NOVA GREEN's Election Analysis Thread

[NOVA Green]

What about those precincts that swung heavily Democratic between the '16 Presidential Election and '18 CD-08 Special Election?

Here is a list of precincts that swung +20-25% Democratc, and represented roughly 20% of the CD'08 electorate in both 2014 and 2018, and 22% of the CD-08 electorate in 2016.... ( I omitted two "Senior Only" precincts since they were included in that previous breakdown)



Similarly to the +25% Democratic swing precincts, we see a wide geographical dispersion pattern, with Peoria, Glendale, Surprise, and Phoenix/ Uninc North Phoenix all represented.

Let's look at the maps of the District split into the Northern Part of CD- '08 and the numerically larger Central and Southern Part of the district.

Precincts highlighted in RED are +25% D swing '16 GE to '18, those in BLUE are +20-25% D Swing...

Northern CD-08:



Central/Southern CD-08:



Let's go back and look at the Median Household Income (MHI) by Census Tract Map...



So, I outlined three broad areas where MHI runs about $100k/Yr....

This includes broadly (Some Precincts highlighted in BOLD):

1.) Some Unincorporated Areas North of Phoenix (Majesty and Hastings)... Deadman Wash was split into two between '16 and '18, with a new precinct Tramonto created, so although this '16 precinct swung heavily Dem, I did not include on the map.

2.)Northern parts of Glendale/Peoria/Phoenix from Lake Pleasant in the NW going South-by-Southeast through West Wing, Desert Sage, to Creedence and stretching all the way down to Angela and heads back west towards Indian Wells....

3.) A significant cluster of precincts in more of the Central part of Glendale located within the district , and Peoria, essentially crunched between Sun City to the West and Phoenix to the East where you had roughly a dozen precincts that swung 20+% Dem between '16 and '18....

4.) You have that one pocket Litchfield in the SW Portion of CD-08 that I mentioned in my previous post regarding +25% D swing precincts....

5.) Now you have one major cluster of +20/+25 D Swing precincts that is not represented on the MHI Map with high concentrations of +100k/Yr Median Household Income....

These are in the rapidly growing Exurban city of Surprise, Arizona (+220% pop growth 2010 to 2018)...

MHI runs roughly more in the $67k/Yr range, the population tends to skew much younger than CD-08 in general somewhere in the early '40s, still tends to be heavily Anglo.

These types of areas will be especially interesting to watch in the General Election this November and in the 2020 GE as the Exurban share of CD- '08 continues to grow as first time home buyers move further and further out into newer housing developments in the desert and trade more house for lower cost and longer commutes....

Ok---- how what does the voting history of the +20-25% Dem Swing ('16 GE > '18 CD SE) look like?



What do these numbers show from 20-22% of the CD-'08 electorate?

1.) Again we have areas with an overwhelmingly Republican voting history that almost elected a Democrat in a Special Election....

The Registered Voter Numbers (24 D- 44 R- 32 I) tend to be closer to the RV numbers in CD-08 than the Senior Citizen Precincts and the +25% D Swing precincts....

2.) Once again there were gains on the margins for the '18 Dem candidate (48-51 R) compared to the '16 Sheriff numbers (47-53 R)....

3.) If we do a compare/contrast for the +25% Dem swing precincts vs the +20-25% Dem swing precincts, the +20-25% D Swing precincts actually tend to vote slightly more Democratic than the +25% Dem swing precincts, but in the Special Election that was not the case....

The obvious variance between the two is that Independents voted at a lower level in the +20% Swing Precincts in the '18 Special Election, AND the DEMs did slightly worse in reducing the EV DEM/REP voter gap in the former....

Without doing an exhaustive study comparing the +20% vs +25% Dem swing precincts, it appears that the turnout levels in the former was a bit more favorable to the Democrats than the latter, but regardless overall +20% swing precincts accounted for a whopping 30% of the AZ CD-08 SE vote.

Some of this might possibly be related to variations in age and education differentials on the margins, combined with a bit of statistical "noise", but regardless we can see that turnout differentials were slightly less worse for 'Pubs here than in the HUGE swing precincts....

Ok--- before I finish this, there are a few more items to examine....

Here is a chart that shows the precinct level results by Party for the '18 SE and '16 PRES and '16 Sheriff Election, as well as the Early Voting partisan gap compared to the PEVL (Pre-Approved Early Voting List) numbers....

This gives us an idea of to what extent the turnout enthusiasm gap may have played a role in the EV numbers, which were obviously an overwhelming majority of the votes cast in this election....



So on the Left side of the chart I randomly chose Blue for some reason rather than Red (Atlas faux pas) to code DEM/REP EV turnout gaps.... basically which Party was turning out a greater number of their base voters than the other, and essentially leaving the Indy vote to the sidelines....

What do these numbers tell us?

1.) Democrats overall were much better than Republicans in getting their Early Voters to turnout, despite the last minute RNC GOTV drive....

2.) Although generally the Democratic candidate in the Special Election outperformed the Democratic Candidate running for Maricopa County Sheriff against "Sheriff Joe", it is notable that there were a relatively small number of precincts where the Dem CD-08 candidate under-performed....

Earlier in the thread I had posited that since we didn't have any real example of a potential Democratic precinct level win model in this district, the best we could do for precinct modeling would be look that the '16 Sheriff Election, and to a lesser extent the '14 Arizona Superintendent of Education Election as potential narrow routes towards a Democratic WIN in this district.

3.) Interestingly enough we don't really see the PEVL gap being the major correlation between election results in CD-08 4/24....

It looks more like a mixture of improvement on Sheriff Joe election numbers for the DEM in certain precincts, combined with a larger collapse among Trump levels of support in many of these precincts even where the Lesko out-performed Sheriff Joe....

4.) The more I look at the data, it really is starting to look like the Democratic candidate won some 65% of Registered Independents that voted, as opposed to my "High-Dem" Model of 60-40 D....

I am still extremely skeptical about any polling numbers and discussions about how 15-17% of Registered Republicans voted Democrat in this election, since we really don't have any precinct data to indicate that by Party Registration....

What I *suspect* might be the case is that these polling questions asked about Party Identification and not Party Registration.

As all of us regular Atlas Election Geeks well know Registered Independents frequently tend to lean heavily one way or the other when it comes to their voting history....

*IF* Dem's are winning 2:1 among Registered Indies in a CD where typically Dems barely break 50-50 or 53-47, 'Pub Phoenix has a massive Anglo problem....

Gotta take a break from the project, but will need to check '12 > '16 GE PRES swings for these precincts at some point....

[NOVA Green]

Now let's shift gears and move towards the other side of the deck.... precincts where there was a '16 to '18 Dem Swing of less than 10%, and in a couple cases a reverse swing towards the Republican CD-08 candidate....

These precincts accounted for the vote share in CD-08:

Registered Voters: 9.9%
2018 Special Election: 7.1% of Total Vote
2016 General Election: 8.7% of CD-08 Total Vote
2014 General Election: 7.5% of Total Vote

Here's the list of precincts in CD '08 that had the lowest Democratic Swing between '16 PRES GE and '18 CD Special Election:



Here is how they voted in recent years (Filtered out Deadmanwash for reasons cited in my previous post)....



In theory these should be overwhelmingly Democratic Precincts compared to the RV numbers, Trump only narrowly won here (45-47 R), Sheriff Joe went down hard (56-44 D), the Dem Candidate for US SEN won in '12 (49-45 D), etc....

Reality is that in non-Presidential Year elections, these precincts start to become much more Republican as a result of turnout numbers among Registered Democrats and Indies....

Ok... here is the map of low Dem swing precincts in '18 compared to the '16 GE...



There a couple "Senior Only" precincts accidentally included in the final vote tally chart, Happy Trails, St Christopher and Lakeview (Sun City), that will move the numbers around a bit on the margins, but my fundamental point below still stands...

Let's look at the Latino Population of the District by US Census Tract...



So here we see the two precincts that swung Republican between '16 and '18 (Goodyear and San Miguel) both have fairly large Latino populations....

We also observe areas around the "Latino Belt" of CD-08 that runs South from Old Town Surprise down through El Mirage, and sweeps around to the SE portions of the district into "South Peoria" and into adjacent portions of Glendale....

El Mirage was featured in the seminal book: "The Patchwork Nation" published about eight years back as a key example of the "Immigration Nation" segment of Americana and voting habits...

http://www.patchworknation.org/Immigration-Nation



Although this district is not significantly Latino in terms of overall population, it is even much less so in terms of VAP and RVs, and Working-Class Latinos tend to vote less frequently in this part of the US in Non-Presidential Year elections....

Flake lost these precincts by + 1k Dem Total Votes in '12. the AZ Sup of Ed narrowly won by 100 Votes in 2014, Trump narrowly won these precincts by 450 votes in '16 (Inclusive of Senior Precincts), and Sheriff Joe lost by a huge 3.5k Votes in '16....

Hiral narrowly won these precincts by 500 votes in the Special Election, although voter turnout was only about 50% of 2016 numbers (Electorate much more Anglo and Middle-Class Latino and very few Working-Class Latino voters)...

Still, there are tons of places like this in Maricopa County, and with so many key elections on the line in Arizona in November 2018, the Special Election results from CD-08 thus far don't appear to indicate a massive Latino surge come November in Arizona...

This could easily change with extremely competitive US-SEN, AZ-GOV, races on the line not to mention pretty much all Statewide elections, and various Congressional Elections....

Still, despite the Republican Party's Maricopa County Anglo problem, the Democratic Party is facing an off-year election "Latino Problem" thus far when it comes to voter turnout and enthusiasm...

If Sheriff Joe is on the ballot as the Republican running in a GE to capture Flake's seat, this obviously won't be a problem, considering the massive Voter Registration Drives and grassroots organizing that happened in '16 against the racist a**hole.

Democrats can obviously win Arizona Statewide elections regardless of massive Latino turnout as results from CD-08 demonstrated in an off-year special election gig, but still votes are earned and not granted, AND without a significantly higher Latino turnout in the '18 AZ GE, numbers start to become much more complicated for Dems, regardless of whatever happens in the Nov '18 CD-08 rematch....

[NOVA Green]

Now that we have most of the Oregon Election results in for the 5/'15 Primary, time to take a brief look at the Macro Level data....

Let's start with the total population of Registered Voters by County in the last reporting period prior to the 2018 Oregon Primary....

Light Gray= Counties that account for 0.0% - 0.5% of the Total Registered Voters within Oregon
Dark Gray = Counties that account for 0.6 % to 1.0 % of the Total Registered Voters in Oregon
Other colors are shaded and identified as a % of the total Statewide Registered Voting Population.



So the three main Counties of Metro- Portland (Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas) account for roughly 43% of RVs within Oregon.

As I noted previously I do not consider Yamhill and Columbia Counties to be primarily Metro Portland, despite a few heavily exurban communities located on the fringes of Metro-PDX, because the predominant population in these counties do not consist of Metro-PDX commuters.

"Downstate Oregon" accounts for roughly 57% of the RVs within Oregon, and is essentially the reason why occasionally Oregon is still competitive for Statewide Elections, despite being overwhelmingly Democratic at the Federal Level....

Where are the respective Registered Democratic and Republican voting bases located at within Oregon?

Registered Democrats as % off total Party Vote Share by County:



Here we see that roughly 53% of Registered Democrats are located within the three counties of Metro Portland....

We see a couple decent chunks in Oregon's 2nd Congressional District (Jackson and Deschutes Counties), which account for about 9 % of Registered Dems in Oregon....

Mid Valley accounts for about 18 % of Registered Dems (Marion, Linn, Benton, Yamhill, and Polk....

Lane County (Eugene-Springfield) alone accounts for 9.4% of Registered Democrats, which forms the rump of OR CD-04, while Southwest Oregon (Douglas, Coos, Curry, and Josephine) account for only about 8% of Registered Democrats collectively....

Registered Republicans as % of Total Vote Share by County:



So here we see how truly marginalized the state of the current Oregon Republican Party is...

1.) About 32.7% of Registered Republicans reside in the three Counties of Metro Portland....

2.) About 21% reside in the Mid-Willamette Valley Counties, which used to be the traditional "swing district" part of Oregon and heavily located in CD-05, with the Cities of Albany and Corvallis carved into CD-04 after redistricting in 2010 to balance out the population growth from Metro-Portland and Mid-Valley to add additional population into OR CD-04....

3.) Lane County give the 'Pubs 8.5% of their total RV Share, heavily concentrated in rural and small town parts of the County, not to mention a decent chunk of voters from Metro Eugene-Springfield.

4.) SW Oregon accounts for close to 10% of the total 'Pub Vote Share in Oregon, thanks to the Oregon Republican Party swapping the 'Burbs of Portland in an attempt to make to play for Timber Country during the "Jobs vs Environment" BS angle from the 1990s....

5.) Jackson and Deschutes Counties alone account for close to 13% of the RV Republican Vote Share by County, which creates major issues for the Oregon Republican Party and brand considering these counties are increasingly trending a bit purple as a result of changing demographics and retirees from California and elsewhere relocating to these Counties that tend to be much more Liberal on Social and Environmental issues ....

