Urban GOP enclaves

[Torie]

That's the entire county, Krazen. Obama likely won whites living in the city.

Possibly. Nevertheless, the original topic was enclaves. There is quite clearly such an enclave in La Jolla, for example.

Obama has carried the La Jolla area of the City of San Diego twice now by a few points. It is one of those wealthy white areas that has moved left. Heck UC San Diego is right next door, and Asians are around in significant numbers to boot.

[Abhakhazia]

Parts of Chicago are fairly Republican. And Springfield, IL is also very Republican.

[bedstuy]

It seems kind of unfair to compare city whose borders capture a large part of the metro area to a city with a ton of small independent suburbs.  Some cities basically have Republicans suburbs within their city limits. 

I think it would be more interesting to see the most GOP areas with a certain population density. 

[Sbane]

That's the entire county, Krazen. Obama likely won whites living in the city.

Possibly. Nevertheless, the original topic was enclaves. There is quite clearly such an enclave in La Jolla, for example.

Obama has carried the La Jolla area of the City of San Diego twice now by a few points. It is one of those wealthy white areas that has moved left. Heck UC San Diego is right next door, and Asians are around in significant numbers to boot.

I think the area near Point Loma would be a better example. It has a fairly urban vibe but voted for Mccain, and I am pretty sure for Romney too. And there are places that are within the city of San Diego, but are very suburban, which were about 50-50 in 2008 and certainly voted for Romney in 2012.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What causes them is simple. Whites live there.

Don't you live in Philadelphia?

Yes. Democrats certainly win Philadelphia whites but they do not get 95% of them.

The question is urban areas that vote Republican, not urban areas that give the Democrats less than 95% of the vote. The vast majority of urban white areas vote Democratic, and quite heavily too.

[Benj]

That's the entire county, Krazen. Obama likely won whites living in the city.

Possibly. Nevertheless, the original topic was enclaves. There is quite clearly such an enclave in La Jolla, for example.

Obama has carried the La Jolla area of the City of San Diego twice now by a few points. It is one of those wealthy white areas that has moved left. Heck UC San Diego is right next door, and Asians are around in significant numbers to boot.

I think the area near Point Loma would be a better example. It has a fairly urban vibe but voted for Mccain, and I am pretty sure for Romney too. And there are places that are within the city of San Diego, but are very suburban, which were about 50-50 in 2008 and certainly voted for Romney in 2012.

Point Loma did not vote for McCain. There were a few precincts immediately adjacent to the naval base that did (though the base itself voted for Obama), but the neighborhood as a whole was about 62% Obama, with the highly urban parts the most Democratic.

Similarly, La Jolla was about 59% Obama in 2008, and there was only one McCain precinct (not anywhere close to the beach and barely in La Jolla at all, the precinct around Sessions Park).

Coronado Island, though not within the city boundaries, is highly urbanized and remains Republican, however, voting 56% McCain, with only one Obama precinct in the area.

[Sbane]

That's the entire county, Krazen. Obama likely won whites living in the city.

Possibly. Nevertheless, the original topic was enclaves. There is quite clearly such an enclave in La Jolla, for example.

Obama has carried the La Jolla area of the City of San Diego twice now by a few points. It is one of those wealthy white areas that has moved left. Heck UC San Diego is right next door, and Asians are around in significant numbers to boot.

I think the area near Point Loma would be a better example. It has a fairly urban vibe but voted for Mccain, and I am pretty sure for Romney too. And there are places that are within the city of San Diego, but are very suburban, which were about 50-50 in 2008 and certainly voted for Romney in 2012.

Point Loma did not vote for McCain. There were a few precincts immediately adjacent to the naval base, including the Point Loma Nazarene University precinct, that did (though the base itself voted for Obama), but the neighborhood as a whole was about 62% Obama, with the highly urban parts the most Democratic.

Similarly, La Jolla was about 59% Obama in 2008, and there was only one McCain precinct (not anywhere close to the beach and barely in La Jolla at all, the precinct around Sessions Park).

Coronado Island, though not within the city boundaries, is highly urbanized and remains Republican, however, voting 56% McCain, with only one Obama precinct in the area.

Yeah, it was only a couple of precincts in Point Loma.

[memphis]

East Memphis, around 100,000 people - 60/40 McCain

I wish my neighborhood could get a shout out for something more positive but a fact's a fact. It's also a bunch of postwar ranch homes, big box stores, and generic office buildings, so, yeah, take "urban" with a grain of salt in this case.

[krazen1211]

That's the entire county, Krazen. Obama likely won whites living in the city.

Possibly. Nevertheless, the original topic was enclaves. There is quite clearly such an enclave in La Jolla, for example.

Obama has carried the La Jolla area of the City of San Diego twice now by a few points. It is one of those wealthy white areas that has moved left. Heck UC San Diego is right next door, and Asians are around in significant numbers to boot.

