab,_Utah

Tourism industry place and a legacy of environmental degradation. If they weren't also Mormons Republicans would probably struggle to hit 40 in a good year in Grand.

I was in Moab's brewery this summer and wondered why their beer was so watery. That's how I discovered that Utah bans beer over 4% vol. on tap... Bottles are ok, though, for some sick reason.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

San Juan is also very poor and has a high Native American population, IIRC.

[morgieb]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moab,_Utah

Tourism industry place and a legacy of environmental degradation. If they weren't also Mormons Republicans would probably struggle to hit 40 in a good year in Grand.

I was in Moab's brewery this summer and wondered why their beer was so watery. That's how I discovered that Utah bans beer over 4% vol. on tap... Bottles are ok, though, for some sick reason.

Must be the old double negative.

[Vosem]

It's dominated by tourism. Having visited Moab, I would be surprised if it weren't a pretty Democratic town, but the rest of the county, which consists of rural Mormons, votes basically unanimously Republican, so it evens out with a slight Republican tilt.

[minionofmidas]

It's dominated by tourism. Having visited Moab, I would be surprised if it weren't a pretty Democratic town, but the rest of the county, which consists of rural Mormons, votes basically unanimously Republican, so it evens out with a slight Republican tilt.

This sounds reasonable... but it's actually far more complex.

Moab voting districts, pop. 8677, 2008 vote Obama 1884, McCain 1762.
Remainder of county, pop. pop. 548, 2008 vote Obama 183, McCain 109. That looks like the total opposite of what you claimed... until you look at it in greater detail. There are just three precincts not in and around Moab, and two of them that cover the entire northern 60% of the county have about 100 inhabitants. They indeed vote R, one of them with 80% for McCain. The biggest non-Moab precinct is Castle Valley in the southeast of the county, and that's its most democratic (and no doubt totally touristy) precinct at 65% Obama.
But of the area above described as Moab, only one precinct of eight is wholly within city limits and one is entirely outside. There are two dense central precincts, all the rest extend outward (all the way to the western county line, though no one actually lives out there.) As it happens, the one of the dense central precincts that actually includes a bit of territory outside the city is an outlier at 62% Obama; I suppose this is the area you thought of as the touristy Democratic town. The others come in at 52% (2), 51%, 50% (2 incl. the other central one), and then 46% and 42%. The 46% precinct is actually wholly outside the city and is ribbon development along Route 191, starting on the southern county line, and the 42% is north of it along the route, more than half outside the city by territory. Still these are both actually among the smallest of the six "outer" Moab precincts.
It's a ex-mining-gone-touristy town whose founding, ancestral population happens to be wholly Mormon, and that has limited the D growth compared to what it might have been elsewhere. What you need to understand is not all the hippie leftie voters in other such enclaves are newcomers, the locals get the bug too. Indeed if there weren't a welcoming element to the local culture in the first place, these enclaves wouldn't spring up.

And while I was at it I also looked at San Juan.
As a broad breakup, Blanding precincts (again extending outward) 4307 people, 68% White and 25% Native, 1164 McCain, 254 Obama. (Navajos in offrez border towns tend to vote much more Republican than on the rez if they vote at all, which they don't really tend to do. Same pattern is observable in Farmington, Page, Winslow...)
Monticello and wholly rural offrez precincts, 3820 people, 85% White and just 3% Native, McCain 1052, Obama 292, so actually marginally less lopsided.
Reservation precincts, 6619 people, 92% Native and 5% White, Obama 1776, McCain 370. Now this is a polarized county that evens out to a slight R lean.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I was in Moab's brewery this summer and wondered why their beer was so watery. That's how I discovered that Utah bans beer over 4% vol. on tap...

Must be that "small government" conservatism they're always bragging about.

[RBH]

Grand County, 2012:
Soren Simonsen 49%, Obama 44%

San Juan County, 2012:
Simonsen 40.5%, Obama 40.3%

So a SLC city councilman who lost UT3 by 55% did run ahead of Obama in some random locales.

considering the Chaffetz result in Utah County (86%!), they screwed up when they put too much of Salt Lake in UT4. If they put more of Utah County in UT4, then Mia Love is in Congress now

[minionofmidas]

It's a ex-mining-gone-touristy town whose founding, ancestral population happens to be wholly Mormon, and that has limited the D growth compared to what it might have been elsewhere. What you need to understand is not all the hippie leftie voters in other such enclaves are newcomers, the locals get the bug too. Indeed if there weren't a welcoming element to the local culture in the first place, these enclaves wouldn't spring up.

This would also explain why it partook in Utah and Southern Idaho's There's a Mormon on the Ticket R swing. (Less than the Utah average, but if as I would guess touristifaction actually continued 2008-12...)

[DINGO Joe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moab,_Utah

Tourism industry place and a legacy of environmental degradation. If they weren't also Mormons Republicans would probably struggle to hit 40 in a good year in Grand.

I was in Moab's brewery this summer and wondered why their beer was so watery. That's how I discovered that Utah bans beer over 4% vol. on tap... Bottles are ok, though, for some sick reason.

Mormons have just moved to the top of my ThreatDown board.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moab,_Utah

Tourism industry place and a legacy of environmental degradation. If they weren't also Mormons Republicans would probably struggle to hit 40 in a good year in Grand.

I was in Moab's brewery this summer and wondered why their beer was so watery. That's how I discovered that Utah bans beer over 4% vol. on tap... Bottles are ok, though, for some sick reason.

Simple.  Beer in bottles are drunk at home, where it generally is not as big a problem if you get drunk as if you are out in public.  Lower alcohol beer means you can drink more before getting drunk.  Tho, that reasoning only works if you can't buy liquor by the drink or cocktails either.

[Franzl]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moab,_Utah

Tourism industry place and a legacy of environmental degradation. If they weren't also Mormons Republicans would probably struggle to hit 40 in a good year in Grand.

I was in Moab's brewery this summer and wondered why their beer was so watery. That's how I discovered that Utah bans beer over 4% vol. on tap... Bottles are ok, though, for some sick reason.

Simple.  Beer in bottles are drunk at home, where it generally is not as big a problem if you get drunk as if you are out in public.  Lower alcohol beer means you can drink more before getting drunk.  Tho, that reasoning only works if you can't buy liquor by the drink or cocktails either.

The very bars and breweries that aren't allowed to sell you proper beer on tap have no problem selling you the bottles for on-premises consumption.