The Oregon Republican Party is increasingly becoming a "rump party" dominated by an internal echo chamber making it extremely difficult to sell a comprehensive brand to a statewide audience, even for Statewide level elections, where they used to be competitive regardless of whatever was happening within the National political environment....

Oregon is a closed primary State--- Indies can't vote for any partisan primary.... So what happens when we look at the vote share by County by Party for the May 2018 Primaries?

Democratic Party Vote Share for Gubernatorial Election:



Oregon really didn't have very many competitive Democratic Party elections, so overall Democratic Primary turnout was a bit lower than average for an off-year election, so vote share distribution dropped a bit in Metro Portland and increased overall in most of "downstate Oregon"....

I used the Gubernatorial Democratic and Republican Primary numbers as a measurement to compare against overall RV numbers by party.

Where were the Democratic Primary Votes concentrated?....

1.) We see Metro-PDX drop to only 46.5% of Registered Democrats

2.) Mid-Valley 15.4% of Dem Primary Voters

3.) Lane County jumps to 11.8% of Dem Primary Voters

4.) SW Oregon roughly 6.0% of Dem Primary Voters

5.) Jackson/Deschutes bop up to about 10% of Dem Primary Voters

This is not bad news at all for Oregon Democrats, considering the majority of the targeted Oregon State Senate & House Districts targeted in Nov '18 for a Democratic Party "Super-Majority" in the State Legislature are in Downstate Oregon...

Where were the Republican Party Primary Voters located?



1.) Metro PDX--- Almost 26% of the 'Pub Vote located here....

Massive drop from the 33% of their RV Vote Share, which obviously creates some major questions and issues as to the future of the Republican Party for Statewide Elections, considering this is a part of the State, where even traditionally Republican leaning suburbs and exurbs are starting to skew heavily Democrat, well before Trump became the National standard bearer of the Republican Party.

2.) Mid-Valley--- About 21% of the 'Pub Vote located here...

Holds steady for Party Vote Share by Region

3.) Lane County-- 8.6 % 'Pub Vote Share by County

 Holds steady for Party Vote Share by Region

4.) SW Oregon--- 13% of the 'Pub Vote Share....

Here's a chunk of the Republican Vote Share caused by the drop-off from Metro PDX

5.) Jackson/Deschutes--- 13.7% of the 'Pub Vote Share....

Increased numbers for 'Pubs as a share of their total vote share in some relatively fast growing "Minor Metro" Areas...

6.) Lion Share of the 'Pub increased Primary Vote Share came from heavily rural and small town areas in Eastern Oregon, as well as some numbers from NW Coastal Oregon....

Much of this information might well be completely irrelevant if one attempts to look the Oregon Primary Election and attempt to model for November '18 results considering the extremely high number of registered Independents and 3rd Party Candidates in Oregon.

Current Oregon Voter registration numbers show Registration by Party as being roughly 36% Registered Democrat, 26 % Registered Republican, and 38% Registered Independent / Other.

Still a +260k Dem RV edge is nothing to sneeze at in a relatively low population State such as Oregon with 2.684k RVs, where AVR and VBM have massively increased voter registration as % of the VAP...

This is worthy of a completely separate post, since AVR is a completely new phenomenon and has caused a major collapse in both Democratic and Republican Party Registration in Oregon alike, since the default voter registration is NAV, and most new voters don't really bother to tinker about with their voter registration until their are some major partisan primaries going on, most likely to occur in 2020 as a PRES GE year...

Now to briefly discuss the Oregon Gubernatorial Primary Elections:

1.) Kate Brown as expected performed extremely well among Registered Democrats....

There are definitely some warning signs from both the Left and Right wings of the Democratic Party if we take a brief peek at some of the County level results....

From the "Right" DINO wing of the Democratic Party you have this Ed Jones Bloke:

https://www.edjonesforgovernor.com/platform

He basically ran on a Republican platform, but managed to bag a huge chunk of Democratic Primary voters.... (8.5 %)

He hit about 20% of Democratic Primary Voters in a wide variety of Counties in Oregon, including some major populated centers such as Douglas, Linn not to mention 15+% some smaller counties throughout the State from Baker, Columbia , Coos, Crook, Umatilla, etc...

Many of these Registered Democrats will typically vote Democrat for Federal Elections and sometimes Democrat for Statewide Elections, but are voting in protest against where they see the direction of their Party going at the statewide level on issues such as Gun Reform, LGBT Equality, decriminalization of hard drugs in Oregon, and some of the other statewide programs that Kate Brown has successfully passed into law in her brief two year term as Governor.

From the Left, we have Candace Neville, who I might have considered voting for had we not had the most Progressive Democratic Governor ever in Oregon History.

Candace still managed to capture 7.3% of the Oregon GOV PRIM vote, although we don't really see a major Geographical variance in her vote distribution, with the exception of over-performing in the most heavily rural counties in the State.

I strongly suspect that most of the Neville voters will fall in line in November, with some minor defections to the Green or Working Family Party candidates for OR-GOV.

2.) I don't really have a decent take on the mindset of Republican Primary voters that went for Carpenter or Woolridge, but I strongly suspect that the vast majority of the Trumpistas and Evangelical Fundi's will fall in line behind Buehler, despite their major issues with an "establishment 'Pub" nominee since the vast majority literally despite Kate Brown to a level that we rarely see towards Democratic Governors of Oregon....

More to come....

[NOVA Green]

Ok---- now that we've talked a bit and reviewed the data on relative DEM/REP Registered Voters by County and looked at the 2018 Primary DEM/REP Vote Share by County, time to take a look at the TWO Party May '18 RV numbers vs the May '18 OR-GOV numbers to do a compare and contrast, since even if Indies split 50-50 in the November GE, Dems hold a +16% lead over Pubs among Registered Voters, and a +12% lead over 'Pubs among Primary Democratic/Republican voters....

MAY 2018: Registered Voters as a % of combined TWO Party Votes (DEM/REP)



So right here, in theory, this map should be absolutely terrifying for Republicans, especially considering the DEM % of RVs dropped between '16 and '18, as many people switched from Registered NAV / 3rd Party in order to vote in the '16 DEM PRES Primaries, and switched their REG back to IND/OTHER.

I mean if hypothetically in a "Wave Election" Indies vote 60-40 Dem in Oregon in 2018, not only will we see Kate Brown win comfortably by mid double digits, but additionally the Oregon State Legislature will be Ironclad Democratic with a Super-Majority that overcomes many of the restrictions of revenue generation in the form of changing taxation policy in a direction where Big Business and extremely High Income individuals might have to cough up a few extra bucks to pay their fair share towards education, infrastructure, and social services....

Although OR CD-02 is not in play in 2018, I would not be surprised to see some significant swings in the two largest population centers within the district (Jackson and Deschutes Counties) where Republicans only narrowly hold a lead in terms of TWO Party voter registration.

Now, we do have some Ancestral Democratic voting populations in places like Coos, Tillamook, Columbia, and Wasco that obviously stand out, and I would argue that although the map obscures it Linn County as well to some extent....

OK--- What was the TWO PARTY OR breakdown for the May Primary look like by County?

I'll spare your eyeballs on this one and not code counties by color on this map, since the map that I used in MS Paint in previous posts hasn't worked as well as I would like....



So on the surface, again this map looks extremely positive for Democrats, especially considering that there extremely competitive Republican Primaries to challenge incumbent Democrats for a wide variety of races from OR-GOV, to OR-US-HOUSE, etc.... and on the Dem side we didn't have any real competitive primaries, other than a few races here and there for OR State SEN/HOUSE legislative districts to challenge incumbent 'Pubs....

Now what does the map look like if we take the May 2018 Two Party Margins among Registered DEMs/Pubs and contrast against the total May 2018 OR-GOV Primary Two Party numbers by County???



So we start to see an extremely interesting looking map, especially considering that there weren't really very many competitive Democratic Primaries in Oregon, compared to a huge number of competitive Republican Primary contests....

A few key items to note:

1.) Democratic Primary voters exceeded their Registered Voter numbers by +2.5% in the largest County and most reliable Democratic stronghold in Oregon.... Multnomah County

2.) We also see even more massive RV vs OR-GOV Two Party numbers in Benton and Clatsop Counties.

Although both are to various degrees Democratic strongholds. Clatsop County has a significant number of both retirees and Ancestral Democrats, along with a Regional Community College in Astoria. Benton County is heavily a University County, combined with a fairly educated population that works in the Tech Sector (HP), as well as massive regional Hospital that provides some of the highest quality Medical Services in Oregon outside of Metro Portland (OHSU)....

3.) Look carefully at the map along the Oregon Coast which is heavily retiree communities, and we see Dem margins doing extremely well, not only in the more Democratic Leaning retiree communities in the Oregon Coast, but even in more Republican leaning retiree communities along the Southern Oregon Coast (Coos County and Curry County)

4.) Obviously the +1.3% Dem margins in Lane County compared to RVs stands out as well, especially considering it is the major "anchor County" of OR-CD-04....

5.) Jackson County really stands out here (+0.8% Dem), considering that it increasingly looks like not only a "Flip County" but a "Flip Hard County" if the Oregon Republican Party AND the National Republican Party continues down their current trajectory....

Will need to further examine precinct level results here to see to what extent these changes are happening in Medford vs Rural Areas, and to what extent potentially high Dem turnout in Ashland and surrounding areas might be impacting these numbers.

6.) In the Portland Suburbs of Washington and Clackamas Counties we see some marginal 'Pub gains looking at RV numbers vs OR-GOV numbers by Party.

This is NOT an unexpected phenomemon considering the character and composition of the Democratic electorate in a non-competitive off-year Primary....

What is remarkable is how close these off-year primary numbers were compared to what we would normally expect historically speaking.

7.) We see significantly higher 'Pub RV vs GOV numbers in the Mid-Valley, which as I have stated before is the heartlands of the Evangelical Christian segment of the Republican electoral base.

Additionally, these same counties have some of the highest % of Latinos that are American Citizens compared to most parts of Oregon (Many Counties in Eastern Oregon have an extremely high % of Latinos that are "Guestworkers" in the farms, ranches, and agricultural processing plants in places from Umatilla to Malheur Counties).

Working-Class Latinos in Oregon tend to be more less likely to vote in off-year elections, just like in places like Texas and Arizona, especially when it comes to primary elections....

8.) SW-Oregon.... Josephine and Douglas Counties have long been the bedrock of Republican voters within Southern Oregon.... the former went for Goldwater in '64 and I don't believe has voted for a Democratic President since maybe once or twice for FDR...

There are no Timber mills left in Josephine County, in what used to be a major Timber Mill city in Oregon, where now "The Gut" a massive sprawling series of Mills has now been turned into shopping centers and discount food and apparel...

Grant's Pass accounts for a HUGE chunk of Total Voters within Josephine County and in the past few decades has transitioned from a Working-Class Republican Mill town to a retiree town.

Josephine County is probably the only place in Oregon where Democrats perform better in rural areas than the largest population center within the County.

Douglas County was ground zero in the Oregon "Timber Wars" of the late '80s to the present day...

It's a bit more of a Trip considering that it was only (47-53 R) in '88 and is now essentially the most Republican County in Oregon West of the Cascades.

There is still plenty of Timber to be logged, even without dipping into Old Growth in the National Forests of Douglas County....

There are still Timber Mills active in Roseburg, and other parts of the County, although the old Oregon Mantra goes: "Douglas County is where they harvest the Timber, and Lane County is where they Mill the Timber"

Still, this is a County where unemployment rates spike through the roof every time there is a National Recession and collapses of the Housing Market....

Can't remember offhand the exact numbers, but during the Bush Jr recession, thinking the unemployment rate spiked at something like 17% in '09....

9.) Deschutes County numbers look good for 'Pubs.... Turned out in high numbers to vote for the ("Moderate 'Pub) as opposed to the 'Fundi or the Trumpista candidate for OR-GOV.

10.) In the heavily Latino portions of Eastern Oregon (Morrow and Umatilla Counties) we see some of the greatest increases for the 'Pubs compared to the RV numbers for the Primary Election...

One could likely make an argument that Crook and Jefferson Counties were similarly impacted by low voter turnout among Latinos/ Native Americans...

More to come.....

[NOVA Green]

There is a lot of subtlety when it comes to looking at the issue of "Culturally Liberal" versus "Socially Liberal" attitudes, without even addressing the "Rural Areas" question....

Let's start with the question of what does it mean to be Culturally Liberal?