Ah. I added up the precincts on the map, and the total I came up with was 50.4% Obama 49.6% Romney of the 2 party vote.

[Torie]

How do you know which ones are La Jolla?  I "knew" because I looked at the precinct sheets for the precincts labeled "La Jolla," downloaded from  the San Diego County registrar's website

Yes, I just eyeballed it, but it looked more like say 52-48 Obama to me.

[DrScholl]

In the dictionary, urban is defined as pertaining to characteristics to cities. As far as how it is defined by the census, the defined "urban areas" sometimes have large coverage and can include some places that are more suburban. Bakersfield is a good example of Republican voting urban area, since it has fairly dense pockets of Republican strength and urban areas are defined a lot by density. Density does count, which explains why there are few urban areas in the plains, which is not very dense at all.

[krazen1211]

How do you know which ones are La Jolla?  I "knew" because I looked at the precinct sheets for the precincts labeled "La Jolla," downloaded from  the San Diego County registrar's website

Yes, I just eyeballed it, but it looked more like say 52-48 Obama to me.

Click on the enlarged map and click on the precincts. I think there are about 18 or so, including 9 or 10 in a tight circle which Romney won. There are some Obama precincts on the coast itself and further south closer to Pacific Beach, which look like the hipsters and surfers.


San Diego City is 40% D 27% R by registration. The state as a whole is 44% D 29% R.

[CatoMinor]

Does anyone know if Chester (city) PA still elects all republicans on the local level?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sorry to sound like a stuck record, but you townies are weird. A suburb is urban. End of discussion.

[jimrtex]

In the dictionary, urban is defined as pertaining to characteristics to cities. As far as how it is defined by the census, the defined "urban areas" sometimes have large coverage and can include some places that are more suburban. Bakersfield is a good example of Republican voting urban area, since it has fairly dense pockets of Republican strength and urban areas are defined a lot by density. Density does count, which explains why there are few urban areas in the plains, which is not very dense at all.

Until 1940-ish, the Census Bureau defined "urban" as any municipality with more than 2500 persons.   They then started adding in adjacent territory that was higher density.

Since 2000, the core of an urban area is simply a densely built up area with a density of more than 1000 persons per square mile, along with surrounding areas with a density of 500 persons per square mile, that has a total population greater than 2500.

Pampa, TX was pretty close to 90% for Romney (Gray County was 87.2% for Romney), and Pampa is 81% of the county population.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

How about Indianapolis or Bakersfield, CA?

[traininthedistance]

Does anyone know if Chester (city) PA still elects all republicans on the local level?

They just elected a Democratic mayor last year, but the previous mayor was still Republican.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

How about Indianapolis or Bakersfield, CA?

Most of the Republican-voting parts of Indianapolis are decidedly not urban and wouldn't even part of the city if it wasn't for the expansion to all of Marion County thing. From what I gathered from my time there, the nickname "Circle City" is only used to apply to the area within the I-485 /74 loop. So if you limit to those areas, the only Republican-voting areas are some suburban precincts on the outer southern edge, and an area in the northeast that looks like this.

There is however a notably strong McCain precinct near the middle completely surrounded by strong D precincts I'm curious about.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That mentioned Indy precinct doesn't look much different from the surrounding areas on street view. The only odd thing I can find is some sort of fundamentalist ministry organization seems to have an HQ there, but I doubt that alone would count for most of the voters.

Oh and turnout is really bad. Only about 150 votes cast in a precinct with over 1400 VAP population. Could be just a data error.

[Zioneer]

Tulsa, OK
Colorado Springs, CO
Jacksonville, FL
Jacksonville, NC
Springfield, MO
Tyler/Longview, TX
Lubbock, TX
Pensacola, FL
Monroe, LA
Provo, UT
Spartanburg/Greenville, SC

I would say that most of the cities in the Wasatch Front (where most of Utah's population lives) is a conservative urban (or at least suburban) enclave.

[Torie]

Does anyone know if Chester (city) PA still elects all republicans on the local level?

A GOP urban machine. One of the last one's left.

[Benj]

Does anyone know if Chester (city) PA still elects all republicans on the local level?

A GOP urban machine. One of the last one's left.

They lost in 2011. So the dream may be over. http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2012/01/04/news/doc4f03c47edf85c608558654.txt?viewmode=fullstory

[traininthedistance]

Everyone has forgotten about what is clearly the largest urban GOP enclave in the nation, at least if you are using "urban" to refer to building patterns rather than hewing strictly to center city boundaries:

The Cuban parts of Miami-Dade.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Or, say, see Cincinnati.

Cincinnati was like this until about 15 years ago. That's gone now.

Neighboring Ludlow KY is urban in character, but they've regularly voted GOP, including 2008 when McCain won it. But that's gone now too, since it flipped to Obama in 2012.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Bandit's right. East Cincinnati has a handful of McCain precincts, everywhere else in the city is solid Obama. Romney probably performed similarly.