NOVA GREEN's Election Analysis Thread
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NOVA Green
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« on: April 01, 2018, 06:22:07 PM »
« edited: September 23, 2018, 05:12:49 PM by NOVA Green »

This thread is devoted to NOVA Green's detailed election analysis posts.

Will be re-posting content shortly, but this is a placeholder for the directory of posted content.

1.) Alabama- Precinct/Municipal Data
    A.) 2017 US SEN- Jefferson County
    B.) 2017 US SEN- Baldwin County
    C.) 2017 US SEN- Calhoun County
    D.) 2017 US SEN- Mobile County
    E.) 2017 US SEN- Lee County
    F.) 2017 US SEN- Morgan County

2.) Arizona CD-08
   A.) How will it Play in Peoria?
   B.) CD-08 Vote by Place
   C.) CD-08 Vote Share /EV/ Votes by State District
   D.) AZ CD-08 LD 1 & 14
   E.) AZ CD- 08 LD 13
   F.) AZ CD-08 EV Precincts High Low 04_05_18 Data
   G.) AZ CD-08 LD 15
   H.) AZ CD-08 Turnout Review Post Election
   I.) AZ CD-08 Senior Vote Review
   J.) AZ CD-08 Non-Senior Vote Review
   K.) AZ CD-08 DEM Swing Precinct Review
   L.) AZ CD-08 REP Swing Precinct Review

3. Oregon Megathread--- Detailed precinct and County level data for Oregon.... Link to my original thread. There is a directory on the first post of the thread, that should be able to link to some of my various County level posts, and throwing it into the mix until I get a chance to figure out how to cross-link data better into this thread.

   A.) OR- 2018 Primary

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252085.msg5386692#msg5386692

4.) Pennsylvania- CD-18 Precinct/Municipal Election Data

   A.) Pre Special Election South Allegheny
   B.) Post- Election South Allegheny Vote by Place
   C.) Post Election South Allegheny Vote by Place and Demographics
   D.) Post Election South Allegheny Trump > Lamb Voters

5.) College Football Communities Voting

   A.) Flagship University Towns/ Cities # 1
   B.) Flagship University Towns/ Cities # 2
   C.) PAC 12 North /South, Big 12, Big 10 East West Campus/Off-Campus

6.) Culturally Liberal vs Socially Liberal--- Oregon Ballot Measures as Examples by County

7.) Arizona--- Maricopa County
    A.) Votes by Place in recent Electoral History

8.) OH-CD 12
    A.) Votes by County
    B.) Franklin County- Votes by Place
    C.) Franklin County- Early Voting
    D.) Franklin County- Voting and Demographics by Place
    E.) Delaware County- Overview by Place
    F.) Delaware City
    G.) Powell City (Delaware County)
    H.) Orange and Genoa Townships (Delaware County)
    I.) Liberty and Concord Townships (Delaware County)
    J.) Delaware County Overview- "Urban", "Suburban", "Exurban" and "Rural"
   K.) Licking County Overview plus Newark City (Licking County)
   L.) Licking County Vote Share by Place
   M.) Reynoldsburg & Granville Village (Licking County)
   N.) Granville Township, Heath, Pataskala, Etna Township, Harrison Township, (Licking County)
   O.) Rural Parts of Licking County
   P.)  Early Votes Worthington, Westerville, Dublin (Franklin County)
   Q.) Early Votes Gahanna and New Albany (Franklin County)
   R.) Early Votes Newark (Licking County)
   S.) Provisional Vote Share by Place 2016 > 2018
   T.) EV numbers & Detailed Demographics: Westerville (Franklin County)
   U.) EV Numbers & Detailed Demographics: Worthington (Franklin County)

8.) Coos County, New Hampshire
   A.) Socio-Demographic Profile
   B.) Why did Coos County Swing hard Trump?

9.) TX- CD 23
    A.) Overview
    B.) Bexar County CD-23 Overview
    C.) Bexar County- Midterm Elections vs Pres Election Years--- CD-23 '14 as Baseline
  





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NOVA Green
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« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2018, 06:22:28 PM »
« Edited: April 01, 2018, 08:49:08 PM by NOVA Green »

Oregon Megathread....

Anyone curious about Oregon Politics and want to look at relatively detailed precinct/ municipal level data for various elections in the State?

This is the place for that, even though I am sitting on a wealth of precinct level data for Oregon Presidential Elections from '88 > '16, with the exception of '96, and some various counties in '04, I haven't yet gone back and updated the numbers to include some of my recent archival findings from my personal library.

For now, this is a good place to start since I think almost all of the Counties in Oregon have been covered, even in my initial first go around, that help provide a deeper political, historical, and demographic context to my Native State.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252085.msg5386692#msg5386692
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NOVA Green
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« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2018, 06:22:49 PM »

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« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2018, 06:23:48 PM »

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« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2018, 06:27:31 PM »

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« Reply #5 on: April 01, 2018, 07:12:44 PM »

Now that we are finally starting to get initial precinct level results from some of the Counties in Alabama, it's time to take a look at some of the Counties that have posted Provisional election results by precinct, recognizing that there might be some changes once Provisional Ballots, Overseas Voters, and Military Voters are counted....

Jefferson County accounted for only 16% of the votes in the '17 US-SEN election, but was obviously a County that Jones needed to win by huge margins to make the race a toss-up election, which he did.

It's also a City/Metro area in the Deep South that can legitimately claim to be the first "Steel City" in the United States (Although folks from the Pittsburgh area and Steeler fans might disagree).

A region where the combination of Coal Mines, Railroads, and Steel Mills created an Industrial Worker movement, where Poor White and Blacks alike from throughout the State and region migrated to during the Great Depression and the expansion of the Factories in the region to push out the raw materials needed to win the War against Nazism and Fascism in both Europe and Asia.

Interestingly enough, Unions didn't discriminate against African-Americans in the Mines and Factories of Birmingham, compared to the practices of the Labor Movement in places like the Industrial Midwest and California during that era.

I digress, so let's take a look at Jefferson County and the vote share by municipality in the '16 GE and '17 Special election...





So what we see here is that Birmingham expanded their overall vote share by 1.5-2.0% of the total County Vote. We also see that rural parts of Jefferson County saw their vote share decrease by similar numbers.

Now, time to look at the 2016 Pres GE percentages and margins by City within Jefferson County.



Here are the 2017 US SEN percentages and margins by City within Jefferson County...



Now, lets look at the % swings in Jefferson County by City:



So, at this point most of us following the election not living a world of delusion nor denial, essentially illustrates a dramatic swing towards Jones in Middle-Class and Upper-Income White suburbs of Birmingham, compared to HRC's performance in 2016.

Now, let's look at the Voter turnout in the '17 US-SEN election by place:



So what's interesting here is not just that voter turnout was high in overwhelmingly White and Upper-Income regions of Jefferson County, but also that 49% of voters in Birmingham turnout out to vote, when the SoS of 'Bama was estimating 25-27% turnout for the Special Election, and I thought I heard that overall Voter turnout in 'Bama was somewhere close to 40% for this election...

Other than Mountain Brook (56-37 Jones) and Vestavia Hills (51-45 Jones), Birmingham had the 3rd highest voter turnout rate within Jefferson County,

Now, what is fascinating here is the dramatic drop in support for Moore in rural parts of Jefferson County compared to Donald Trump...

The lowest level of turnout in Jefferson County where Trump achieved net +20k raw vote margins in '16, translates to less than a +9k Moore raw Vote margin in '17....

One last note, this is what the chart looks like when one examines the raw vote margin by City in Jefferson County between '16 and '17 that presents more a visual on how these various dynamics suddenly made Jefferson County a 70% Democratic bastion in '17, after only giving HRC 52% of the vote in '16....



Food for thought, and still shifting through the precinct level data from Alabama....






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« Reply #6 on: April 01, 2018, 07:18:09 PM »

This is great does anyone have a shift map of the alabama senate race? or have a link to it on atlas I can't find it I know someone added it
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« Reply #7 on: April 01, 2018, 07:21:11 PM »

One thing I've been wondering since Election Night, is what exactly happened in Baldwin County...