If we look at the limited Wikipedia Definition we see the following:

"Cultural liberalism is a liberal view of society that stresses the freedom of individuals from cultural norms and in the words of Thoreau is often expressed as the right to "march to the beat of a different drummer".[1]"

Cultural liberals believe that society should not impose any specific code of behavior and they see themselves as defending the moral rights of nonconformists to express their own identity however they see fit, as long as they do not harm anyone.[dubious – discuss] The culture wars in politics are generally disagreements between cultural liberals and cultural conservatives, as cultural liberals are strongly opposed to censorship or any kind of oversight of spoken or written material.[2] They believe that the structure of one's family and the nature of marriage should be left up to individual decision and they argue that as long as one does no harm no lifestyle is inherently better than any other. Because cultural liberalism expresses the social dimension of liberalism, it is often referred to as "social liberalism", but is not the same as the political ideology known as social liberalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_liberalism

This definition is so broad that it would likely include large swathes of rural America since there is inherently a Libertarian component when it comes to fundamental items such as Freedom of Speech and the Individual versus attempts to restrict those existing rights.

Social Liberalism

Under social liberalism, the good of the community is viewed as harmonious with the freedom of the individual.[6] Social liberal policies have been widely adopted in much of the capitalist world, particularly following World War II.[7] Social liberal ideas and parties tend to be considered centrist or centre-left.[8][9][10][11][12] Social liberals see themselves as occupying the middle ground between social democrats and classical liberals.

"The term "social liberalism" is used to differentiate it from classical liberalism, which dominated political and economic thought for a number of years until social liberalism branched off from it around the Great Depression. In American political usage, the term "social liberalism" describes progressive stances on socio-political issues like abortion, same-sex marriage or gun control as opposed to "social conservatism". A social liberal in this sense may hold either "liberal" or "conservative" views on fiscal policy."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism

Although these definitions are sourced from Wikipedia, rather than any Political Science Journal focusing on Political Philosophy within the context of American Politics, it provides us with a starting foundation to at least address the question properly....

If we move to the definitions of "Rural" at least we have a commonly accepted means to discuss the data based upon US Census Definitions....

if we use the Census Bureau definitions of "rural" as I posted on another thread regarding "rural White Majority Counties won by HRC"....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=292631.msg6219390#msg6219390



Now it get's trickier if we use the Census Definition of "rural" areas more narrowly, since this involves precinct level analysis and/or assumptions about the distribution of the "rural" population compared to whatever larger population centers exists within a given county:

According to the current delineation, released in 2012 and based on the 2010 decennial census, rural areas comprise open country and settlements with fewer than 2,500 residents.

Whew--- now where do we have at least some data points to examine issues relating to Abortion, LGBTQ Equality, Guns, Freedom of Speech, and Marijuana?

Well, we do have a decent amount of data from Oregon since ALL of these issues, (Plus many more) have popped up on the ballot as part of Oregon's direct democracy Citizen Initiative process (Although many of these were sponsored by the Oregon Citizen's Alliance from the late '80s to the Mid '00s....

Let's start with Freedom of Speech:

1996: Oregon GE Ballot Measure #31: Removes State Protections for Obscenity



So here we see even traditionally heavily Republican parts of Eastern and Southern Oregon reject the attempt to modify the Oregon State Constitution that would have made it much easier to "Ban Smut"....

What's really interesting about this map is that it was rejected by decent margins in Eastern and Southern Oregon, but still passed in most Counties within the Mid-Willamette Valley....

It's also notable that among several of the Counties on the Oregon Coast with the highest proportion of Seniors (Curry, Lincoln, and Tillamook) the race was much closer regardless of the variance in partisan affiliation....

The Counties with the largest support for the "Smut Ban" were the suburban Portland Counties of Washington and Clackamas, and even in the more heavily Mormon and "Cowboy Country" areas of SE and NE Oregon, this measure was rejected everywhere except for Malheur County....

2000 GE: Remove Protections for Adult Businesses from Oregon Constitution



This was basically an attempt to shut down strip clubs, adult bookstores, and even potentially LGBTQ businesses under the guise of giving power to individual units of Government (In places like Portland there are neighborhood associations that essentially control many zoning related decisions)...

Although this initiative was a bit closer in many parts of rural Oregon than the attempt to "Ban Smut" (Much of Eastern and Southern Oregon doesn't really have much in the way of Strip Clubs or Adult Bookstores), it still narrowly won in the "Bible Belt" of Oregon in the Mid-Valley although it still performed slightly worse in the Suburbs of Portland...

Coastal Oregon is interesting here in that the '96 "Banning of Smut" was closer than the attempt to ban strip clubs and adult bookstores...

Abortion:

1990 GE: Ban on Abortions with Three Exceptions....



So here we see how overwhelmingly Pro-Choice Oregon is, even in heavily rural parts of the State....

Key things to note here is that there were only two Counties in Oregon that voted over 40% to "Ban Abortion" (Linn and Malheur)....

The next biggest chunk of Anti-Choice Counties would be in "Bible Belt" of the Mid-Willamette Valley (Marion, Polk, Yamhill) and Douglas and Josephine Counties in Southern Oregon...

One could certainly make a decent argument that being Pro-Choice is Culturally Liberal vs Socially Liberal.

1990 GE: Requires Parental Notification for Minors Receiving Abortions



So here we see a potential gap between Social and Cultural Liberalism, with many Oregonians in both Rural areas and Cities saying "Yes we are Pro-Choice, BUT Parents should be notified 72 Hours in Advance if their Teenage kids are scheduled to have an Abortion procedure"....

There was essentially a similar measure on the ballot in '06, (Although it required 48 Hour Notification) and most of the Counties in Oregon had essentially minor variances from the '90 results....



What do we see here???

An Uptick of support for Parental Notification in much of Eastern and Central Oregon, with Southern Oregon holding steady, and an increase of support for a more "Socially Liberal" gig in the Counties of the Mid and Upper Coastal Rural parts of the State....

Not even going into the Portland suburbs and MultCo which are really where the major swings happened between '90 and '06 on this question...

GUNS:

Oregon has only really had one direct democracy initiative directly addressing Guns and it was way back in 2000, but still it gives us an idea regarding social/cultural Liberalism when it comes to something as basic such as closing the "Gun Show Loophole"



So this map is pretty fascinating.... as one might expect much of Eastern and Southeastern Oregon voted against closing the "Gun Show Loophole".... Still once we get outside of Ranching Country we see Umatilla County voting 45% YES...

When we move to Southern Oregon we see some interesting results from Josephine County, and Jackson County votes (58-42 YES)...

Rolling up into the Mid-Willamette Valley, we see only Linn County voting against, and overwhelming support in favor in Marion/Polk....

Mid and Northern Coastal Oregon votes heavily in favor, with the exception of Columbia County (Think WWC Deer Hunter Country)

LGBTQ Equality:

1992: Ballot Measure # 9: "Government Must Discourage Homosexuality"



Again, we see the Libertarian element at play in much of Eastern Oregon, even in some extremely heavily Republican parts of the State....

Looking at Southern Oregon, we see that the Coastal Counties (Coos and Curry) weren't too crazy about that, although it did narrowly pass in Jackson County, and perhaps as expected Josephine and Douglas Counties by large margins....

Again we see the "Grain Belt" of the Columbia River Gorge not being too crazy about all of this....

The "Bible Belt" of the Mid Valley tends to be a bit more split (Marion, Polk, Yamhill), and Linn County once again shames us all....

Columbia County obviously stands out here considering that it voted to the Right of Coos County, both of which have long time been "Ancestral Democratic" Counties, where Columbia just flipped for the first time from a Democratic Candidate in a Presidential Election since the New Deal era....

2000: Ballot Measure # 9: "Prohibits Schools from Promoting Homosexuality"



The slippery slimy weasels of the Oregon Citizens Alliance try it again, but this time doing their shtick about how they are trying to "protect the kids" from a Homosexual Agenda...

It performed much better at the Ballot Box than their '92 Measure.... Still it should be noted that many "rural" parts of Coastal Oregon rejected this Measure, as well as lackluster support in much of the Columbia River Gorge....

2004: Ballot Measure #36 Constitutional Amendment- "One Man One Woman"



Although arguably SSM was way ahead of its time in '04, this was yet another attempt by the Religious Right to spark turnout in a Presidential General Election Year in Oregon to spike Evangelical Voter turnout in what some 'Pubs thought might be a "Swing State" at the time....

Only two Counties in Oregon voted against a hypothetical Marriage Equality scenario (Multnomah and Benton)....

Still, looking at Rural Counties in Oregon, numbers from Lincoln, Clatsop, and Hood River, were actually fairly close....

Obviously SSM has seen one of the biggest changes overall when it comes to public support of any social issue, other than perhaps Marijuana Legalization, so we can't view Cultural/Social Liberalism on LGBTQ Equality alone from "Rural Counties" in Oregon from an election in '04....

I could pull up some various County maps from Oregon for Marijuana related policy issues, but had something floating around from the '14 Legalization Ballot Measure in Oregon.

Honestly I don't recall my exact color coding scheme (Although I rarely smoke the stuff myself except for maybe 3-4 times a year on a special occasion), but I'm assuming that Green means GO and RED means NO, YELLOW means NO but only SLOW, etc....



So again, the "Bible Belt" of the Mid-Valley votes Slow but NO, Green Lights from Southern Oregon, except SLOW from Josephine and NO from Douglas (Which is fascinating considering it for a long time has been one of the top 10 outdoor Marijuana Growing Counties in the US, going way back to the days of the decline of the Timber Industry)....

One could certainly make a decent argument that there many rural parts of Oregon that are Culturally Liberal, but not Socially Liberal....

Even there, in many parts of rural Oregon we see strong support for freedom of speech against attempts to overturn Oregon Constitutional Protections against Nude Dancing and Pornography, strong support for Female Reproductive Rights, even in many places including the Rights of Medical Privacy for Teenagers, in favor of closing the "Gun Show Loophole", Legalization of Medical/Recreation Marijuana, AND even although LGBTQ Equality didn't perform especially well at the Ballot Box in Oregon between '88 and '04, it's still pretty clear that there was a significant amount of support even in many Rural areas of Oregon against the attempts to destroy equal protections for the Community....

Cultural Liberalism/ Social Liberalism....

Now to the OP's question, my thought is where it comes to WWC Rural areas swinging against Trump, we would most likely see that in Coastal Oregon, the Columbia River Gorge, as well as perhaps certain parts of Southern Oregon and Central Oregon....

Honestly IDK about Trump in Eastern Oregon and SouthEastern Oregon in 2020, but potentially although these are not places I would consider "Socially Liberal" these might well be places more elastic than many other parts of "Rural Oregon" considering how poorly HRC performed compared to the performance of any other Democratic Presidential Candidate at any time in recent political history....

[NOVA Green]

Although I do see Maricopa County, and with it Arizona likely flipping in 2020 with Trump at the top of the Republican ticket, I'm not convinced that this will necessarily be a permanent  phenomenon turning Maricopa County into some type of Democratic stronghold....

There are some structural advantages that both Democrats and Republicans have in respective parts of the County that indicate it will if anything tend to remain more of a "Purple" County over the next few Presidential Election cycles, although if it breaks hard Democrat in 2018 and 2020 there is a good chance that many of those Republican leaning Indies are gone for good...

Here are a few charts and graphs that I came up with last November for Maricopa County...

Where are the votes located at within Maricopa County?



We see that Phoenix accounts for about 33% of the total votes in '16 (Which was basically unchanged from '12 > '16), and a number of medium sized cities accounting for about 57% of the County Vote, and roughly 10% of the votes coming from Unincorporated, and to a much lesser extent rural areas.

CITY   2016 % of Cty Vote Share
PHOENIX   32.9%
MESA   11.8%
CHANDLER   7.0%
GLENDALE   5.0%
SCOTTSDALE   8.0%
GILBERT   6.9%
TEMPE   4.1%
PEORIA   5.0%
SURPRISE   3.5%
AVONDALE   1.5%
GOODYEAR   2.3%
BUCKEYE   1.7%
Non Top 12   10.3%

How did these places vote in the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Election?





So several things stand out here...

1.) Phoenix is starting to move in the direction of being a solidly Democratic City, as opposed to being a marginally Democratic City, and accounted for a huge chunk of the '12 > '16 Dem vote gains within Maricopa County from + 27.5k D in '12 to + 75.0k D in '16.

Although the margin swing was lower than in many other communities in Maricopa County, the sheer size of the Phoenix vote share more than made up for those numbers.

Now it should be noted that many of the places within Phoenix that saw the largest '12 > '16 Dem swings were in relatively affluent Anglo and Republican leaning precincts within the City, so despite the '16 "Latino Surge" in some of the more heavily working and middle class neighborhoods within the City, even if we see a comparable surge in 2020, as well as the addition of a number of younger Democratic leaning voters showing up to vote for the first time with the simplicity of a heavily Vote-by-Mail (VbM) electorate, that is clearly not sufficient alone to maintain a +15% D vote margin   
(54-39 D) that we saw in 2016.

2.) Mesa is still a solidly large Republican vote basket accounting for a +40k R 'Pub lead in 2012 and +30k R lead in 2016.

Although Trump performed significantly worse than Romney, it still went almost +17% R, with almost all of the 'Pub drop-off going to 3rd Party candidates. Not that there weren't some Romney > HRC voters here, but one would certainly imagine that 'Pubs would be the net beneficiaries in this City if 3rd Party voting craters in 2020 and beyond.

