When will these wealthy Trump counties go Dem?
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  When will these wealthy Trump counties go Dem?
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Author Topic: When will these wealthy Trump counties go Dem?  (Read 769 times)
mvd10
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« on: November 17, 2017, 11:58:19 AM »

Trump did worse than Romney with wealthy voters, but 25 of the country's 50 wealthiest counties still voted for Trump. Suffolk (NY) is the only Obama-Trump county on this list. But Anne Arundel, Fort Bend and Chester were the only Romney-Clinton counties. A surprising number of counties actually trended towards Trump or barely moved, but I suspect those counties are the less densely populated counties. And most of them still trended D. I bolded the counties where Trump won more than 55% of the vote (Trump won something like 54.4% in Douglas, Delaware (county) and Hunterdon though). And there also are some counties which trended hard towards the Democrats but still gave Trump (barely) more than 55% (Collin county in Texas for example).

Hunterdon (NJ)
Fauquier (VA)
Douglas (CO)
Stafford (VA)
Morris (NJ)
Putnam (NY)
Calvert (MD)
Williamson (TN)
Delaware (OH)
Oldham (KY)
York (VA)
Carroll (MD)
Suffolk (NY)
Sussex (NJ)
Carver (MN)
Collin (TX)
Forsyth (GA)
Rockwall (TX)
St Mary's (MD)
Hamilton (IN)
Scott (MN)
Kendall (IL)
Monmouth (NJ)
Harford (MD)
Frederick (MD)

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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2017, 10:23:12 PM »

Kendall, Frederick and Morris should flip in 2020, even if Trump improves nationally to win the PV.

Most of the non-bold ones, along with Collin, TX and Carver, MN should flip in 2024, which should either be an 8 year itch election or an easy race for a 1st term Dem incumbent.  The big exceptions here are all in the NYC area. Suffolk and Putnam, NY and Monmouth, NJ, which seem to actually like Trumpism more than generic Republican.

As for the bold ones, other than the aforementioned Collin and Carver, which swung like heck away from Trump last year, they should be voting R for many decades.  In the long run, Calvert, MD and York, VA could eventually be overrun with government employees (in the latter case from Hampton Roads, not DC), but the margin is quite a lot in both and Calvert swung hard to Trump.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2017, 04:54:53 PM »
« Edited: November 19, 2017, 04:59:51 PM by Skill and Chance »

Something to keep in mind here is that we are looking at countywide data, which only goes from a bit under 1/2 the national median income in the poorest counties to a bit over 2X the national median income in the richest counties.  A lot of the errors in contemporary political analysis come from treating 1/2 median income households as "the poor" and 2X median income households as "the rich" when the federal poverty line runs from about 1/5th to 1/3rd of the median income (approx. $12-20K) for most households and what most people think of as the cut off for "the rich" hovers around 5X median income (approx. $250K).  So when we look at the county level, we aren't really getting a good sense of "the rich" or "the poor."

My sense is that "the poor" in the sense of the federal definition of poverty still vote 2:1 or 3:1 Dem consistently, while "the rich" in the sense of $250K+ never voted Dem since LBJ and then swung to a a near tie for Obama 2008, swung back to Romney 2012 and then swung really hard to Clinton in 2016.  You have to look at the town or zip code level to see this, though.  Think Atherton and Palos Verdes, CA.  When you look at aggregate data, all you can see for "the rich" is the tail end of the $50-$150K GOP base, which greatly obscures the shift toward a $40-$100K GOP base under Trump.
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mvd10
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« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2017, 11:25:37 AM »

Something to keep in mind here is that we are looking at countywide data, which only goes from a bit under 1/2 the national median income in the poorest counties to a bit over 2X the national median income in the richest counties.  A lot of the errors in contemporary political analysis come from treating 1/2 median income households as "the poor" and 2X median income households as "the rich" when the federal poverty line runs from about 1/5th to 1/3rd of the median income (approx. $12-20K) for most households and what most people think of as the cut off for "the rich" hovers around 5X median income (approx. $250K).  So when we look at the county level, we aren't really getting a good sense of "the rich" or "the poor."

My sense is that "the poor" in the sense of the federal definition of poverty still vote 2:1 or 3:1 Dem consistently, while "the rich" in the sense of $250K+ never voted Dem since LBJ and then swung to a a near tie for Obama 2008, swung back to Romney 2012 and then swung really hard to Clinton in 2016.  You have to look at the town or zip code level to see this, though.  Think Atherton and Palos Verdes, CA.  When you look at aggregate data, all you can see for "the rich" is the tail end of the $50-$150K GOP base, which greatly obscures the shift toward a $40-$100K GOP base under Trump.

That's true, counties are huge. There was a thread on how the wealthiest towns voted in 2012 and 2016. Places like Atherton and Darien are located in solid D counties, but they still voted for Romney in 2012 and they indeed swung hard to Clinton in 2016. 18 of the 27 wealthiest cities in Southern California voted for Romney in 2012 (I guess a similar number voted Clinton in 2016). But the interesting thing is that Trump seems to have performed similarly to McCain with the very wealthiest voters.
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PragmaticPopulist
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« Reply #4 on: November 20, 2017, 11:38:11 AM »

I've been to all the counties that you listed in MD.

As said earlier in the thread, Frederick County will almost certainly flip in 2020. The city of Frederick is kind of becoming the progressive hub of western MD, and it just ousted a Republican mayor. The County also elected a Democratic County Executive in 2014.

Harford and Carroll are historically R counties that are still pretty rigidly partisan. White voters in these counties behave more like whites in PA. They are also not very diverse. Harford though appears to be trending D in the long term, so it could flip sometime in the next few election cycles.

Calvert and St. Mary's counties have a weird history. They are ancestrally D counties that have voted R since 1980, but still usually vote for Steny Hoyer when he runs for reelection. They're basically a part of the south.
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