You saw almost a 50% collapse of the Republican Vote share compared to Trump's performance in 2016.

Trump received 34.4k more votes than Roy Moore, and although Doug Jones gained 3.7k more votes than HRC for a net 20% increase of the Democratic Vote between '16 and '17, and 1.7k voters wrote-In someone else (Presumably mainly disgruntled Republicans), it appears that many 'Pub voters simply decided to stay home on Election Day.

The collapse in the 'Pub vote was visible in every precinct in the County, although to a much lesser extent in a heavily African-American Precinct in Bay Minette.

Overall the margins in the County swung 31% Democratic between '16 and '17, although this phenomenon was much more visible in a relatively small number of large precincts, which I'll get to shortly.

Unfortunately Baldwin County is a bit trickier than some to work with, as the precinct lines to not cleanly overlay with Municipal Boundaries, but still it gives us a starting point when it comes to overlapping election data with Census data.



Here's a link to the Baldwin County election office, which makes it easier to look at than the small picture posted above.

http://baldwincountyal.gov/docs/default-source/voting-precinct-changes/2016-precinct-map.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Baldwin County is overwhelmingly White (83%) and only 10% African-American, with the White share the population rising to 90% for the critical 55+ demographic. It is a bit older than the State at larger with 32% of the population 55+ Yrs.

It also tends to be a bit wealthier than most Counties in Alabama, with an MHI of $50.2k/Yr, which is perhaps even more remarkable considering the relatively size of the retiree population.

It appears to also have a lower proportion of Evangelical Christians than many other places in Alabama, including Southern Baptists, although honestly the data on this might be a bit sketchy.

Ok now, take a look at those precincts where there were the largest swings towards Jones, compared to the '16 US Pres election.



So what do these precincts share in common?

They are some of the wealthiest and most educated precincts within Baldwin County, with Precinct #7 overlapping pretty closely with a Census tract where the MHI is $82.8k/Yr, the Daphne precincts overlying closely with Census tracts where the MHI is $70-71k/ Yr, and Fairhope at about $58k/yr.

If you look at Educational attainment by Tract, you see roughly 55% of the population over 25 years have a Post-Secondary degree.

If we look at the total vote for these four precincts alone, they represented 24.2% of the County Vote in 2016, and jumped to 26.0% in 2017.

The 2016 US PRES numbers were 23,026 Total Votes---- (26.4% Dem), (68.0% Rep)
The 2017 US SEN numbers were 16,216 Total Votes--- (47.0% Dem), (50.0% Rep).

So here is a visual representation of the net vote change between '16 and '17 for these precincts:



So basically about 20% of drop-off in the Republican vote here were crossover Trump > Jones voters, combined with roughly 7% who wrote-in an alternative candidate (Assuming the WIs were 'Pub voters).

So basically those places that swung hardest Dem between '16 > '17 in Baldwin County did it both as a result of a significant chunk of cross-over voters, AND significant decrease in Republican enthusiasm in the wealthiest parts of the County.

There are similar patterns, but to less visible extent in White Middle and Upper-Middle Class precincts, a short commuting distance over the Bay to Mobile.

So how did Gulf Coast Retirees vote in 2016 and 2017?

So basically I'm limiting this to the three precincts along the Gulf Coast that are overwhelmingly 55+ and older, all of which actually have a pretty decent income for retirees, some $50-70k / YR MHI.



So interestingly enough here we observe a 33% Swing towards Doug Jones compared to HRC's performance in these older White retiree precincts, which is not something that I was particularly expecting...

A lot of this might explain the Moore/Bannon/Trump triangulation on Baldwin County in the closing days of the campaign.

So if we look at the overall vote share for Gulf Coast Retirees in these precincts, they were 11.0% of the total County Vote in '16, and 11.4% in '17.

The interesting thing here is that you had one of the largest % increase in the Democratic total vote between '16 > '17.... 

About 18% of the drop in 'Pub support (3880 total votes between '16 and '17) can be explained by Trump > Jones crossover voters, and about 5% from presumably 'Pub voters who wrote in another Candidate in '17.



So basically we have 37% of the '17 County Voting Population accounted for in just these seven precincts, where both cross-over voters, and decline in 'Pub Participation played a major role.
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« Reply #8 on: April 01, 2018, 07:24:39 PM »

Calhoun County, Alabama:



Located in the Northeastern part of Alabama, in theory this should have been total Roy Moore Country, as one of the most Republican Counties of Northern/Northeastern 'Bama for quite a few decades...

Democrats have not won the County since '76, and although Carter only narrowly lost it in '80 against Reagan, Doug Jones performed better than any Democratic President in the County, even Bill Clinton '96, who only captured 43% of the Vote vs Dole's 49%.

Even Al Gore only won 41% of the Vote here in '00.

Dems have been stuck in the 33% range from '04-'12, dropping to their lowest vote share ever since '72.

Compare Calhoun County (74-21 White/African-American) vs neighboring Etowah County (Gadsden) which is (79-15 White/African-American), and Etowah County not only voted overwhelmingly for Carter in both '76/'80, but barely voted for Ronald Reagan in '84 by ~ 150 votes, and same with Bush Sr in '88.

Bill Clinton won Etowah County under Bill Clinton with about 48% of the vote, and Gore bagged 44%, and the results slip down to 24% by '16.

So... Roy Moore wins Etowah (59-39) and Calhoun only (55-44).

What gives with the tale of two Counties? Was originally trying to pull the precinct numbers from Etowah, but unfortunately these are not yet available and stumbled in Calhoun instead.

Ok--- how to break down the precinct numbers for Calhoun County?

Fortunately, the County makes it a bit easier than some to break down the results by municipality than some, although honestly their precinct maps are crap, so trying to separate City precincts from Uninc, etc gets a little bit sketch, but makes it easier to work with:

So here is the Vote Share by Place results in the 2016 GE and the 2017 US-SEN election...





Ok--- numbers get tricky because we don't really have a good precinct map for the County, so some of these precincts overlap with Oxford and Uninc areas, and quite frankly don't believe that Anniston which consists of only 25% of the County population represented 24% of the County Vote in '16, but still helps explain the Story...

So, what are the voting percentages by Place in Calhoun County?

2016:



2017:



Now the story of Calhoun County is an overall decline of support for both candidates, compared to the 2016 Presidential Election....

Jones received 12% less of the vote than HRC in '16, and Moore received a whopping 56% less of the Republican Vote than Trump in '16.

Interestingly enough, Jones biggest drop of support compared to HRC's numbers were in heavily Democratic African-American precincts in Anniston....



Now obviously the key thing here is that Anniston not only consists of 20% of the County vote, but is only a narrowly African-American City (52-44) ... which is still a driver of the local economy with the largest employers in the area being the Anniston Army Depot (4.3k employees), the Honda Plant outside of Oxford Alabama right South of Anniston, and overall the Anniston Metro precincts swung some 30% HRC>Jones (Despite the issues with cleanly separating municipal precinct lines)

Oxford has an MHI of $ 49.7k/Yr and is 78% White vs 12% African-American.



Here we see a 26% swing between HRC and Jones (Likely larger with cleaner precinct coding).

We could look at the 3rd largest City Jacksonville (68-26 White/Black) that went from (35-58) Trump to (54-44 Jones)...

Law Enforcement is the largest relative occupation (3.0%), followed by Food Service (10.2%), and Education (11.4%).

So, working Class Exurb North of Anniston that swung hard Dem.

Obviously we would be remiss not to mention the collapse of rural support in the '17 US-SEN election...

In Calhoun County, these places are overwhelmingly Old and White, but still represent roughly 34-35% of the County Vote.



So here we see both the biggest decline for Republicans compared to '16 Trump numbers ( -7.7k Votes) and the only precincts where Jones gained net voted +139....

Old 'Dawgs comin' home???


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« Reply #9 on: April 01, 2018, 07:28:09 PM »

Ok--- this might be the last of these for awhile, unless there is interest out there, since I have several projects that I have put on hold working on Alabama, and also we don't have precinct level results available for many parts of the State yet for the '17 US-SEN Election.