3.) Chandler appears that it is starting to move heavily in a Democratic direction, and I suspect that trend will continue into 2020 with Trump leading the Republican brand.

Still again, much of the movement here was from upper middle-class voters in a relatively diverse and educated suburb of Phoenix, so will that trend hold in the Post-Trump era or will some of these voters return if the Republican Party sheds some of the extremist rhetoric that alienates these types of voters?

4.) Glendale did not swing nearly as heavily Democratic between '12 and '16, mainly because there was a smaller drop-off of Republican vote percentages compared to Chandler.

Still, Dem's managed to gain votes compared to '12 and we do have an additional data point in the form of the 2018 AZ-CD 08 Special Election, which I posted extensive a detailed analyses of that many of you read on another thread.

The portion of Glendale located within CD '08 was essentially the heavily Republican part of the City and we saw a massive Democratic swing in the '18 Special Election compared to the '16 Presidential Election....

Here's a link to a few posts that I made regarding the election results from CD-'08 that go into quite a bit of precinct results  and demographic details on Glendale, as well as Peoria, Surprise, etc...

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=288717.msg6183143#msg6183143

While one needs to be extremely cautious using data from a Special US House Election to extrapolate Presidential voting intentions into 2020, it is hard not to view this election as in many ways a referendum on the Trump Presidency, and when you see a +12.5% '16 Trump part of the City flip heavily Democratic in early '18 and then throw in the already heavily Democratic precincts NOT located within CD-'08 the trends start to look extremely bad for Republicans.

It should also be noted that most of the 20-25% Dem swing '16 PRES to '18 House Special election precincts within Glendale happened in overwhelmingly Anglo Upper-income Educated/Professional precincts.

Will these voters feel differently in November 2020 assessing the Trump Administration, looking at their tax bill, etc

5.) Scottsdale saw the largest Democratic swings in Maricopa between '12 and '16 with a +14.5% Dem swing and a net gain of +5.2% to the Dem vote share (From 60-38 R in '12 to 51-43 R in '16).

Have Dems maxed out their votes in Scottsdale or is there more room to expand?

There were relatively few 3rd Party votes here, compared to most other places in Maricopa County and even if we were to chop the 3rd Party vote by overall city percentages, it's difficult to see 'Pubs really gaining any significant raw vote margins compared to '16.

I haven't pulled the '08 PRES numbers for Maricopa, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were a decent number of Obama '08 > Romney '12 > HRC '16 voters in Scottsdale which tends to skew much older, Anglo, Educated, and Upper-Middle Class retirees contrasted against places like Sun City and Sun City West.

The Anglo retirees in Scottsdale appear to be much swingier and elastic than in some other parts of Maricopa County and we don't have any real election data to see how these voters are responding to the Republicans attempt to destroy the Affordable Care Act, which has become increasingly popular, especially among older voters.

6.) Gilbert is another Republican vote basket similar to Mesa, but even more Republican. There were larger swings here than in Mesa, not to mention a +1.9% increase of the Dem vote percentage between '12 and '16, but yet my gut says similar to Mesa a decrease in 3rd Party voting in 2020 would likely benefit the 'Pub nominee (Trump)....

Still, Gilbert skews more Middle-Aged than Senior, the Household Income remains high, but the Educational attainment level is pretty high for Metro Phoenix (#13 % overall for Bachelor degrees) so it's entirely possible that some of the Obama '08 > Romney '12 > Johnson '16 voters might break Dem in '20 without HRC at the top of Dem ticket and cut into Trump '20 raw vote margins and maybe shave another ~ 5k off the top of ticket race....

Wild Card???

7.) Tempe is a City where there is no place to go but up with Trump running as the 'Pub nominee in '20....

Tempe is the most Democratic City in Maricopa County of the largest 12 Cities voting for Obama '12 (56-41 D) and HRC (58-33 D).

Home Arizona State University (ASU) it's pretty safe to say that a large chunk of 3rd Party voters here would likely vote Democrat for President in 2020 without HRC at the top of ticket rather than a protest vote for Johnson or Stein or Bernie write-in.

It's entirely feasible to see a Dem Pres candidate in 2020 gaining a net +5k D vote margin, even with Trump maintaining 33-35% of the Total Vote.

8.) Peoria has long been a Republican stronghold with relatively minor changes in PRES % numbers between '12 and '16 and an almost +20k R raw vote margin in both elections.

Will the 2020 Pres numbers be closer to '12 and '16 % numbers or closer to the '16 "Sheriff Joe" referendum and the '18 House Special Election, roughly +4-5% R in both races?

As I posted shortly before the AZ CD-08 2018 Special Election: "How Will it Play in Peoria?"

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=288717.msg6145557#msg6145557

Peoria, Arizona is a bellwether city within AZ CD-'08 when it comes to overall voting margins, and I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it is an important place to test the relative elasticity of Republican leaning Indies within Maricopa County at large.

Although a Democratic Pres candidate doesn't need to win or come close to winning Peoria, in order for a Dem to win Maricopa they need to keep 'Pub margins to no more than + 20% R.

9.) Surprise a fast growing exurban City in the far Northwestern corner of CD-08 was the real surprise of the 2018 Special House election.

Although it was the least elastic largest City within Maricopa County (+0.5% D '12 > '16), and the most Republican City in the 2016 Pres Election (59-34 R), we saw some of the largest swings here between '16 GE PRES and '18 SE House....

Fast growing Exurban parts of Maricopa like Surprise and Buckeye are likely to continue to be extremely politically volatile over the next decade, and will likely determine the political trajectory of Maricopa County and indirectly Arizona well into the 2020s....

10.) Non Top 12 Cities in Maricopa County aka everything else accounts for 10% of the County Vote Share....

This includes a wide range of unincorporated areas, smaller communities, and even a few rural areas.

Obviously these places deserve a much more detailed analysis, since alone they accounted for raw +40k R vote margins in '16, +42k R raw vote margins in '12....

These places include the heavily Republican retiree communities of Sun City and Sun City West (See AZ CD '08 results) but also include Native American reservations, heavily Latino precincts of places like El Mirage where HRC wasn't especially popular especially after some of the Obama Anti-Immigration policies that caused him to be labeled the "Deporter in Chief" among many Spanish speaking communities, as well as extremely wealthy Uninc areas throughout Metro Maricopa, and then throw in some overwhelmingly rural precincts....

How do Republicans keep winning Maricopa County Arizona at a Presidential Level?

It's actually really easy...

1.) Let go of the culture war issues such as scapegoating Latinos and Ethnic and Religious Minorities. Not only does this make it much more difficult for the 'Pub brand among Minority voters in Maricopa, it also alienates a ton of educated and Middle-Class Anglo voters as well.

2.) Demonstrate that Republicans can run as a Moderate Center-Right Party of Government as opposed to tying to destroy funding for Government services such as Education, Entitlement Programs, Health Care, and Transportation.

3.) Change the focus from the negativity such as Trump's '16 Pres election campaign designed to appeal to WWCs in Northern States where job losses have continued to accrue as a result of Democratic/Republican Administration Free Trade policies alike over the past 30 years, to a more positive approach.

Arizona is a Sunbelt State and people tend to prefer optimism to pessimism in the Sunshine State....

Democratic and Republican politicians alike run campaign ads about gritty Northern Factory Towns and Cities where all hope is gone because the "Plant closed Down"....

That's not how voters in Maricopa County perceive their State and communities....

Metro Phoenix took a huge hit at the time of the Great Recession, as did Metro Las Vegas....

Not only did homeowners property values collapse, but all new home construction froze, and tons of skilled construction workers left and disappeared for good to retire, seek alternative employment, and in many cases go back to Mexico after 15-20 Years of living and working in the United States....

Now it is "Morning in Arizona" and Trump will need to contest this State hard to avoid losing and try to take something out of the Ronald Reagan playbook "Morning in America" campaign commercial where the official title was "Prouder, Stronger, Better"...

Link to the official Reagan '84 Campaign commercial from the Ronald Reagan Library....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn9fR_-X9uw

[NOVA Green]

Now that we are rolling into Special Election Season in OH US-REP CD-12 let's take a brief look at a few relevant items....

Let's start with the vote share by County within OH CD-12 Precincts....



So basically the concept of vote share over three election cycles using the topline election (US_PRES '16, OH-GOV '14, US PRES '12) is to be able to adjust data to control for voter turnout differentials as well as population growth rates within a given CD....

Basically, what we see here is that Franklin and Delaware County collectively account for ~ 60% of the Vote Share within the CD, and have essentially been a growing segment of the electorate between '12 and '16....

Licking County has been a consistent ~ 20% of OH CD-12 Vote Share, and obviously will be a major contributor to any CD-12 Special Election Results in August 2018....

The other Four Counties precincts located within CD-12 ('12 > '18 account for the remaing 20% of the Vote Share---- (Marion, Morrow, Muskigum,  and Richland).

Now let's take a peak at the 2012 to 2016 US PRES vote swings by County within CD-12.



So here we see a dramatic increase in Democratic support within the Franklin County portion of CD-12, as well as to a lesser extent within Delaware County, but also some major swings towards Trump in other Counties within the precincts of CD-12....

Now let's look at the raw Total Vote DEM-REP Margin Changes between 2012 and 2016 for US PRES by County...



So here we start to see the raw power of massive swings among the heavily Upper-Income Anglo precincts of Franklin County between '12 and '16....

Honestly, I don't think the 'Pubs have yet hit rock bottom within these Franklin County precincts, but my suspicion is that O'Connor will likely outperform HRC, despite the "Trump Tax Cuts that nobody really experiences in the actual deductions on their Paychecks....

DEMS win '16 US-PRES in Franklin County precincts +36k and +22% Swings even excluding 3rd Party Votes....

Delaware County is obviously Ground Zero.... DEMS don't need to necessarily win Delaware County in CD-12 OH SE results, but just keep the PUB Margins as both % and RAW VOTE down to something more like ~ +7-10k R.... a 54-46 R win in Delaware County might be sufficient for a DEM win in CD-12...

Licking County and Muskigum County are a real test of if a LIB DEM can regain Obama '12 voters that defected to Trump....  Obama narrowly won Muskigum precincts with OH CD-12, and in Licking managed to bag a 42-56 R loss to Romney in '12....

I haven't had a chance to run all of these precinct numbers that I have for OH from '04 > '16, but to me it's starting to look like a potential combo scene between the relatively solidly Republican suburbs of South Pittsburgh moving hard Dem (Delaware County maybe less so???), but with a dramatically growing Dem base within the Franklin County portions of OH CD-12, where you really didn't have any comparison within PA-18 other than one township in South Allegheny (Mt Lebanon) that essentially swung dramatically DEM from '12 to '16 similar to the Franklin County precincts of OH CD-12....

What you did have in PA CD-18 were Ancestral DEMs in the SW portion of the County that although Lamb narrowly lost, he was able to replicate Obama '08 numbers in Fayette and Washington Counties....

At this point we have no real evidence whatsoever that Obama '12 (Or Obama '08 DEMs) will come home for a US House election in Licking and Richland Counties....

I'll continue to run the precinct level numbers, but Trump did have major swings in the Rural and Small Town WWC precincts here, which despite the dramatic swings towards HRC in Franklin, and to a lesser extent Delaware, still makes this a jump ball...

I'll run some more stats later, as I have done with PA-18, AZ-08, AL-SEN and mix in more data that overlaps with US CENSUS Stats in greater detail by Municipality and Township within CD-12....

[NOVA Green]

Franklin County is where the Democratic Candidate for OH CD-12 needs to win big in the Special Election in two weeks, or in the General Election this November, if Democrats are going to flip this US House District....

Let's take a more microscopic level of detailed analysis of the Franklin County precincts that account for roughly 33% of the CD vote in an average General Election.

Let's start with the Vote Share by municipality within Franklin County....



So here we see that the City of Columbus accounts in general for slightly less than 50% of the CD-12 vote Share within Franklin County, within a Presidential Election Year....

What happened in 2014 when it comes to the distribution of vote-share by place within Franklin Co CD-12 precincts???



Here is the same data from 2012....



OK--- to what extent does this really make a huge difference when it comes to the overall vote numbers in CD-12 precincts within Franklin County???

Obviously the only way that Democrats can win this special election in OH CD-12 is to rack up massive numbers within Franklin County, especially within precincts most favorably disposed to voting for a Democratic Candidate for a Federal Election....

In many ways very similar to the Southern Pittsburgh suburbs of South Allegheny County, even the most Democratic Precincts in recent years within Franklin County are relatively new converts to the Democratic Party, and tend to vote heavily Republican in most elections....

Let's take a look at the voter turnout by place 2012 to 2016 within the CD-12 precincts of Franklin County....



Now let's take a look at how Democratic these various municipalities are when it comes to Federal Elections.... Hint at the Statewide level these are overwhelmingly Republican Precincts in recent years....



So, although you will likely need to open the image in a new window to drill down to a level of detail, and working the long factory shifts, haven't really had tons of time to work on the visuals, but what really stands out is this:

Franklin County Precincts of CD-12 are NOT traditionally heavily Democratic at most election levels, even in 2016!!!!

