How did Trump win Pinellas County, FL?
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  How did Trump win Pinellas County, FL?
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Author Topic: How did Trump win Pinellas County, FL?  (Read 3257 times)
AGA
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Junior Chimp
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« on: December 20, 2016, 09:55:24 PM »

Trump won Pinellas County while losing Hillsborough County, but in the past, Hillsborough County was the more Republican of the two. In 2012, Obama won Pinellas County by about 6 points. It contains a lot of urban areas since it is in the Tampa metro area and is home to the city of St. Petersburg. It is 76% white.  How did Trump win it this time?
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mistertheplague
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« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2016, 12:37:42 AM »

Trump won Pinellas County while losing Hillsborough County, but in the past, Hillsborough County was the more Republican of the two. In 2012, Obama won Pinellas County by about 6 points. It contains a lot of urban areas since it is in the Tampa metro area and is home to the city of St. Petersburg. It is 76% white.  How did Trump win it this time?
You ever been to Pinellas? It has some areas, Clearwater for instance, that rival the Redneck Riviera.

Short answer: Bikers.

Longer answer: I'd bet the data would show, as in other parts of the country, a substantial number of long-term and late-cycle nonparticipants registering and voting in 2016.

Interestingly, Trump essentially replicated Obama's 2012 vote total, so the ~5K Clinton underperformed from 2012 was her margin of defeat.

Obama: 238,966     
Romney: 213,192

Clinton: 233,327         
Trump: 238,746
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The_Doctor
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« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2016, 09:05:25 PM »

Interestingly enough, Pinellas County is 8% Latino in the Census but only 4.5% of the county are registered Latinos. 80% of registered voters are white while whites were 82% in the 2010 Census. I'd assume given Trump's 64% among white voters that he gained 20,000 among whites and won the county.

I suppose precinct level maps might tell us. That said the white population here has been dropping surprisingly. It dropped by 40,000 between 2000 and 2010 (4%).

It seems there were enough white voters to win Pinellas County for Trump. Note Obama won a majority while Trump won 48% - Clinton's voters stayed home and turnout was down 6,000 from 2012. Most of the Clinton voters staying home appear to have been white (or maybe some switched to Trump).

As for Hillsborough, Fla., whites made up 71% of the county in 2010 and 59% of the registered voters in 2016. Obama won the county by 6 (52-46) while Clinton won by 7 (51-44).

To conclude: whites abandoned Hillary (and turned out for Trump) in Pinellas and demographics masked the Clinton drop-off in Hillsborough among white voters. I am pretty sure precinct maps would show that Hillary lost white voters from 2012 in Hillsborough.
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ajc0918
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« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2016, 01:14:49 PM »

I live in Pinellas County and agree with most of the sentiment above. Pinellas is more white than most urban Florida counties and it does appear there was a shift of whites who voted for Obama moving to Trump.

St. Petersburg and the southern part of Pinellas is the where a majority of democratic voters in this county come from and interestingly enough Trump received 1% less in St. Petersburg's precincts than Mitt Romney. However, St. Pete has a decent amount of environmental and far-left voters. Jill Stein did well in St. Pete as did Gary Johnson which made Hillary receive less of the vote than Obama did in 2012 by a larger amount.

I think 3rd party voters definitely made Pinellas vote for Trump. Trump won Pinellas by around 6,000 votes and third party plus write-in votes equaled around 22,000.

One thing interesting to note is that while Trump won and Bush won it 2004, the Republican nominee for President hasn't won 50%+ of the vote since 1988. Where as in every election since 1992 the Democrats have gotten 47%+ of the vote(and 50%+ in three elections).

In 2014 Democrats took control of the Pinellas County commission for the first time in 50 years. We'll see how Pinellas trends in 2020 but if I were to guess I think Pinellas will move slightly toward democrats.
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« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2016, 06:13:16 PM »

Map:
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