Mobile, County:



A significant Jones win in Mobile County was a necessary, but not sufficient component for any potential statewide win, since as the second largest County by population in the State (413k) it was virtually unfathomable to envision a Jones victory without significant wins both here and in Madison County, combined with expected lopsided margins in Jefferson and Montgomery Counties, to offset heavily Republican votes in smaller Counties and rural areas elsewhere in the State.

Still, Jones overall vote margins and percentages by which he won Mobile County were likely a bit higher than one might have imagined, considering the population is 59-35 White-Black, and the County as a whole went 42-56 Trump in 2016.



So, before I start getting into items such as vote margin changes by place, turnout changes, vote-cross-over etc, let's start by looking at what the vote by place looked like in the 2016 GE vs the 2017 SEN Election.

2016:



2017:

2017:




So, interestingly enough you see Mobile's vote share go up from 46 > 52% of the County total, with the only other place with an increase being Prichard (A heavily Democratic City North of Mobile), and the biggest decrease happening in Rural areas, with most other places in the County losing vote share as well....

Now if we look at how the places in Mobile County voted in '16 and '17, and what the swings were we see the following:



So----

1.) The margin swings between '16 and '17 were actually relatively close in almost all places in Mobile County, with the exception of overwhelmingly African-American City of Prichard, slightly lower swings in Citronelle, in the far North of the County.

2.) Significantly the swings in Mobile were at 25%, which considering it's disproportionate share of the County Vote, as well as being a 44-51 African-American City, obviously played a major role in Doug Jones overall margins within Mobile County.

UNINC areas and Semmes stand out because of their population of Middle and Upper-Middle Class White voters, as does Tillmans Corner, because of its large concentration of White Working Class Voters....

So now the next item is to look at where voter support/turnout dropped for the respective two major party candidates between '16 and '17, and then take a look at cross-over voters after.

City of Mobile:

1.) Precincts HRC won by > 80% in the 2016 GE:

So, these are generally heavily African-American precincts, and here we see Jones losing a Net +3.0k votes compared to HRC in '16 for a 20% drop in numbers, although granted Moore's support collapsed 45%, it's not really seeming the Jones got the same type of vote turnout and mobilization in the African-American community that he did in Birmingham.

Now it is also interesting that this data set also includes two precincts with a high proportion of College Students ( # 27 Bishop State Community College and # 37 directly West of the University of South Alabama)...



2.) Precincts won by HRC with 65-80% Dem Vote:

These are precincts that generally are majority African-American, but with a significant White vote as well. Here we see Dem turnout collapsing 16% and 'Pub turnout collapsing 49%, and 'Pubs actually lose a net 200 Votes here on the voter turnout / cross-over voter War.



3.) HRC 50-65% Precincts

Now we are starting to get into precincts that are majority White, in some cases significantly so, but still with a large African-American Population...



So, here we see the Democratic turnout gap advancing significantly, while the decline in the 'Pub vote share remains pretty high....

Likely some of this is a result of 'Pub cross-over votes, but we don't have a mechanism to directly prove that.

4.) "Trump Precincts"---- This basically lumps all precincts here HRC captured <50% of the Vote in '16, although one of these she narrowly won with a plurality.

These are for the most part overwhelmingly White Precincts....



So here we see 1,500 Democratic Votes for Doug Jones over the 2016 HRC numbers...

These are definitely 100% crossover vote numbers, which is certainly significant.

5.) Although obviously a deeper dive of Mobile Precinct results are warranted, as I posited several weeks before the AL-US-SEN election, that Roy Moore would likely fare poorly in Mobile and in the "Cajun Country" part of Alabama, because of his history as a religious bigot.

I also referenced the role and connections of Interfaith Religious Networks, including Jews, Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Traditional Black Christian Churches, and various Evangelical networks...

http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1878

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_Sha%27arai_Shomayim_(Mobile,_Alabama)

So here are the precinct results from one of the most Republican Precincts in Mobile, located overwhelmingly on the Campus of Spring Hill College (Private Jesuit Catholic School)...  

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



So, collapse of Roy Moore certainly seems to have hit hard in any overwhelmingly Catholic Precinct, and one of the most Republican precincts in the City, in an extremely diverse community going back centuries when it comes from everything involving ancestry/country of origin---Race/Ethnicity--- Religious Diversity--- Social Class/Income.

I could run through some of numbers from other places, but I think the UNINC and Rural numbers speak for themselves....

My main question is less at this point will these voters back Doug Jones in 2020, than to what extent of the radioactive nature of the Trump brand, causing normal moderate Alabama 'Pubs from places like the Cities of Mobile, Daphne, Vestavia Hills, and Mountain Brook, to abandon flirting with the Republican Party altogether, and accept their identity as Democrats.














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« Reply #10 on: April 01, 2018, 07:30:09 PM »

Lee County Alabama:



So, as there has been so much talk about Lee County Alabama (Auburn) and the dramatic shifts in voting and all of that, I decided to pull up the '16 and '17 numbers to see if they shed any light on the subject.

Lee County doesn't have a ton of voting precincts, since like many other places in the Country, they have "broadbanded" and consolidated voting locations over the years, which is either a positive or negative development depending upon one's Point of View (POV). Personally, I prefer greater detail to a lesser amount of detail when it comes to precincts, since it makes it easier to do a deeper dive into voting habits by demographics, but hey at least it looks like overall they've avoided all of the messiness that comes with split precinct BS, which is part of reason Madison County isn't at the top of my list for a compare/contrast exercise between the '16 GE and '17 AL-SEN elections.

So, the media narrative was that Doug Jones was swept to victory as a result of a massive surge in Democratic turnout among young voters, African-Americans, White Democrats, combined with swings among College Educated Middle Class Voters in the Metro Areas, extremely depressed evangelical White turnout, the more one looks at the data, the more simplistic that narrative becomes (Although there are still significant core elements of truth there).

1.) So far looking at the precinct level results, it appears that in African-American precincts in Birmingham there was a massive turnout surge, albeit with some significant declines in some heavily working-class and poorer precincts of the City. In Mobile, turnout was down significantly in heavily African-American precincts, but much less so than in heavily White working-class precincts. In Blue collar manufacturing cities in Alabama, we saw a significant dip in African-American turnout in places like Bessemer, Bay Minette, Prichard, and Anniston.

2.) The drop in 'Pub turnout in White working-class precincts of these cities was significantly larger than the drop in AA turnout in the equivalent of the "neighborhood across the railroad tracks" in all four of these Blue Collar towns. The drop in 'Pub turnout in rural areas overall based on the precincts we have covered thus far in Jefferson, Baldwin, Calhoun, and Mobile Counties was even much higher, which is especially significant because of how Republican these rural precincts are and typically quite a bit older and Whiter, and presumably more frequent in terms of rates of Church attendance.

3.) Precinct level data has shown a significant Republican cross-over vote in places like Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills, Hoover, Uninc Jefferson Co (Jefferson Co), Daphne & Spanish Fort (Baldwin Co), Older Middle Class retirement communities on the Gulf Coast (Baldwin Co) Middle and Upper Middle Class 'Pub precincts in Mobile, and likely to some extent in the heavily White Auto Factory town of Oxford (Calhoun County).

4.) What about the Millennial Vote and Student Vote?

Well, if you're looking for it in Lee County (Auburn) you are not going to see it.



The collapse of votes for both major party candidates here was astronomical, not to say that there weren't crossover voters, etc,

Does this mean that Auburn Undergrad students who are actually from Alabama didn't vote in the 2017 AL-SEN election? Absolutely, many of them likely did via an absentee ballot sent to their parent's addresses in the heavily White Upper-Middle-Class communities from when they predominate. 12/11-12/15 was Finals week in Auburn, and although Doug Jones appearance at the Iron Bowl might have helped him within the County overall, one must wonder to what extent it was targeted not specifically at the University Vote, but rather to demonstrate that he's a regular 'Baman like anyone else, and not some Liberal stereotype who doesn't like Football "because kids might get hurt playin' ball".

Still, we can't quantify that vote in the same way we can for other demographics, so let's take a look at who actually voted in Lee County in the '17 US Senate Race.