What we see here are a handful of elections where Democrats have performed extremely well in various elections....

Even the precincts of Columbus only really voted heavily Democratic for Presidential Elections in '12 and '16, throw in a US SEN race from '12 with Sherrod, and OH-TREAS race from '14, but overall the results don't look particularly impressive, especially for US-House races....

Meanwhile Dublin looks like a Republican stronghold, with the exception of '16 PRES and '12 SEN, Westerville looks swingy but Lean Rep, and even Worthington generally votes 'Pub for most elections!!!!

Ok--- so now let's take a look at MHI by place within CD-12....



Wow!!! New Albany with an MHI of ~ $185k/yr went from 2012 (34-65 R) +31 R to in 2016            (  48-48* R)   for a +31% D swing....

Ok, not tons of people in these precincts, but still noteworthy...

Dublin clocks in with an MHI of $113.2k/Yr and in 2012 at the PRES level voted (40-59 R) and then in '16 (49-47 D) for a +21% D swing....

Meanwhile within the precincts in Columbus....

In 2016 (63-31 D) vs 2012 (59-39 D) for only a +12% D gain....

Where I'm trying to go here is that really we don't have any real history of even the "Democratic Strongholds" of OH CD-12 voting heavily Democratic, with the exception of the past few Presidential Election cycles plus votes for Sen Brown (D-OH)....

So before Dem avatars start getting too excitable, best not to develop too great a taste for the Hobbit leaf quite yet....

*IF* this election is nationalized in terms of local voting patterns, *AND* Dem Turnout is high, especially within the precincts located within the City of Columbus, and *ALSO* Dem margins in the Special Election within the Franklin County precincts look more like 2016 numbers, we might well have a horse-race....

Personally, my thought is that the OH CD-12 House Race will essentially be nationalized, and many of those Romney > HRC voters that went down-ballot Republican in virtually every election, will likely vote Democratic for the CD-12 Special Election.

Next Stop Delaware or Licking County....

[NOVA Green]

Glad to see you around! Hadn't seen you post in awhile (though maybe I've just not been looking in the right threads).

Thanks Fmr Pres Griff!!!

Been a mixture of factors, the whole work-life balance scene, going back to some classic old skool PC gaming, and also quite simply that I don't find political partisan primaries particularly interesting when it comes to running more detailed precinct level and social-demographic data unless it's  a US-PRES Primary, or a State or election I've been tracking...

I tend to defer much of the Primary detailed analysis to those on Atlas, such as yourself, that have a much better grasp on the intricate subtleties of Intra-Party political dynamics...

Besides, it's way too early to even comment on National Polling for many of these elections, since in the most interesting elections, we aren't even going to get a decent idea about how the contests might shape out until after Labor Day!!!!

Been doing a ton of lurking, especially now that most of the crap posters and trolls are basically done posting for whatever reason, and the overall quality of posts on most threads and boards have increased dramatically after all of the craziness on Atlas with the lead-up and aftermath of the '16 PRES election....

[NOVA Green]

Excellent post as always Nova. So here's my latest question. How do the various counties current share of the district's early vote compare to their share of the early vote at this time prior to the 2014 and 2012 elections? Would those numbers be at least a reasonable indicator of what the final share of each counties vote will be after election day? I ask because signs that Franklin County is outperforming its usual share, and by how much, are going to be every bit as key as O'Connor's margin there, frankly.

Another excellent question, and one that I don't believe we have comprehensive data-sets to be able to address, although some other posters such as Ebsy might have found access to data elsewhere that I have not yet obtained.

*** Off-Topic ***  Although I can't consider myself a true Buckeye, I did live in Ohio for four Years in the early 1990s when I was in College outside of Dayton, and was heavily involved in Labor and Environmental activism at that time, as well as to a lesser extent Civil Rights and the Student Movements, and still have much love and appreciation, and interest for the people of Ohio, as well as election related stuff, so it's a real pleasure to see and interact with so many Atlas Ohio posters, such as yourself on this thread....

Here's why your question(s) are virtually impossible for me to address at this time:

1.) Badger Question: How do the various counties current share of the district's early vote compare to their share of the early vote at this time prior to the 2014 and 2012 elections?

Ohio does not appear to have any type of central archive of Early Voting by Date

There are some States where we can pull up this data for a current election, and even a few that will have this data available for historical elections, but Ohio does not appear to be one of these States.

Hence, trying to assess the EV numbers by date is simply not feasible, unless I'm missing some key links somewhere, or if this data is stashed in some Google Archive somewhere....

2.) Badger Question: Would those numbers be at least a reasonable indicator of what the final share of each counties vote will be after election day?

Although I don't believe we can forecast the total post-election vote-share by County based upon the *current status of EV voting by previous party primary voting TO DATE *, we might well be able to forecast what % of the vote will be absentee vs Same-Day for portions of OH CD-12 within the various Counties....

Even there it start's get slightly problematic within the context of a Special US-House Election, since we can pull '12/'14/'16 numbers for total breakdown by ED/EV (ABS PAPER, ABS IVO, EDAY PAPER, EDAY IVO, & PROV) by County, but shifting patterns of Early Voting can make it difficult to estimate how this will look this August....

For example, within Franklin County portions of CD-12 there was a much rate of ED voting in '14 compared to '12 and '16. (I'll get back to Franklin County shortly).

Once of the challenges that I struggled with, as well as many other analysts struggled with in the AZ CD-08 Special Election was what Total Vote number would look like.... we pulled data from previous elections within the district, but it turned out AZ voters in CD-08 ended up voting much more heavily by Mail than normal, so we needed to adjust our total turnout and total voter models to accommodate, and even on election eve many of us (myself included) were overestimating the Same-Day vote.

Is OH-12 necessarily any different???

3.) Badger Comment #3: I ask because signs that Franklin County is outperforming its usual share, and by how much, are going to be every bit as key as O'Connor's margin there, frankly.

So pretty much all of us on this thread realize that Franklin County will be key to any potential Dem upset in a traditionally or "Ancestral Republican" part of Ohio....

As my somewhat detailed breakdown of the Franklin County portion of CD-12 definitively shows, even in the precincts located within the City of Columbus typically do not vote heavily Democratic with a few recent exceptions....

Much of the CD-12 portion of Franklin County tends to be relatively Upper-Income / Upper Middle-Class Anglos, who tend to vote at much higher levels, even in off-year elections.

4.) Here's what I have pulled together regarding breakdown of voting by EV/ED for Franklin County from '12 > '16....

Let's start with the total PRES vote in '16 by Vote Type (ED/EV) for ALL precincts in Franklin County...

The reason for this is that HRC way outperformed the DEM for OH CD-12 even within the Franklin County Precincts part of CD-12, so it gives us a snapshot, since I can't roll the numbers by precinct/place for EV within OH CD-12 being Franklin County and all that....



Now, let's look at the % breakdown by Vote Type for all precincts in Franklin County for US PRES '16 by Party....



Ok--- Check, so what does this tell us???

A.) DEM PRES voters in Franklin County (All) voted absentee at a higher number than Republicans vs ED votes....

BUT, look at the EV-IVO numbers vs the EV-Paper numbers....

DEMS in Franklin in '16 were less likely to mail in their ballots than go to an early in person voting center....

So obviously we see that Early Voting in Franklin County favors Republicans in Mail-in-Ballots and Dems do better with "In-Person" Early Voting.

B.) Now let's take a peak at the 2016 breakdown by Vote Type within the CD-12 portions of Franklin County....



Now let's look at the chart to see the distribution of voter type (EV/ED) for the OH-CD-12 Franklin County votes as a %.



So what does this tell us?

A.) Overall Absentee voting was higher for the Congressional Election in '16 in the CD-12 portions of Franklin County than in other parts of the County.

Roughly 48% of Dem ballots were cast early vs 36% of Pub ballots cast early...

'Pubs actually improved on their ABS-PAPER ballots, but lost ground on their ABS-IVO numbers....

Also, interesting to note for anyone concerned about 3rd Party Ballots in this election in Franklin County, they tend to be much more prone to vote on Election Day (ED) rather than EV.

Now, let's take a look at how Franklin Co CD-12 Voters chose to cast their ballots in 2014 for the US House Race....



Let's take a peak at the % of vote-types by party candidate for CD-12...



Pulling up 2012 for OH-CD 12 Franklin Co....



Let's look at the % of Vote TYPE BY CD-12 and PARTY in 2012....




OK--- anybodies brain hurting yet? Mine is from trying to pull this all together, and we're only talking about Franklin County CD-12 precincts and "Voting Types"...


So to summarize:

1.) We really need to understand the current breakdown of absentee voters within Franklin County by ABS-PAPER vs ABS-IVO, at this current time and to the lead-up to E-Day before basing estimates solely upon ABS (EV) voters to date.

There appears to be a much stronger correlation between support for a Democratic Candidate with ABS-IVO voters than ABS-PAPER voters within Franklin County, and within the CD-12 precincts within Franklin County.

Anyone have these numbers available and is there a way to track this through E-Day?

2.) In "Off-Year" Elections, the total ABS voters % decreases dramatically compared to PRES election years within CD-12.

Many voters in off-year elections simply vote ED or VbM rather than EV'ing in person....

In fact the % of DEM/REP US-House voters was actually pretty close in '14 compared to '12 and '16, mainly because of a dramatic drop-off in DEM ABS-IVOs.

3.) As I have stated before in different ways, we really don't have any decent modelling of what a DEM victory would look like in CD-12 other than some County level benchmarks pundits have thrown out, and also this 60% EV number that keeps floating around Atlas, although I haven't yet seen any type of actual statistical data to support this other than some generalities regarding OH-ALL EV voting patterns in PRES election years....

The limited amount of data we do have thus far appears to indicate that Franklin County is looking pretty decent compared to historical voting patterns within CD-12.

Unfortunately, not being able to break down the '16 PRES numbers by CD-12 within Franklin County for EV/ED voters makes it much more difficult to assess, considering how DEM's traditionally lose House elections by big margins, even in a hypothetical massive swing portion of Franklin County ('12 > '16 PRES swings).

4.) It does appear that something is happening within the Franklin County precincts of CD-12, where we will likely see a massive amount of both Turnout, Raw Votes, and unprecedented DEM margins for a down-ballot election, but will it be enough?

[NOVA Green]

Before I forget and move on to another County within CD-12, I thought it might be interesting to the run the numbers for US-PRES in the smaller places in Franklin County from 2004 to 2016.

I can't include Columbus, which accounts for roughly 50% of the Franklin County section of CD-12, because of precinct changes and all of that stuff...

Still, we can see how Dublin, Gahanna, Westerville, and Worthington voted from '04 > '16 at the Presidential Level....

Collectively these Cities account for roughly 40% of the CD-12 Franklin County Vote Share, and tend to be a bit more Republican even than the somewhat swingy with 'Pub lean portion of Columbus, Ohio located within the district.





1.) Dublin--- 2nd largest City in Franklin County (Pop 42k, 78% Anglo, 15% Asian, MHI $113.2k/Yr, 78% Degree > High School, heavily White-Collar Professional Occupations)

2.) Gahanna- (Pop 33.6k), 83% Anglo, 11% African-American, MHI $71.2k/Yr, 54% Degree > High School, Occupational sectors skew more Middle-Class

3.) Westerville- Pop 36.8k (3rd largest City in Franklin County), 85% Anglo, 8% African-American, 60% degree > High School Diploma, MHI $82.1k/Yr, Occupational Sectors mix of Upper Middle-Class and Middle-Class

4.) Worthington- Pop 13.5k, MHI $ 86.9k/Yr, 92% Anglo, 72% > HS Diploma Occupations skew a bit Upper Middle-Class....

Looks like maybe it might have some overlap with Professors and Administrators working at Ohio State University?

Regardless, this little chart shows how rapidly how the suburbs of North Franklin County are shifting away from the Republican Party at the Presidential Level....

We have yet to see them shift hard DEM for other down-ballot races, but if O'Conner pulls this out, it will likely be within these communities.

[NOVA Green]

Ok--- Time to do an initial survey of Delaware County to see what the Tea Leaves might indicate for this upcoming Special Election....

Let's start with US Presidential Election results by place 2004 to 2016.



Now, let's take a look at this same data in a graphical format.



Time to look at a summarized chart of the Vote Share by Place '04 > '16




So what is the takeaway from these three data points?

1.) The vast majority of voters within Delaware County do not reside within Cities as their municipal jurisdiction.

Roughly 71% of the voters between '04 and '16 have Townships as their Primary Political Jurisdiction....

Although this might appear as a bit of semantics the reality is that in many parts of the Country this creates an additional level of removal from the "Cities" when it comes to everything from Taxation, Zoning, Policies and regulations that cover everything from waste disposal to how often you mow your lawn, etc.... almost like living in an HOA, except many of these policies are enforced by the Governmental Jurisdiction, rather than the Home Owners Association.....

2.) Within the Cities of Delaware County we are increasingly seeing movement towards the Democratic Party at the Presidential Level in terms of RAW VOTE margins....

For example the growing sliver of the City of Columbus within Franklin County has been increasingly moving Dem in raw vote Margins, and we are also observing a significant decrease of 'Pub raw vote numbers in Dublin and Westerville.

I'll need to take another look at Delaware City, since the '16 PRES numbers look a bit odd, and just validate that I didn't accidentally include Delaware Township precincts from '16 in with Delaware City Precincts....

It could just be that the Delaware City portion of the County grew in the form of a large new subdivision, which actually would make sense with the increased vote share from '12 > '16.

3.) It's pretty clear just looking at the raw vote numbers that a DEM candidate will need to keep Delaware County RAW VOTE numbers down to something more like a +8-10k R margin, even if the DEMS are banking serious margins in Franklin County.

OK... Let's roll a few % numbers....

Now here we have the % of Vote by Party for US PRES Elections '04 > '16 by Place.



Look carefully at these % numbers, especially the "OTHER" numbers that after all account for ~ 70% of the County Vote.

Delaware City looks even fishier here, and I'll go back and validate that and move the data and charts around if there was a filter error with potential inclusion of Delaware Twsp data....

Still the fundamentals stand... we are continuing to see a significant erosion of Republican support at the US-PRES level even in the most 'Pub portion of the County (Townships).

Let's look at this same data in a graphical format...




I'll post a swing map later by place, but really the key take-away here, is that it is entirely possible that the Democratic Candidate in CD-12 will win big in the "Cities" (30% of the County Vote Share), lose in the Townships, but keep Delaware County Close enough so that Franklin County can erase the Republican vote margins from the other Five Counties within CD-12.

Next Stop, I'll take a more detailed look at the Townships of Delaware County, since this appears to be potentially Ground Zero of overall Delaware County margins in the Special Election.

[NOVA Green]

I have been slightly remiss in my responsibilities when it comes to covering the Cities of Delaware County....

Although previously we touched on the Columbus, OH Dublin, OH, Westerville Franklin County Side, and we have 12% of the Delaware County Vote Share from these same three Cities, we have a few new Cities not yet discussed.

Delaware City---- 17.1% of the 2016 PRES Vote Share in Delaware County.



MHI- $57.0k/Yr

Educational Attainment- 42.3% > HS Diploma, 50.1% HS Diploma

Race/Ethnicity: 91.3% Anglo-American, 3.2% African-American, 1.9% Latino-American

Occupations:



Politically this City is a bit surprising when looking at the 2016 Presidential Election results....



Here is a more graphical interface that looks at margins and swings....



IF anyone can explain what happened in Delaware Ohio (The CITY) and the home of Ohio Wesleyan University between '12 and '16 at the US PRES level, I would be most interested, since this City will be key to any potential Democratic victory in OH CD-12.....

Next stop I'll need to look at the City of Powell, Ohio before I start delving into the Townships, since although I didn't include it on my list of the Cities of Delaware County, it definitely fits the profile of a potential massive swing place even in a Special US-House Election

[NOVA Green]

Yet one more important City in Delaware County in the upcoming CD-12 Special Election, which accounts for almost 7.0% of the entire County Vote Share.

Powell, Ohio---- Pop 11.8k, MHI $132.6k/Yr, 78% Degree > HS Diploma (!!!), 86.3% Anglo-American, 10.0% Asian-American.



Relative Occupations skew extremely Upper-Middle Class:



How did Powell, Ohio vote at the Presidential level from 2004 to 2016, and what trends have we observed over the past 12 Years of Presidential Elections?



So here we starting to see beginnings of the narrow sliver chance of a DEM upset win in OH CD-12, where even in areas that have been swinging and trending DEM at the PRES level (ESP by Ohio standards), have still tended to overwhelmingly support Republicans at the State and Federal down-ballot levels....

Math goes basically something like this, rack up huge margins within the Franklin County portion of the district especially within the City of Columbus Precincts, continue to expand DEM margins in Dublin, Westerville, Worthington, AND win by comfortable margins within the Cities of Delaware County that account collectively for ~ 35% of the County Vote Share (Columbus, Dublin, Powell, Westerville, and Delaware City)....

Now, there's obviously something missing in the math here, namely the high population Townships within Delaware County (Orange, Liberty, Genoa, and Concord) that account for an additional 42% of the County Vote Share.

Remember, Democrats don't need to WIN Delaware County to win CD-12, just keep 'PUB RAW VOTE margins down enough to allow FRANKLIN County to provide a solid enough buffer to overcome the PUB raw vote numbers from the other heavily TRUMP Counties within the District.

[NOVA Green]

Let's now take a look some of the Townships within Delaware County....

1.) Orange Township---- 13.3% of Delaware County Vote Share



Basic US Census Stats as always----

Pop--- 26.9k, MHI $102.1k/Yr, 77.7% Anglo-American, 10.5% Asian-American, 6.4% African-American

Education: 67.0% Degree > HS Diploma

Let's take a look at relative occupations....



OK--- Fits the profile of a place in CD-12 where potentially the Republicans have not yet hit rock bottom, especially at the down-ballot level in the era of Trump.

How has Orange Township voted over the past Four Presidential Elections and are there any swings or trending that might play to a DEM advantage in this Special Election???



So, Orange Township definitely fits of the profile of a '16 PRES > '18 OH-CD-12 flip community, which if it happens would significantly increase the DEM candidates goal of keeping PUB margins low in Delaware County.

2.) Genoa Township---- 14.0% of the 2016 Delaware County Vote Share (!!!)



US CENSUS STATS:

Pop: 23.7k, MHI $116.6k/Yr, 89.0% Anglo-American, 4.0% African-American, 3.4% Asian-American
Education: 71.3% Degree > HS Diploma

Relative Occupations:



How did Genoa Township Ohio vote for US PRES '04 to '16???



So although there was only a +24% DEM PRES swing between '04 and '16 in Genoa Township compared to a +27% DEM PRES swing between '04 and '16 in Orange Township, there are more favorable ethnic/racial demographics in Orange than Genoa, and quite likely Anglo-American voters swung equally hard in both municipalities but with a much lower DEM baseline in Genoa than Orange.

Still, Trump captured slightly less than 55% of the Vote in '16 here, so even assuming it stays PUB in the Special Election, we still see which direction the wind is blowing in the Era of Trump....

OK--- we now have two additional Townships in Delaware County (Liberty and Concord) that collectively account for about 14.9% of the TOTAL DELAWARE COUNTY VOTE-SHARE.

These Townships are even more Republican than Orange and Genoa, and will likely be the places where the 'Pubs will try to maximize their RAW VOTE margins within Delaware County, assuming that this election is maybe somewhere in the order of +2-5% R once all the votes are counted.

Give me a few minutes to grab a Cig, make a few moves on the Chessboard, take a sip of Bourbon, and I'll take a look at those two Townships....

[NOVA Green]

Time to Move over to Liberty and Concord Townships....

Liberty Township--- 9.2% of Delaware County Vote Share.

Pop--- 26.8k
MHI: $123.8k/Yr
Race/Ethnicity: 88.0% Anglo-American, 7.6% Asian-American, 2.5% African-American
Education: 72.8% Degree > HS Diploma

Relative Occupations:



How did Liberty Township Vote for US PRES 2014 to 2016???



So here we see the Democratic Candidate starting from a lower base-line number, and although there was a +22.6% Dem PRES swing between '04 and '16, it was still a bit lower than in Orange and Genoa Townships....

Interestingly enough, this doesn't appear explainable simply upon the Social-Demographic comparative numbers that I pulled for the other two Townships.

Still, the relatively close comparative US-PRES swing margins, would appear to indicate that *IF* a DEM US-HOUSE Candidate were to increase margins in Orange and Genoa, that these swings might well be relatively comparable in Liberty Township.

CONCORD TOWNSHIP--- 5.7% of the DELAWARE COUNTY TOTAL VOTE SHARE

POP- 9.5k
MHI- $ 127.8k/Yr
Race/Ethnicity: 86.8% Anglo-American, 6.7% Asian-American, 3.5% African-American
Educational Attainment: 66.4% Degree > HS Diploma

Relative Occupations:



How did Concord Township Vote for US PRES 2004 to 2016???




Concord Township sort of stands out here, even compared to Liberty Township when looking at the Social-Demographic Data...

It only swung +15.5% D at the US-PRES level between '04 and '16 compared to much larger swings in the other key suburban/exurban Columbus Townships of Delaware County.

Unfortunately I can't explain the reasons, and I'll let some of the more knowledgeable Buckeyes or resident Ohio experts explain since other than Ancestral Republican History, there tons of variation between the Social-Demographics of these Four Townships (Other than Educational Attainment rates a bit lower in Concord Township than those of the other "Big Four" Townships of Delaware County.

[NOVA Green]

Now, let's take a look at the overall Delaware County Vote Share in 2016:



I have covered 80% and we have 20% remaining, basically the Rural Townships and Villages for the most part.

Let's look at the 80% that is Metro Columbus with RAW vote numbers....



The rurals that are only 20% of the total County vote accounted for almost 50% of PUB margins in the '16 PRES election.

Here are the % numbers by Metro Delaware vs Rural...



So--- anyone who doubts that the DEM REP in CD-12 could hit 50% in the METRO portions of the County, hasn't been paying attention.

I haven't spent too much time playing with the Rural Townships, but there are definitely some Obama '12 > Trump '16 voters floating around, without even going back into the Weeds of the '04 General Election....

Still, swings are more likely to happen in the METRO PARTS of DELAWARE than RURAL, but one can certainly see how DEMs could keep PUB margins low in DELAWARE and steamroll over the remaining counties solely on the back of FRANKLIN County numbers.

[NOVA Green]

Now that I've spent tons of time and thread space focusing on two major counties (Franklin and Delaware) that collectively account for 60% of the CD-12 Vote Share between '12 and '16, both of which are overwhelmingly dominated by the City, Suburbs, and Exurbs of Metro Columbus, it's time to pivot over to another County that accounts for ~20% of the Vote Share of CD-12, as part of the "Tale of Two Cities" or in this case "The Tale of Two Ohios"...

Licking County could well play a significant role not only in any potential Democratic upset in this particular CD, but perhaps more significantly as a representative of a fairly Republican County in Ohio, where Obama performed quite well in both 2008 and 2012.



I could also throw in a chart of what these actual % changes look like in terms of raw vote margins, but suffice to say that in a GE PRES election in 2012 Obama lost Licking by ~ 12k votes versus HRC losing by ~ 24k Votes, so even in a pretty solidly 'Pub County at the PRES level significant changes on the % margins make a HUGE deal, even in relatively low turnout OH-State and US-House elections.

Now let's look at the overall Licking County Votes for US-Senate between '04 and '16...



So right here, we can see that even Prior to Obama's performance as the DEM-PRES candidate in '08 and '12, we see Sherrod Brown almost tied with Mike Dewine in the '06 US-SEN battle.

Even in the 2014 race for OH- State Treasurer, we see the Dem capture 39% of the vote, in an extremely Republican Year within Ohio.

Ok---- let's take a brief look at Licking County Ohio... (I know most of y'all that post on here are seasoned vets, so apologize my running some Demographic numbers for the lurkers both within and outside of Atlas...   )

Licking County--- OHIO

Pop: 167.0k
Race/Ethnicity: 92.2% Anglo-American, 3.3% African-American.
MHI: $55.1k/Yr
Education: 30.0% > HS Diploma, 59.2% HS Diploma
Age: 14% > 65+ Yrs, 21% 50-64 Yrs, 20% 35-49/Yrs, 19% 18-34/Yrs

Educational Attainment Breakdown:



Relative Occupational Breakdown:



So--- anyone starting to see why Licking Counties and others like this in Ohio can be extremely swingy despite an inherent Republican lean?

Overall the County is relatively well educated in terms of post high-school degrees, including the much vaunted Working-Class ideal of getting a practical Vocational/Professional Two Year Degree that translates almost immediately into a decent job, and not being stuck in Mountains of student loan debt.

NOW: Where are the Voters located within the District in terms of comparative Vote-Share?

I'll start with just the largest City within Licking, County....

Newark, OH--- 22.8% of Licking County Vote Share 2016 PRES

Pop: 47.7k (29.0% of County Population)
Race/Ethnicity: 92.0% Anglo-American, 3.3% African-American
MHI: $38.3k/Yr
Education: 23.7% > HS Diploma, 62.5% HS Degree
Age: 14% > 65/Yrs, 12.5% 55-64/Yrs, 26% 35-54/Yrs, 24% 18-34/Yrs...

Newark, OH--- Relative Occupations---



Now, let's take a look a relative industries in Newark, considering that it's a bit odd that overall Demographic mirror the County numbers, with the exception of MHI and Education...



Maybe the Cities largest employers might explain that???



Ok--- now let's check out a few of the election numbers from Newark, Ohio for a few election races...

Newark, OH--- US PRES 2004 to 2016....



So here we see an interesting representation of the complexities of OH-PRES election politics in recent decades....