Lee County AL: Vote Share by Place 2016 and 2017:

2016:



2017:



Ok--- We see Auburn lose about 1% of the County Vote Share, Opelika pick up 4% of the County Vote Share, Smith Station stay constant, rural areas added 1% to their vote share (!!!), and absentee and provisional ballots lose 4% of their vote share (!!!!)

So how did the various communities in Lee County Vote in '16 and '17?



This is pretty interesting right here....

Despite what appears to be a relatively lacking College Student vote in Auburn, Jones actually won every place in the County, with the exception of rural areas, where he came within a few points of Roy Moore.

So it appears that the "townie" vote within the County (Including places other than Auburn) swung hard for Jones, regardless of the lack of an apparent Undergrad College Vote in 2017....

Let's look at the Vote margins and swings by place in Lee County 2016 > 2017:



So overall Democratic vote margin swings were around 36-37% in most of the County.

The exception was Smiths Station, where there was a 44% vote margin swing!!!!

Total Vote Margin Change 2016 > 2017 by Precinct:



Ok---- Wow, just Wow!!!

Dems lost > 50% of their '16 vote in every precinct in the County (Excepting a small rural precinct "Uptown Marvyn", and Moore lost > 80% of the '16 'Pub vote in every precinct in the County, excepting a couple in Opelika and one in rural Beulah, where he only lost 77-79% of Trump's '16 vote in the County.

So, in Lee County, it was definitely a turnout war to see which campaign could do a better job of pulling out what voters were actually around and interested in going to the polls.

So, one last note....

1.) Auburn (17-72   Black/White).... This statistic is likely distorted because the student population is much "Whiter" than the Townie population, but still of the five precincts within the City of Auburn, we have one that is in a Census tract with the highest % of African-Americans within the City of Auburn.

Precinct # 10: Boykin Community Center:

Here is what you see when the College kids go home.... Sure there was a drop in overall total raw vote margins, but look at the margin % Huh



Precinct # 14: Clarion Inn South College:


This includes the dorms of Auburn, as well as a significant chunk of off-campus student housing...




So, these numbers appear pretty obvious.... Auburn University Undergrads are much more Republican than the City at large, and once they left, the University town started to vote a bit differently.

2.) Numbers from Opelika are also a bit interesting, considering that although it is close enough to Auburn to have *some* Undergrad College kids residing within the City limits, is actually more of a working and lower-middle-class community, that is the seat of County government, and also a bedroom community for many locals who can't afford to live in an expensive college town like Auburn, plus some Grad students living in the Modern Day "Sweatshops of Academia", where they get paid crap wages to teach the works of the professors, in exchange for indentured servitude

(42-49 African-American/White), MHI $ 40.1k

3.) Smith Station--- This one totally caught me off-guard.

It's basically a suburban/ Exurban community part of the Metro Columbus- GA / Phenix City AL MSA, and has very little to do with the College areas around Auburn and Opelika.

(15-79 African-American/White), MHI $ 44.3k/Yr

It has the 11th largest High School in Alabama, which means that Friday Night High School ballgames are huge here...

https://kickerfm.iheart.com/featured/east-alabama-hs-football/content/2017-07-27-smiths-station-panthers-2017-football-schedule/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiths_Station,_Alabama

This place swung 44% towards Doug Jones (51- 49 D) vs (27-69 Trump).

So right next to Phenix City, the fictional backdrop of one of the best NativeSouthern Detective writers Ace Atkins setting in "Wicked City", on the edge of a rapidly growing Metro expansion of Columbus, Georgia across into Alabama, not to mention Fort Benning Georgia....

Although, I haven't yet delved into Russell County, we are starting to see a trend where even in relatively small counties in Alabama, if there are major connections with industrial employers (Auto) or private sector employers (Military) we're not really seeing the love for Roy Moore for some bizarre reason.



4.) Rural Areas---- My thought on rural areas in Lee County, is that as the smallest County in Alabama in terms of land area, it doesn't consist as heavily as the same types of rural voters that we have seen in Jefferson, Baldwin, Calhoun, and Mobile Counties.... Meaning that many of these "rural precincts" have a significant component of individuals that have the money and means to live on some acres outside of the cities in the various townships, and still commute to work in places like Auburn, Opelika, Smith Station, Phenix City, and in some cases even Columbus Georgia....

Otherwise not sure how to explain the dramatic swing in rural areas, regardless of the dramatic drop in overall voter turnout within the County.

Edit: Was just thinking of this classic song from one of the Old Blues artists from Alabama...:

Lead Belly: Alabama Bound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfBbLuGmWhc


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« Reply #11 on: April 01, 2018, 07:33:47 PM »

Great work NOVA Green! Do you yourself have an overall conclusion from all this analysis as to what was the main driver of Jones' win?

Thanks Gustaf!

At this point I have only covered precinct level results from Alabama consisting of 34% of the 2017 US-Senate vote, from five counties in the State, so there is still a bit of work to do on this project, so I certainly don't want to suggest this is anywhere close to a definitive study of these election results.



Still, as I posted earlier:

1.) African-American turnout within the City of Birmingham was key to creating the insane margins that we saw in Jefferson County Alabama (Much larger than I was expecting).

2.) Huge net swings of Trump '16 > Jones '17 voters in wealthier White precincts in the larger Metro areas, including the cities of Mobile, Daphne, Spanish Fort, Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills, Hoover, and Oxford.

3.) In Working-Class factory towns of Alabama, such as Bessemer, Bay Minette, Prichard, and Anniston, we saw a significant decrease in AA turnout compared to Middle-Class AA precincts in Birmingham and Mobile, but an even larger collapse in WWC turnout in the "separate but equal" communities just across the railroad tracks.

4.) The largest collapse in Republican support happened in older, overwhelmingly White, and rural precincts, and apparently despite Trump's alleged popularity among this community, it didn't matter a hill of beans when it came to his last ditch effort to drag Roy Moore over the finish line.

5.) Trump's popularity is fading fast in Alabama, just like many other parts of the country. In fact some recent polls have shown his biggest collapse over the past three months occurring among White Evangelical voters.

There are quite a few reasons why Trump chose to do his finale support for Moore from Pensacola, Florida, instead of doing a Stadium style rally in Alabama.

There is a reason that Steve Bannon showed up at a last minute joint campaign event with Roy Moore in South Alabama, but the numbers from Baldwin County, and the traditionally Republican heartlands of SE 'Bama clearly indicate that that "dirty dawg don't hunt no more"....

Just fine withholding my support and let the Yellow Dawg win, rather than vote for the Republican that stole $ 1 Million out of a Christian charity to line his own pockets with.


Anyways, hoping to pull some more precinct level numbers together soon, especially once we get the Statewide precinct numbers certified, but fwiw these are some of my initial humble thoughts on the subject.




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« Reply #12 on: April 01, 2018, 07:37:34 PM »

Roy Moore was an extremely unpopular officer during 'Nam, to the point where he would have to barricade his tent with sandbags, just so a live grenade wouldn't pop up in his tent while he was sleeping.

...wow.
It's not that surprising tbh

Sure, it is not surprising that he was type of officer that was extremely unpopular during 'Nam, considering all we have learned since regarding his moral character and personality.

What is extremely surprising is that in a part of the Country where Bill Clinton was extremely unpopular because "he was busy smoking weed overseas in the UK in order to dodge the draft", Al Gore gets hit hard for similar reasons involving the politics of the 1960s, George W. Bush is busy dodging the draft, getting high on weed and cocaine stationed at some Air National Guard Base, where he barely showed up for work (Got a pass on that), John Kerry get's "swiftboated" in '04, even though he was the type of officer that took lead along with the enlisted Men under his command in 'Nam, McCain did quite well in Alabama and many other parts of the region among the 'Vets from that War.

Obama was actually the first US Presidential nominee since before '92 where you didn't have a Democrat running for office with the ghosts of Vietnam hanging over the Party candidate...

Bush Sr in '92 was obviously way too old to have served in 'Nam, but as part of the Greatest Generation he served with honor and distinction in WW II.