This is a City in Ohio that swung towards Obama between '08 and '12, who received a much larger % of the Dem Vote than Kerry in '04 (I have a full set of OH 2000 precinct numbers floating around somewhere and would be interesting to add them to the mix), AND these Democratic gains were essentially wiped out with an unpopular Democrat running against a less-unpopular Republican around here....

Just dipping my first toe into the waters of Licking County, but if you're going to find "Ancestral Dems" that swung harder Trump, Newark City would certainly be a place where I would be interested in examining after the CD-12 Special Election, and certainly in the 2018 GE to see if the winds are blowing back against the Republicans, and if so to what extent...

I'll try to pull a few more summaries of Licking County before the Weekend to summarize, and hopefully maybe another County before E-Day....

Didn't start pulling the precinct data until a few weeks back, and have a full-time job, family and all that, so haven't been able to get into as much detailed election results as I would normally like to do.

[NOVA Green]

Yesterday I posted some data for Licking County as well as the largest City Newark to see what the numbers might indicate regarding the Obama '08 and Obama '12 voters who swung hard to Trump within the County in the upcoming Ohio US House CD-12 might do.

We saw that Obama narrowly lost Newark in '08, narrowly won it in '12, and it swung to Trump by +20% in 2016!

Now let's look at the overall Vote Share by place within Licking County.



What is chart tells us is that there are actually quite a decent percentage of the County population that resides in a relatively small number of Cities, and a few larger higher density townships.

Here's a Licking County Township city/map that has 62% of the County Vote Share bordered with a darker Black border.

Yesterday I posted some data for Licking County as well as the largest City Newark to see what the numbers might indicate regarding the Obama '08 and Obama '12 voters who swung hard to Trump within the County in the upcoming Ohio US House CD-12 might do.



What is chart tells us is that there are actually quite a decent percentage of the County population that resides in a relatively small number of Cities, and a few larger higher density townships.

These are clustered in two areas:

1.) SW-Licking which is fairly exurban Columbus
2.) The City of Newark and surrounding suburbs.

Here's a Licking County City/Township Map that illustrates this, with these two areas illustrated by a darker border...



Now let's look at the US-PRES 2004 to 2016 breakdown by "City" and "Rural" precincts within the County, and the Total Vote Margin.



Although we don't really have any recent history of "Ancestral Democratic" major strengths in Licking County, we do see that there are quite a few Obama '08 / Obama '12 / Trump '16 voters in both the "Cities" and "Rural" areas....

In the SW Licking & "Metro Newark" areas Obama was able to keep Republican raw vote margins extremely low in both '08 and '12, only +3.5- 4.6k Republican....

This would obviously the path for O'Connor to try to minimize over Republican margins in Licking County....

I doubt we'll see nearly as much movement in the rural parts of Licking County this coming Tuesday where there are simply a ton of Bush W. / McCain / Romney / Trump voters....

Here's a vote by City/Rural Graph as a % of US PRES by Party 2004 to 2016 to further illustrate the point:



Licking County RAW VOTE MARGINS matter, and former Kerry/Obama/Obama/Trump voters in the Cities/exurbs of the County might be a decent shake to keep down Balderson numbers in Licking and flip the District in a few days or November...

[NOVA Green]

Great post as always, Nova. Let me offer some trivia, being familiar with the county, albeit not a resident.

Granville is the home of Dennison University, and not-coincidentally quite Democratic. It regularly appears as a (non-Atlas) blue splotch on an otherwise largely red election map.

Reynoldsburg in the SW is split. Democrats failed in 2015 in a major push to win the mayoral race and council majority, but it votes Democratic at the presidential and federal level. It's a city where Republicans years are numbered at the local level. However, the city is actually divided between Licking, Fairfield, and Franklin Counties, and the Licking County portion is IIRC at least somewhat more Republican than the City as a whole. I'm tempted to say O'Conner needs to win the district's portion of Reynoldsburg, or at least come real close, to win the race.

Between annexation and suburban growth, Pataskala has become the second largest city in the county after Newark. It's still reliably Republican, though not quite as overwhelmingly as before.

If O'Connor wins Reynoldsburg and Newark, even narrowly, he should be alright.

Badger--- Thks as always for your insightful analysis, as well as your contributions as one of Atlas resident Subject Matter Experts (SME) when it comes to the great state of Ohio.

Here are the US-PRES '04 to '16 numbers from Reynoldsburg.



The Licking County portions of the City are moving Democratic at a PRES level faster than a Hound Dog on a Fox Hunt in the Shires of the UK....

Here are the '04 to '16 US PRES numbers from Granville Village....



Crazy comparing and contrasting '04 vs '16....

Although my PC is overheating, so I'll need to shut-down and restart right now, it's pretty cool for the Dems that they are seeing these types of massive swings among College Educated and Suburban Anglos in Ohio, still even with these types of massive swings in certain parts of Licking County, we have seen even more massive swings between '12 > '16 in areas accounting for a much larger chunk of the Vote Share....

The key to a Democratic Hypothetical Victory in OH CD-12 runs through an extremely narrow pathway that combines both the massive shifts in relatively educated and upper-middle-class Anglo "Metro" voters combined with Obama Democrats in the Cities and smaller communities of "Downstate CD-12), for whom for many Ancestral Republicans he was one of the only Democrats they had ever voted for at a Presidential Level, as well as occasionally voting for DEMs on down-ballot races.

This is one of the tricky dynamics of this race that makes it perhaps a bit more like PA-18 than AZ-08....

Honestly it doesn't completely surprise me, having had the privilege and pleasure of having lived Four Years in the Buckeye State as a Young Man in the Mid '90s, somewhere roughly between Columbus, Dayton, && Cinci.

"Ancestral Democrats" in many of these places will be key--- regardless of 1992/1996 PRES Votes, we can still look at the '00 to '16 Votes....

If Trump shows up at Orange Township in Delware County, and his 'Pub loses the OH CD-12 SE that will be monumental....

[NOVA Green]

Great post as always, Nova. Let me offer some trivia, being familiar with the county, albeit not a resident.

Granville is the home of Dennison University, and not-coincidentally quite Democratic. It regularly appears as a (non-Atlas) blue splotch on an otherwise largely red election map.

Reynoldsburg in the SW is split. Democrats failed in 2015 in a major push to win the mayoral race and council majority, but it votes Democratic at the presidential and federal level. It's a city where Republicans years are numbered at the local level. However, the city is actually divided between Licking, Fairfield, and Franklin Counties, and the Licking County portion is IIRC at least somewhat more Republican than the City as a whole. I'm tempted to say O'Conner needs to win the district's portion of Reynoldsburg, or at least come real close, to win the race.

Between annexation and suburban growth, Pataskala has become the second largest city in the county after Newark. It's still reliably Republican, though not quite as overwhelmingly as before.

If O'Connor wins Reynoldsburg and Newark, even narrowly, he should be alright.

Let's take a look at the other Cities / Larger Townships within Licking County:

Granville Township:

Tends to skew a bit younger (College Students?) but still with a fairly high % of residents 35-54 Yrs. MHI = $ 92.8k / YR (Upper Middle-Class). Educated 67% with degree > HS. Occupations- 16% Education (!!!)



So this is very interesting...  Obama actually did significantly worse here than Kerry or Clinton, and 'Pubs carried it by ~ +10% in '08 and '12 and it was basically virtually tied in '04 and '16.

I don't know what the % of the student vote was in the Township versus Granville City, but still one would imagine that the Township is a place where O'Connor might well break even.

Heath- Ohio--- Pop 10.4k--- 6% of County Vote Share

Skews Middle-Aged and Older. MHI $43.7k/Yr. 91% White. 27.1% Degree > HS, Occupations skew heavily working-class (Material Mvmt, Food Services, Transportation, Repair) as well as "pink collar" (Administrative).



So again we have a City in the district with a fairly decent proportion of Obama > Trump voters, as well as a decent % of Kerry '04 voters (40%).

The question remains to what extent O'Connor will be able to get close to the 40% Dem Vote here, to keep overall PUB margins low in the Cities of Licking County.

Now, let's look at the larger population centers of SW Licking County (I already previously covered Reynoldsburg precincts within Licking County).

Pataskala- Pop 15.0k- 9.0% of Licking County Vote Share



So as we can see from the satellite imagery, this City is actually basically the equivalent of an entire township, with a mixture of suburban neighborhoods in the SW corner of the "City", and more clustered population in the Eastern Central part of the "City", with some smaller developments dotted around along some of the main roads, some nice ritzy semi-rural Exurban homes scattered around, and even some farms mixed in around the "City".

Let's look at the age breakdown of Pataskala:



So interestingly enough we actually see a fairly decent cluster of the population clustered in that 25-54 Year Old range, and perhaps most significantly within the context of this election, a very high concentration in the 25-39 Yr age bracket (23%). These voters will likely be critical in determining the overall margins within the City this coming Tuesday.

MHI- $ 65.6k /Yr with 55% of the Households making > $60k/Yr.

Education: 34.1% > HS Degree

Occupations:




So interestingly enough the occupations are a bit all over the place--- one the one hand you have a pretty decent White Collar representation in generally high paying occupations (Business and Management), but you also have a decent representation of relatively decent paying Blue Collar Occupations (Transportation & Construction), and also a hefty chunk of "Pink Collar" occupations (Administrative & Social Services).

Enough of this---- how has Pataskala been voting in recent Presidential Elections?



So, once again we see a pretty decent contingent of Obama '08 / Obama '12 /Trump '16 voters within Pataskala. HRC pretty much destroyed all of the gains that Democrats had made since '04, significantly under-performing John Kerry. On the flip side, although Trump bagged 61% of the Vote in 2016, he still performed worse than George W. Bush in his re-election campaign in 2004.

If O'Connor can revive the Obama '08/'12 coalition in Pataskala of educated Upper-Income voters, and more traditionally working class occupations, he might be able to keep PUB margins down to +12-15% in the Special Election.

As an Exurban Columbus community, one might imagine this would be a place where we could see some major swings compared to the 2016 US PRES results.

Etna Township- Pop 16.3k- 5% of 2016 Vote Share



Those giant white buildings you see in the Center of the Township is a major Amazon Fulfillment Center, and having worked in an FC before for another company, I know how rigorous Warehouse Work can be with 7x24 Hour Operations running 10-12 Hour shifts frequently the industry norm.

Age: 10% 65+, 10% (55-64), 33% (35-54) (!!!), 19% (18-34), 28% (0-17).

Wow--- look at that concentration in the 0-17 Yrs and 35-54 Yrs!!!!

Race/Ethnicity: 78.6% White, 13.9% Black, 2.9% Latino, 2.3% Mixed, 2.0% Asian

Cool--- finally we get a place in Licking County where the Brothers and Sisters are properly represented! This trend will likely continue, considering that the African-American population is most heavily concentrated in both the younger age bracket (0-17 Yrs), as well as the Millennial and Middle-Aged demographic brackets.

Education: 39.1% with Degree > HS.   Township is a bit more Educated than average.

MHI: $ 75.7k/Yr

Occupations:



Hmm interesting--- we see an extremely high level of White Collar highly compensated occupations, compared to what I was expecting.

We do have a decent range of Blue Collar occupations in Transportation and Repair, as well as a slightly higher proportion of occupations in Administrative and Sales than the norm.

How did Etna Township Vote in the 2004 to 2016 US-PRES elections?



So, interestingly enough Etna Township in *Theory* should be significantly more Democratic than Pataskala City, when looking at everything from MHI, Education, Occupations, and Race/Ethnicity.

This is obviously not the case.

To say that Etna Township is solidly Republican would likely be a significant understatement....

Obama only kept the PUBS down to 62% of the Total Presidential Vote in '08/'12. John Kerry only captured 1/3 votes and DJT even exceeded GHWB '04 PUB % in Etna Township.

I don't know why exactly this Township has been so consistently Republican, but it is pretty clear that White voters tend to vote overwhelmingly Republican at all age, income, and occupation levels, compared to most of the larger population centers of Licking County.

O'Connor will be lucky to keep the PUB margins here down to +20% R.

Harrison Township - Pop 7.6k- 6% of Licking County Vote Share.



Ok--- Looking at the satellite imagery, this Township is an interesting smorgasbord of decent sized Exurban Housing Developments around places like Beechwood Trails, as well as smaller sub-divisions along many of the local roads, throw in a quite a bit of what looks like farming areas (Although as a former OH resident, sometimes these farms are really a part-time gig for local farmers that have other day jobs and just make some extra bucks hiring a few people to run the agricultural tools during key parts of the season).

Age: Pop is extremely young 23% (0-17 Years), Millennials under-represented 14% (18-34 Yrs), 33% (35-54 Yrs),

Race/Ethnicity: 97.6% White

Much more lily White than most of the rest of Licking County, which has a pretty low rate of ethnic/racial diversity compared to many of the other medium-sized Counties within Ohio.

MHI: $ 77.2k/Yr

Not bad at all, and considerably higher than the Statewide Average.

Education: 38.9% > HS Diploma

Occupations:



So again, we see a pretty high share the work-force in relatively highly compensated White Collar Occupations (Legal, Mgmt, Business, Science, Computers/Math, etc)....