Bob Dole in '96 was also a WW II war hero....

George W. Bush.... we've already talked about his history....

McCain.... Vietnam war hero.

Mitt Romney did not serve in Vietnam, something that Steve Bannon just recently attacked him on...

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/steve-bannon-knocks-mitt-romney-for-lack-of-military-service-while-defending-roy-moore/article/2642676

So, Roy Moore did serve in Vietnam, and he was known for writing Article 15s, apparently visited some brothels during his Tour of Duty, although according to one former buddy didn't sleep with the underage prostitutes guarded by South Vietnamese Army troops as a private business gig to line the pockets of the corrupt military officers of South Vietnam towards the end of the War.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-forgotten-history-of-fragging-in-vietnam_us_5a1b77b6e4b0cee6c050939d

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/11/a_jersey_lawyer_stands_up_for_his_vienam_war_buddy.html

http://taskandpurpose.com/army-buddy-roy-moore-went-vietnamese-child-brothel-no-big-deal/

http://www.businessinsider.com/roy-moore-transgender-military-lgbtq-vietnam-2017-12

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/10/roy-and-his-rock/304264/

Meanwhile, you got this dude Doug Jones that was too young to have been of draft age during the War, graduates from U of A in '76, gets his law Degree from an Evangelical Christian University in Alabama in '79, who came from humble Working Class roots (Daddy worked for the Union represented US Steel Mill just outside of Birmingham that had both a large proportion of working-class African-American and "White-American" workers alike).

I am still surprised the Moore wasn't able to double-down on his military experience (Steve Bannon obviously tried to bring this up vicariously when it came to Mitt Romney), to do a compare/contrast when it comes to Military experience and the US-Senate race.

Doug Jones biography was obviously pretty strong and credible when it came to White working-class Alabama roots, but he obviously lacked military experience on his resume.

I do wonder to what extent war wariness has reduced the impact of a Military background, even in places like Alabama, especially when you have a Republican President who essentially ran against his Republican opponents during the primaries touting his "Opposition to the War in Iraq", which was brutally effective against Jeb Bush (And others) and even was used against HRC during the GE....

Ok--- done with talking... here are a links to a few songs and artists whose works I have purchased over the years, and I would strongly suggest if you like the songs spending $ 1 to support the estates of these musical artists by purchasing the song on your Smartphone or Mobile device, that brought us these musical works. If you really like the artist, do what I have done over the decades and buy the whole damn album...

1.) Pete Seegar- "Big Muddy"

Although this song was set during WW II in training camps, it was a metaphor about the War in Vietnam written in '67 when the s**t was getting hot during LBJ's escalation of the War.

Picture Captain Roy Moore as the Captain fictionally portrayed in this song...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fUF6RctQvg

*** Warning Vietnam War visuals might be disturbing for 'Vets that have served in war zones ***

2.) Loretta Lynn--- "Dear Uncle Sam"

Although this is one song that typically doesn't float to the top of the list when it comes to Vietnam era songs, the powerful Female vocals from an Appalachian Country Music legend, tells a powerful story about the how the War in 'Nam was hitting home even in extremely patriotic parts of the nation that got hit hardest by the Draft...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwOhZufXYso

3.) John Prine--- "Sam Stone"

One of the best American songs when it came to the impact of Drug Addiction, for those that got addicted to Heroin while in the service of their Country in 'Nam.

This original song was so powerful that even legendary Johnny Cash did a cover of this song....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLVWEYUqGew

4.) Tom Paxton--- "Talking Vietnam"

Ok--- this is a bit more light hearted but definitely a counter-cultural perspective from many of the Vets serving over there....

"The Captain, this blond fellow from Yale, said what's the matter with you baby"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxSR4ZaDpBg

5.) Billy Joel--- "Goodnight Saigon"

So Roy Moore was a Marine in Vietnam, but apparently didn't believe in the values of the Corps, unlike just about every other USMC member I have ever met, including my Father-in-Law, Son-in-Law, friends that served in Vietnam as US Marine Corp members, my friend Miranda's boyfriend who did three tours in Iraq 2.0 from the initial invasion, to the battle of Falluja...

"We all go down together"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJlZeTSaT98


So where I'm going with all of this, is the extremely powerful cultural impact of the Vietnam War among older voters in Alabama.

They didn't turn out to support Roy Moore to showcase his service and sacrifice during the War in Vietnam, other than one random lawyer from New Jersey.

USMC blood is thick, it got us onto an airplane flight when all the gates were closed down in San Diego, when my wife was wearing a USMC hoodie after we flew down to visit our son-in-law that was in a coma after having an allergic reaction to all the vaccines they jacked him up with two weeks before he was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan.

It's pretty telling that Roy Moore's "Vietnam Story" was pretty bunk to start with and Steve Bannon railing against Mitt Romney for not serving during 'Nam (WTF Huh?).

Roy Moore lost a good chunk of the Military Vet vote in Alabama, likely because his military "history" during the war was already out there an exposed as another puke crap Captain from some University who doesn't understand s**t about the War, but still wants to send us all out to die on Patrols, and running Article 15s like a total a**hole.


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« Reply #13 on: April 01, 2018, 07:39:25 PM »

Alabama 2017 US-SEN Precinct Review # 6: Morgan County:

 

As I posted elsewhere prior to the election, Doug Jones uphill road to victory would be likely reliant not just on heavy African-American turnout, depressed turnout among White Evangelicals in rural areas, flipping White Middle-Class voters in the larger Cities and Suburbs of the State, but also performing well in Northern Alabama (Not just Huntsville) and regaining a good chunk of the Al Gore 2000 vote from Ancestral Democrats in the old TVA "New Deal" part of Alabama.

If we look at the US Presidential election results for Morgan County from 2000 to 2016, as well as the 2012 Supreme Court Race, we see that Doug Jones actually hit the numbers he needed within the County.



Although the larger Metro Areas and College Communities got a disproportionate amount of attention from the Media and Pundits alike, when you look at places like Morgan County (Pop 120k), or Calhoun County (Pop 120k) which I covered earlier, these votes all add up and it is all fine and dandy to run up the numbers in places like Metro Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville, the Black Belt, but you'll run out of steam if you get killed by insane margins in places like this.

Before we start going into the precinct results in greater detail, let's review the demographic profile of the County:

Race/Ethnicity:




These numbers get even starker once you break them down by Age:



Median Household Income Relative to Alabama:



So doing really well compared to most parts of the State in terms of household Income....



Heavily dependent on Manufacturing....



and lower rate of educational attainment than Alabama as a whole....

So, what does the precinct level data show from Morgan County???

Let's start with the % of votes by Place within the County in 2016 and 2017:





So we see the largest City of Decatur going from a 30-32% vote share between '16 and '17, rural areas holding steady at 42% of the County Vote Share, minor changes in Hartselle and Priceville, and the provisional and absentee vote going down dramatically (Likely predominately voters in Decatur).

Now, here are the total vote numbers by place in '16/'17:





Here is a graphical format that shows the swings and percentages among communities in the County:



So the obvious thing that jumps out here:

1.) Decatur the largest single community within the County swung hard Democrat between 2016 and 2017 going from (39-57 Trump) to (56-43 Jones) for a 32% vote swing....

2.) The total Democratic vote numbers increased in all communities within the County (Other than Decatur, which we will get back to shortly), even in rural areas, meaning that you had a not insignificant number of Trump > Jones voters.

3.) The Republican Vote completely collapsed between '16 and '17, regardless of the impact of Trump > Jones voters (We'll come back to that one as well).

Now let's take a look at demographic data briefly from the largest City in the County before breaking down the precinct results from the City:

Decatur, Alabama:


Pop 56k....

Pop by Race/Ethnicity:



Household Income by place Decatur and Morgan County:



Not nearly as well off as most other parts of the County...

Workforce by Industry:



Slightly lower rate of manufacturing than the County as a whole, slightly higher rates of construction, as well as retail and service sector jobs....

Educational Attainment:



Higher than the County average and basically mirrors numbers from Alabama at large....

Decatur Alabama Precinct Results:

So how did the heavily African-American precincts of Decatur vote in 2016 and 2017?

US Census Tracts:



Precinct Results:



So, we see roughly a 20% decrease in the Democratic vote in the heaviest African-American precincts of Decatur, which equate to virtually the entire drop in the total Democratic numbers within the City of Decatur....

How did heavily White wealthier precincts within Decatur vote in 2016 and 2017?

Median Household Income by Census Tracts:



Here are precinct numbers for Decatur Alabama....



So there are four precincts highlighted in Blue, where Doug Jones added votes compared to HRC's '16 numbers....

Several precincts stand out.... Precinct #17 (TC Almon Rec Center) is an overwhelmingly White precinct, with an MHI of almost $73k/yr where Dems expanded their total vote numbers 44% between '16 and '17 (20% HRC- 75% DJT) to (38% Jones- 59% Moore).

It's still the most Republican precinct in the City, but damn those margin swings make the +20% HRC margin swings in places like the Upper-Income White 'Burbs of Chattanooga, Knoxville, and various places in Texas, look like child's play.

Float down to precinct # 10 (Decatur Baptist Church), overwhelmingly White with an MHI of some $ 70k /Yr (25-71% Trump), (44-54% Moore)....

Now lest anyone thinking I'm obsessed with how Upper-Middle Class White 'Bamans voted in 2017, head on over to Precinct # 16 (Oak Park Baptist Church)....

The MHI here is only about $ 40k/ Yr (23-72% Trump) suddenly goes (44-52% Moore)....

So what does this all mean?   In Northern Alabama, at least in the largest City in Morgan County, we saw a Universal swing among White voters towards Doug Jones, regardless of social and economic class, with major gains in raw votes among Upper-Income and Working-Class White precincts alike....

This is certainly not insignificant, as I stated earlier, it would be virtually impossible for Doug Jones to win, without bringing these voters back home, especially in an Ancestral Democratic part of Alabama.

Ok... enough talk about Decatur, what the hell happened in the rest of the County?

Let's look at the 2nd largest City in the County, Hartselle (Pop 14.4k)

Overwhelmingly White (93% vs 4% African-American), fairly wealthy part of the County (MHI $ 51.4k/Yr), 33% have a College Degree, 24% of the population works in manufacturing, higher than normal population of occupations in items such as Engineering...

So the problem here is that the two precincts also include a bunch of surrounding rural areas, so it doesn't give us a complete picture compared to US Census Data...



Now let's take a look at the wealthiest City within Morgan County....

Priceville---- MHI $ 79.2k/Yr, 93% White, 42% with a College or two year degree, occupations and industries have strong correlations with professional occupations and manufacturing industries....



We have similar issues as with Hartselle in that you have these surrounding rural areas that are included within municipal election precinct boundaries, so swings within the City itself are likely much larger than suggested by the Precinct results.

Last stop... Rural areas (42% of the County Vote)....

So the term rural gets a bit tricky, since after staring at precinct maps and Census tract data for a few hours, I can tell you there is at least one precinct and probably a second that technically are more likely "Exurban in Nature" where Doug Jones gained a decent chunk of Trump voters, but hell trying to segregate these wasn't the main focus of the project.

Important take-aways from Rural precincts.... Roy Moore saw roughly a 45% decrease in total Republican Vote compared to the 2016 General Election, within the most overwhelmingly Republican Part of the County (42% of total County Vote), meanwhile it looks like the Jones campaign was able to get just about every last Democrat out to vote in just about all of these rural precincts (!!!), which is an impressive organizing endeavor in and of itself.

The Jones campaign was running like this was General Election turnout campaign in Alabama, and the Moore campaign was sitting there with their thumbs up their derrieres thinking name recognition and Special Election turnout levels would be enough to get the job done (This was even before the sexual assault allegations hit).

Now there is one rural precinct that was eliminated (Ebenezzer Volunteer Fire Department) and consolidated with the Morgan County election precinct (So ignore the data for those two---- I'm already aware of that and it doesn't change much other than just the total vote, margins, and % numbers for those two precincts between '16 and '17).



Anyways, hope all of y'alls appreciate the work I did on this, took me a couple hours to pull this all together, and now that the election has been certified, I would much rather spend my time dissecting the results of the US-Senate election in Alabama than all this other wrangling that has been dominating this thread for well over a month now.
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« Reply #14 on: April 01, 2018, 07:53:59 PM »

This is great does anyone have a shift map of the alabama senate race? or have a link to it on atlas I can't find it I know someone added it

Although this might not be the exact link you are looking for, I think Former President Griff has done a significant amount of research and maps on this election, as well as perhaps of few of our our esteemed Atlas posters from the Southlands.... 

But yeah, if you want to look at Alabama 2017 US-SEN County level Swing Maps, I think there were some appetizers that Fmr President Griff gave us shortly before the election as what a potentially winning Dem County map might potentially look like in 'Bama, which I believe was generally pretty close to mark if my "old man memory" is correct...   Smiley



https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=279603.msg5964813#msg5964813
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« Reply #15 on: April 01, 2018, 08:12:57 PM »

So I decided to spend a little bit of time looking at precinct level data for the Allegheny County portion of the district to see what if anything it might tell us about the upcoming Special Election....

For starters, here is overall how the CD-18 section of the County voted in US PRES elections between 2008 and 2016.

Thanks to Oryxslayer for posting the data from '08 a few pages back!!!



So apologies for restating the obvious to many of us, but the historically Democratic Parts of the district are not actually located within Allegheny County, which has actually been gradually shifting slightly towards the Democratic Party over the past decade, even as Washington and Greene Counties have been swinging hard Republican.

Where are the voters located within South Allegheny CD-18?

Because there are so many municipal jurisdictions in this heavily suburban/exurban area, and diffuse concentration of voters, I had to consolidate places with less than 3% into the "Other" category, but at least include over 80% of the voters into discrete subcategories....



So in order of voting population:

1.) Mt Lebanon--- 12.7%
2.) Bethel Park- 12.0%
3.) Moon-  8.1%
4.) Upper St Clair--- 7.6%
5.) Scott--- 5.4%
6.) S. Fayette- 5.1%
7.) Whitehall--- 4.9%
8.) South Park-- 4.6%
9.) Elizabeth Twp--- 4.4%
10.) N. Fayette--- 4.2%
11.) Robinson--- 4.2%
12.) Jefferson HL--- 3.9%
13.) Pleasant HL--- 3.0%
14.) Collier--- 3.0%

We'll be getting back to some of these places in more detail shortly....

How did these places vote in the 2016 Presidential Election?



Now let's take a look at these same places in the 2012 Presidential Election....



NOW---- Where and what were the swings within South Allegheny (CD-18) between 2012 and 2016???



So, interestingly enough pretty much almost all of the larger population centers within the County swung against Donald Trump with roughly 20% swings in Mt Lebanon and Upton St Clair....

Now, as we have seen before even in areas that swung +20% Dem between '12 and '16, there is still further room for collapse, meaning that considering Trump's decreased approval ratings over the past year, it is entirely plausible that we could see even more significant swings towards a local Centrist Dem candidate in some of these suburban/exurban South Allegheny political jurisdictions....

Ok--- time to dig a bit further into the weeds of South Allegheny CD-18  and check out some of the Social Demographics for various communities within the district....

1.) Mount Lebanon Township---- Pop 33k--- MHI $ 76.0k/Yr--- 91% White--- 68% Degree > HS---
 2016 Pres (61-34 D)


Occupation sectors heavily concentrated in Professional and Management....



Needless to say, we will likely see extremely high turnout here on Tuesday, as well as likely increased swings beyond the 2016 (61-34 D) numbers from the 2012 (53-46 D) numbers.

2.) Bethel Park--- Pop 32.3k--- MHI $ 69.3k/Yr--- 95% White--- 53% Degree > HS    2016 (43-52 R)




This is obviously a must win and must win by +10% City for Lamb, since if recent polls of the CD are to believed Trump is sitting at only about 50% Fav ratings (+3-4%), it's places like this where his support likely slumped more so than in other areas....