Interestingly enough we see the highest % of the work-force that are Firefighters of almost any place I've delved into in OH CD-12. We also see a higher rate of Educational Occupations than in many other places, so sounds like we have some Union Teachers floating around in Harrison Township (?).

How did Harrison Township Vote for PRES '04 > '16?



So.... if Etna Township is a tough nut to crack for O'Connor, Harrison Township is an even tougher nut.

On paper both Etna and Harrison Townships look like the types of places where we might expect to see significant Dem shifts within the context of the Trump era, but the reality is that voters in these two townships have not yet exhibited any tendency to indicate a large proportion of persuadable and swing voters that could dramatically change Republican margins.

Maybe Danny O'Connor could do it with the Irish family name:

Harrison Township: 16.1% Irish Ancestry
Etna Township: 17.9% Irish Ancestry
Pataskala City: 14.9% Irish Ancestry
Heath: 17.7% Irish Ancestry
Newark: 16.1% Irish Ancestry

Where I'm going with this is that within the context of Ohio and within Metro-Columbus, the Irish-Americans have faced systematic discrimination in terms of Housing, Employment, etc, and only in the 1960s and 1970s started to move into the Middle-Class without the stigma of Ethnicity and Religion () being a cudgel used to stop their advancement.

Although I tend not to dwell too much on Religious Affiliation (Plus the data is more obscure to pull down by a County/City level), the reality is that White Catholics (Especially "White Ethnics") have traditionally tended to be the major swing voters in Presidential Elections over the past xxx decades.

One must also wonder to what extent Danny O'Connor might be portrayed as part of the Franklin County Democratic machine in suburban/exurban Columbus Precincts.

Still, Irish-Americans tend to self-identify as overwhelmingly Catholic, and Pope Francis has moved the needle significantly to the Global Left on a wide variety of political issues, which is increasingly impacting the Catholic Community within the United States, when it comes to issues such as economic justice and inequality, environmental issues, immigration and social change within the wealthy nations of Europe and North America, etc...

Even Social Issues such as Reproductive Rights (Birth Control), Divorce, and LGBTQ Equality have been re-framed by the Vatican within the era of Pope Francis.

I have no idea to what extent if any this will have an impact in the OH CD-12 Special Election, but still I wonder to what extent Danny O'Connor will significantly over-perform in certain precincts and communities with a High % of traditional "White Ethnic Catholic Swing Voters" this coming Tuesday.

[NOVA Green]

So, one item that I have neglected to discuss thus far are the rural portions of Licking County, which account for roughly 38% of the Total County Vote in US Presidential Elections, and vote overwhelmingly Republican at virtually all levels.

2004: (66-34 R)  +32% R
2008: (63-35 R)  +28% R     (+4% D Swing)
2012: (62-36 R)  +26% R     (+2% D Swing)
2016: (71-25 R)  +46% R     (+20% R Swing)

One thing that I've been wondering is how the impact of Trump's Tariffs on China will play out in Farm Country over the next few election cycles.

Here is the overall Agricultural Profile of Licking County.







So here we see the significance of Soybean Crops to the local agricultural sector, as well as Corn and grazing land tied to pig feeding, which is a pretty typical pattern in much of Ohio, and that part of the Midwest.

Let's look at the % of the work-force employed directly in the Agricultural Industry by Township within Licking County.



So here we see that direct agricultural related industries are predominately clustered in the NW portion of the County, as well as a few Townships in the Northeastern corner of the County.

Although overall direct farming related employment isn't that high, which is not completely surprising considering that Corn and Soybeans tend to be capital or machine-intensive forms of Agriculture rather than labor-intensive forms of agriculture, it still creates a disproportionate local economic impact on these communities because of all of the indirect jobs tied to farming.

So let's take a look at a few of these Townships with a higher than average agricultural related employment...

Burlington Township:

2012: (61-36 R)   +25% R
2016: (73-24 R)   +49% R        (+24% R Swing)

Eden/Fallsbury Township:

2012: (60-40 R)    +20% R
2016: (76-20 R)    +56% R      (+36% R Swing)

Bennington Township:

2012: (68-30 R)    +38% R
2016: (74-22 R)    +52% R      (+14% R Swing)

Monroe Township:

2012: (67-30 R)     +37% R
2016: (69- 25 R)    +44% R     (+ 7% R Swing)

So interestingly enough, although more heavily agricultural based townships tend to be overwhelmingly Republican, you do see some potentially persuadable voters that might chose to express their discontent with Trump's Agricultural/Trade policies at the ballot box in upcoming elections.

Now Agricultural isn't the only game in town in Rural Licking County....

Manufacturing is a significant employer in a cluster of Rural Townships located within the SE portion of the County, and in Five of the Six Townships bordered in RED is higher than the overall County Average of 12% of the Workforce.

These Five Townships represent 6.4% of the Licking County total vote share.



What I suspect is that in many of these Townships, Manufacturing Workers are employed in the Industrial Parks of Newark, although it is possible that there might be a Poultry processing plant in a few places (Perry Township???) would is also technically coded as Manufacturing Employment rather than Agricultural Employment.

How did the heavily manufacturing sector rural Townships vote in previous US Presidential Elections?



So here we see how Democratic and Republican raw vote numbers were relatively stable at the Presidential level until 2016, where suddenly the raw Republican vote margins jumped from roughly 1.5k R to about 2.8k R.

It will be interesting to see if the Trump phenomenon was a fluke in places like this, or part of a broader shift away from Democratic national candidates.

Now let's look at it from a % level to see how extensive the collapse of the Democratic Presidential vote was in 2016 in these rural manufacturing employed townships.



Yikes--- the Dems were getting 33-36% of the Vote in '04/'08/'12 and it plummeted to 22% with HRC as the Candidate. Pub Pres vote % was 61-66% and it surged to 71% in 2016!!!

Clearly we have a pretty significant number of "Ancestral Presidential Democrats" floating around in these parts, despite these Townships still being heavily Republican.

How will they vote on Tuesday and this coming November?

[NOVA Green]

OH CD-12 EV Numbers to Date Elsewhere within Franklin Co....

Worthington---- 6.6% of 2016 Vote Share.



EV numbers look atrocious for PUBS even in a City that just recently started voting DEM for PRES in larger numbers in 2012.

Westerville-



This is a City that went +10% Mitt Romney in '12 and DEM margins are +20%, not even including the other vote in Early Voting!!!

I could pull up similar insane numbers for Dublin, etc.... but really I would not be surprised to see final Franklin County SE numbers looking extremely lopsided for O'Connor considering such an extremely poor Republican EV performance in Franklin County, which I suspect is NOT a typical scenario, and also how even relatively historically PUB friendly municipalities are not turning out their voters.

Next I think I'll take a look at the EV numbers by place for Delaware County and match against historical election results, to give us another election weekend teaser....

THANKS AGAIN EBSY!!!!

@ Badger: I now accept my accolades

Hey man, when did I ever doubt you that Franklin County turnout was going to kick butt for O'Connor?

You were pretty skeptical for a while that O’Connor could win Dublin or Westerville

I deny any recollection.

New Albany, yes. I think that hesitancy disappeared when I learned that Hillary actually carried Dublin and Westerville. 

Really no idea where this race is going to go. Nova and Buckeye nut both make excellent points even if they tend to contradict.

The best I can say is that if O'Connor wins, come November the races at least lean O'Connor. Not even tilt. If he pulls this off, I can't imagine a democratic incumbent being thrown out barring Scandal like circumstances considering what November is likely to look like.

Ok--- since both of you have been paging the Dublin City- 14% of 2016 GE PRES Vote Share!!! results (Franklin County Portion Only), here are the EV numbers as of Yesterday, courtesy of Ebsy's data-set.  



Is this data bad news for the Democrat or Republican in this Special Election?

Honestly, I'm of slightly split minds on this one....

1.) If O'Connor ekes out a narrow win in CD-12, he will likely need to perform extremely well in Cities like Dublin, compared to any historical Democratic performance at either the Statewide or Presidential level.

2.) Although these EV numbers show the largest Democratic margins ever in Dublin in recent years for a Statewide/Federal Election, I'm still not convinced those numbers will hold up once the ED Vote comes in.

Still, playing Devil's Advocate with myself, we only know the DEM/REP/OTHER on the basis of last Primary Election that the voter participated in.... It's entirely possible that you have Republican voters who last voted in the 2016 GE for Kasich, switched to HRC in the GE, or people that voted PUB in the '18 Primary for Statewide elected offices, that are totally receptive to voting for Danny O'Connor for US-Congress from OH CD-12.

3.) Of course it is entirely possible that Danny O'Connor, who is charismatic and well-known Senior Franklin County elected official might perform quite well in a City called Dublin where 16% of the Population trace their Ancestry directly to Ireland.

Probably making too much of all that, but still it's worthy of some consideration, especially considering the historical nature of the "White Catholic Swing Vote", especially in places like the Upper MidWest.

Any thoughts on final margins in the Dublin City part of Franklin County? I'm thinking O'Connor needs to win it by something like +10% to jack up the margins as part of a buffer against PUB margins in Delaware (Especially considering that Dublin in some ways shares more in common with the Townships of SW Delaware County politically than it does with the Columbus City portions of Franklin County), as well as the inevitable PUB victories in the other Counties within CD-12.

[NOVA Green]

More anecdotals: My mom is a registered Republican (voted Kasich in the 2016 primary) and my parents’ house (very wealthy part of Gahanna) has been visited five times by O’Connor’s campaign, nothing from the Balderson folks.  My aunt and uncle (independent and Republican, respectively) live in a particularly country clubby part of New Albany and have been visited three times by O’Connor’s campaign, nothing from Balderson’s campaign.  

Do you want me to post the numbers from Gahanna and New Albany with EV numbers as of Yesterday (Courtesy of Ebsy....    )    ?

Although I lived in Ohio for Four Years 20+ Years ago in College, I was basically 20 Minutes from Dayton and 50 Minutes from both Columbus and Cinci, so don't pretend to have any of detailed knowledge of the State from a local perspective anymore, although I remember how excited the College Students on my campus were when Bill Clinton won Ohio in '92 (First time in '64???).

What I *suspect* we might be seeing in Metro Columbus (Based upon '08 > '16 PRES results) is a pattern that we observed for the first time in recent American Electoral History in some of the major Metro areas of the West Coast back in '88 (Seattle, Portland, Bay Area Suburbs) where suburban voters started to identify more with the residents of the "City" as opposed to the traditional City/Suburban political, social, and economic divide.

It's early on yet, but we are starting to see in the heavily Ancestral Republican suburbs of North Franklin County (Including the City of Columbus proper) move heavily Democratic at the Presidential Level.

We have yet to see these types of movements at other Federal Elections (With a few exceptions and a few Cities), let alone see the impact at down-ballot Statewide Races where the Republican Coalition still holds strong, and the Democratic Coalition is much more dependent upon large turnouts in the Cities, Ancestral White Union Democrats throughout, swing voters in the 'Burbs, and keeping margins down in the Rurals, especially in places like SE OH.

Still, at the end of the day a "New Democratic Winning Coalition" in Ohio will inherently involve both a mixture of rapidly swing DEM voters in places like the wealthier 'Burbs of Columbus, combined with high turnout in the Cities, AND regaining those WWC voters that were more than happy to vote for Barrack O'Bama in both '08 and '12 and swung hard Trump in '16....

Yeah, Gahanna and New Albany numbers would be great! Thanks

My laptop completely crashed on Election Eve, and just got back online....

Ask and ye shall receive:

Franklin Co- OH- Gahanna- 6.1% of 2016 Vote Share.



People can say what they want to say about the Early Vote in Franklin County, but Republicans at only 25% of the EV in Gahanna looks really weird, and suggests that Dem Franklin County percentages and margins might be extremely high, even outside of the City of Columbus where quite frankly the EV numbers by Party are starting to look more like Portland Oregon GE PRES numbers than would be expected for the wealthy neighborhoods of North Columbus.

Franklin Co- OH - New Albany-  ~ 3% of Franklin County Vote Share 2016.



Once again we see EV numbers that are completely devastating, in Upper-Income Educated Communities where Republican leaning voters tend to vote extremely early, just like Democrats....

Honestly these EV numbers we are seeing from every Municipality in Franklin County are looking devastating for Republicans, regardless of the massive surge of Democratic voters within the Columbus City precincts of OH CD-12.

Will it be enough, I don't know, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised to see record levels of support for a Democratic Candidate running for Federal Office within most of Franklin County.

[NOVA Green]

If I were part of the O'Connor campaign this is what I would be perhaps most worried about....

Licking County---- Newark, Ohio--- `25% of 2016 Licking County Vote Share.



Although on paper these margin improvements in the CD-12 EV look like really nice numbers, the reality is that this is nowhere near the numbers that O'Connor needs to perform in to keep Licking County margins low.

This is quite frankly home to a ton of Obama '08/'12 > Trump '16 voters, and I'm not seeing the numbers here to suggest thus far that O'Connor will keep PUB numbers low within one of the larger vote centers within the County....