3.) Moon Township--- Pop 24.6k--- MHI $ 67.2k/Yr--- 89% White--- 53% Degree > HS, 2016---
 (43-53 R)


Occupations...



So despite the household income and educational attainment similar to Bethel Park, is a bit more Blue Collar/ Pink Collar, with a much smaller percentage of workers concentrated in the "Knowledge and Professional sectors"

Similar to Bethel Park, this is a place where Lamb needs to win by at least high single digits

4.) Upper St Clair Township--- Pop 19.3k--- MHI $ 106.3k/Yr--- 90% White--- 74% Degree > HS--- 2016 (46-50 R)

This was only one of two places in South Allegheny (CD-18) that swung 20% towards HRC between '12 and '16, although it was still a (46-49 R) jurisdiction in 2016....

Occupations....



Needless to say there is a disproportionate amount of Upper Middle Class voters here in what appears to be more a "Country Club Republican" part of the County....

We'll see how this area votes after Tuesday, but if the results we have seen from NoVa to Alabama in similar districts in Special Elections recreate themselves in the "Rust Belt", I wouldn't be surprised to see this Township flip hard against Trump....

5. Scott Township--- Pop 17.0k--- MHI $ 61.4k/ Yr--- 82% White, 11% Asian--- 53% Degree > HS.... 2016 (52-44 D)

Occupations:



So this one is a bit interesting, in that although it didn't have the dramatic swings towards HRC that Mt Lebanon and Upper St Clair did, but yet it is fairly highly educated with a relatively large Asian-American population, and yet moderately low MHI numbers, and one of the only Obama 2012 places within Allegheny CD-18....

Not sure how much swing is left in the '17 Special election, but would imagine a 60-40 Lamb margin would be my target numbers here....

6.) South Fayette Township--- Pop 14.7k--- MHI $ 78.9k--- 90% White/ 7% Asian--- 54% > HS Degree... 2016 (44-52 R)

Occupations....



Ok.... suspect I'm starting to run out of space on the character count for a post, but I think we're starting to get the picture that a good chunk of the voting population of the County are actually Suburban/Exurban Pittsburgh voters, like some of our well known local experts on SW PA have been stating....

So which parts of South Allegheny (CD-18) swung towards Trump compared to 2012?

1.) Elizabeth Township (+11 'Pub swing '12 to '16)--- Pop 13.3k--- MHI $ 59.7k--- 98% White--- 36% Degree > HS

Now this is a pretty old district in terms of age compared to the Allegheny CD section of the County, right over the border from Westmoreland County, and a bit removed from Metro Pittsburgh, so in some ways I would suspect the demographics more closely resemble parts of Greene and Washington County, than most of Southern Allegheny....

2.) We saw a few other marginal swings towards Trump compared to Romney '12 'Pub percentages in Jefferson Hills Township, North Fayette, and South Park Township, but interestingly enough there was only a 1% increase on the 'Pub voting percentage between '12 and '16 in these three places, meaning that although there were swings, it was mainly as a result of defections towards 3rd Party Candidates.


To finish: I don't know what if anything all of this means in the context of an extremely unusual special election in a district Trump won by + 20%.

What I do know is that the trends in the South Allegheny County portion of the district are not at all favorable towards Trump, and considering that 43% of the CD-18 vote is cast here will likely be the make or break moment for Lamb....

Like Pittsburgh Steel and some other knowledgeable posters have been saying this district isn't nearly as "rural" as is being present by the MSM on all Media outlets....

I almost spat out my coffee this morning listening to a media pundit talking talking about how the "Democratic suburbs of Pittsburgh" might flip this district....

Still, in order for Lamb to win this district it will require both a significant swing towards the Dem in South Allegheny (That is increasingly shifting Dem in the "Age of Trump"), combined with recovering enough Ancestral Dem voters in Washington and Greene Counties that as recently as 2008 were only narrowly won by McCain by the sliver of a hair off of my neckbeard.
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« Reply #16 on: April 01, 2018, 08:20:06 PM »

Now that we have the election results available, excepting a small number of provisional and military ballots, I pulled some comparative and historical data for the South Allegheny portion of CD-18, to follow up on a preceding post that I made prior to the election....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=281457.msg6102019#msg6102019

Although the subject of to what extent Ancestral Democrats and Obama > Romney > Trump Democrats returning home to vote for Lamb is an important question in its own right, as well as potential implications for the future in both PA elections, as well as elsewhere in the country, the massive shifts towards the Democratic Party in the Pittsburgh suburbs has equally important potential implications.

Republicans are absolutely correct if they are terrified about what happened in CD-18, especially within the local context of Pennsylvania politics.

These are Republican leaning suburbs that for the most part have resisted significant swings towards the Democratic Party, unlike many similar communities elsewhere over the past 10+ years.

There are a ton of similar communities elsewhere within the Pittsburgh suburbs, which means if we see similar patterns in the 2018 and 2020 General Elections has profound implications within PA politics.

Let's look at how "South Allegheny" voted as a whole between 2008 and 2017....



As we can see, generally the 'Burbs of South Allegheny vote considerably to the Right of PA, as well as Allegheny county as a whole, although we did see the gap narrow considerably in the 2016 in both the US PRES and US SEN race.

Let's look at the data from another perspective...



Here we can see that generally between '08 and '16, South Allegheny roughly voted 10% more Republican than PA as a whole, especially in Presidential Races where it voted 12-15% more 'Pub than PA as a whole in '08 and '12.

This is part of the reason why I say that although the South Pittsburgh 'Burbs have potentially been gradually trending Dem, until the Special election in CD-18 we had yet to see a real breakthrough Dem moment, outside of a handful of Communities.

As I stated earlier PA Republicans have a major issue on their hands if this pattern is replicated in 2018 and 2020 here, and in similar parts of the Pittsburgh 'Burbs.



Time to get into the meat of the matter (Or Veggie Protein options if that is one's preference)....

How did the various communities in South Allegheny Vote in 2017, and how did they swing compared to the 2016 GE PRES?





The most striking thing here is how extensive the Democratic victory in South Allegheny was, only losing 2/14 largest Townships/Municipalities (Elizabeth & Jefferson Hills), and a swing from 15-20% compared to the '16 Pres GE results everywhere, except Elizabeth Township and only a 14% Dem swing in Upper St Clair.

Much of the MSM and Atlas coverage has been focused on Mt Lebanon, but the reality is that it is only very recently that it has become anything approaching a "Democratic Stronghold", as I posted a reply on this thread earlier regarding which areas to watch closely on Election Night, and it only accounts for a relative sliver of South Allegheny and CD-18, so is perhaps much less typical of Suburban Pittsburgh than many of these other communities.

Ok... let's roll with some charts and stats of elections results by place within South Allegheny from '08 to '16....

2016 PRES Results by Place Graph...



2016 PRES results by Place Chart



Even in 2016 where South Allegheny shifted DEM, Clinton only won 3/14 of the largest places with Mt Lebanon standing out, as well as an acceptable performance in Scott Township, throw in a narrow victory in Whitehall and the "Other Category".

2016 PA SEN by Place Charts & Graphs....





2014 PA GOV by Place Charts & Graphs...





2012 PA PRES South Allegheny Charts & Graphs:





2012 PA South Allegheny SEN Charts & Graphs:






2010 PA South Allegheny SEN Charts & Graphs:





2010 PA South Allegheny GOV Charts and Graphs:





2008 PA South Allegheny Charts & Graphs:





Massive raw data dump here and still need to take some time to digest and pull up and publish the Political and Social Demographics of the various communities to mine whatever potential past, current, and future implications have to say.

Thinking my next move should examine the question to what extent high Base Democratic turnout vs Republican turnout might have potentially changed the results, similar to some of my analysis of precinct level returns from the Alabama Special elections results, where it appears that a mixture of high Dem turnout in certain places, combined with low Pub turnout in other places, and throw in a decent chunk of Republican > Dem crossover voters in Upper Incomes suburbs contributed to Doug Jones win in Alabama....

On the surface it does NOT appear that a turnout variable was a significant contribution to Lamb's win in PA CD-18, but rather a massive swing among Republican leaning voters in the Pittsburgh suburbs of South Allegheny combined with even larger swings among Ancestral Dem voters in Washington and Greene Counties (Westmoreland is still a place I have not examined in any significant detail)....

Part of the reason why I think this election is particularly significant is that unlike many other special elections it was a relatively high turnout election closer to a Midterm level Turnouts as opposed to many other recent Special Elections, where there might be a decent argument to be made that Dem Base voters turned out in much higher numbers than usual....

The story that we are seeing from the Pittsburgh suburbs appear to tell an entirely different story....


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« Reply #17 on: April 01, 2018, 08:23:58 PM »

To summarize the dump of election data by place for South Allegheny between 2008 and 2017 that I posted last night, here is a chart that I coded by color to present a more accessible visual of +/- Dem Margins that reinforces the point that I have been making regarding the historically Republican nature of these communities within the past ten years....



So, I took a little bit of time to pull up some of the key demographic stats for these various communities within South Allegheny for some of the common variables that have been associated with National Presidential election results from 2008 > 2016.

These include items such as Median Household Income, Race/Ethnicity/Age/Educational Attainment, so see if this helps explain or provide insights into changing voting alignments and swings at a larger level throughout PA, and with possible implications elsewhere within the Region.



Certain things make sense within the context of the current Trump ascendancy within the Republican Party....

1.) Upper St Clair, the wealthiest and most educated "municipality" went from being the most Republican stronghold within the district up until 2016 when Trump was on the ballot, where he only won by 3.5% (But still it went heavily 'Pub for US Senate) to being a +10% Dem CD with typically high voter turnout.

Interestingly enough it also has the highest % of school children (<18 Yrs) and this is the type of community where voters can easily swing based upon educational funding and quality type policy issues and perceptions.

2.) Mount Lebanon is an interesting recent development as a "Democratic Stronghold", since although it shares in common with Upper St Clair a high level of Educational Attainment, actually only ranks 4th in MHI within the largest places in the District, and age and ethnicity actually track relatively close to South Allegheny at large. It does have a higher % than average of school age students, and is obviously much more closely proximate to Pittsburgh, so perhaps has less of the "City/Suburban" type issue than some other places within the district?

Perhaps one of our local residents can elucidate us on why this area has been a relatively solid Dem constituency since '08?

3.) Bethel Park--- Looks a bit older and a bit more Anglo, but in terms of MHI, Educational Attainment is still solidly Upper Middle Class, and this is first major election where it has voted Democrat since before '08.

4.) Moon Township--- Really similar to Bethel Park demographically and politically, with both virtually voting in tandem with the exception of the '14 PA GOV race, and slightly lower swings towards Lamb than Bethel (Trump effect?). Only major demographic difference is that Moon Township is less Anglo than Bethel fwiw.

5.) Scott Township
---- One of a handful of "Middle Class" 'Burbs here with an MHI of only $61k/Yr, but is only 82% Anglo with an older than average population and relatively high educational attainment levels.

One of the few consistent Democrat voting communities here, with the exception of '12 PA SEN and '10 PA GOV.

6.) South Fayette--- Wealthier and more educated than many places within South Allegheny, and actually a bit younger than most of the other places referenced above.

One of the larger flips within South Allegheny never having voted Dem for any of the races covered and by +21% Swing.

7.) Whitehall Borough------ The lowest income municipality of the 14 largest places within South Allegheny. One of the older places within the County and with a lower than average level of educational attainment.

Politically, it's one of only a handful of communities that Obama almost won in '08, and was actually one of the more Democratic parts of So Allegheny in '12 PA SEN and '14 PA GOV, and actually flipped and voted DEM for HRC in '16 after having voted for McCain and Romney previously.

Ancestral retired Democrats?Huh

8.) South Park Twp
---- Whiter, Younger, solidly Middle Class and lower levels of educational attainment than most of the top 14 communities.

One of Obama's best communities in South Allegheny in '08, and one of a handful of places the '12 Dem Sen and '14 Dem Gov candidates won here....

Interestingly enough was one of Lamb's worst Top 14 places within SoAlleg....

9.) Elizabeth Township
---- Sure the Pub had a homefield advantage here as Lamb did in Mt Lebanon, but you are basically looking at the Whitest, Oldest, and least educated community within the Top 14 of SoAlleg.

Still, the interesting thing about Elizabeth Township is how far it swung Republican, even as other parts of the district were swinging marginally Democrat.... Basically we are right on the edge of the Westmoreland County line and perhaps there is an ancestral Anti-Pittsburgh thing going on, without the Ancestral Dem thing in parts of Washington and Greene Counties (IDK?Huh)

I can roll through a few more using the charts provided above, and we see Robinson Township swinging hard (Educated, Upper Middle Class, Higher than avg % of Non-Anglos for the District), but then we roll into Jefferson Hills Borough, which on the surface is very similar to Robinson, except it is 96% Anglo vs 88 % Anglo, which was the only real difference that stood out to me based upon Demographics....

Now we go the Pleasant Hills Borough, which is pretty much the oldest and Whitest place here, next to Elizabeth and Whitehall, and we see one of the largest swings towards the Dem candidate of almost anywhere in the County, where the last time it voted Dem was in '12 narrowly for the US SEN!!!!

So y'all can put that in your pipe and smoke it, since I've been doing a stream of consciousness as I have been running the Demographics by Community against historical election results, so I don't have any firm conclusions about what all of this means without delving deeper into precinct level detail and Census Data....

What I suspect might well be the case is that:

1.) Senior Citizens (65+) that tend to vote regularly swung hard towards Lamb because of the perception that the Affordable Care Act and Government Entitlement Programs that benefit Seniors are under attack by the Republican Congress.

(Ancestral Democrats)

2.) Upper and Middle Class College Educated voters in the 'Burbs of Pittsburgh are starting to swing heavily, and not just in the most heavily educated places within the CD (Upper St Clair and Mt Lebanon).

3.) In general "Soft Trump" voters within even Lean 'Pub areas in Metro 'Burbs are starting to shop around, since the whole "Anti-Bush" style of Republicanism portraying a classical isolationist and protectionist ideal is being rubbed raw as the Emperor is exposed as having no clothes, and instead of focusing on keeping decent paying jobs in America and avoiding foreign engagements overseas, is basically looking like your "Old Skool 'Pub Pres", where Robin Hood means "robbing the hood", tax cuts for everyone, means "tax cuts for the rich", bringing jobs back to America means "Same old Same old and whatever manufacturing jobs come back pay 25-50% of the wages they did 20 years ago", where "protecting our borders" means sending Americas sons and daughters born of Immigrant parents back home to a land they never knew, except through the stories of their parents and grandparents.

Regardless of some minor amount of hyperbole on my last point, I do believe that in the eyes of many Trump voters, including some Millennials that I know, they did not intend to vote for the current policies and direction of the country, regardless of how much they disliked HRC and thought that maybe, just maybe Trump would be a different type of Republican than they had seen in decades.


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« Reply #18 on: April 01, 2018, 08:25:42 PM »

Now I've posted more detailed level election results for South Allegheny a few weeks back here, as well as summarizing some of the data and adding in Demographic data by place in a follow-up post...

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=281457.2550

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=281457.2550

Time to take a look at what the data shows for South Allegheny when it comes to the more thorny question of the question of Democratic and Republican base turnout versus swings from Trump '16 > Lamb '18 crossover voters.

This question is perhaps a bit more difficult than some of the data I posted based upon detailed precinct and municipal analysis from the 2017 Alabama US Senate election, where for example I pulled up multiple places where there was clearly a massive flip among Trump '16 > Jones '17 voters in many places throughout the State.... (See link below for example on some interesting items in Baldwin County)

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=279603.375

OK---- let's look at the overall Total Vote in municipalities within South Allegheny in the 2018 Special Election as a % Share of the 2016 Presidential Election Total Vote by Municipality and DEM/REP respective % in 2018 of their 2016 PRES numbers to see what if anything this might tells us of enthusiasm gap vs flip voters....



Let's repost the Demographic data chart that I posted previously by Municipality:



Let's throw in a graph I posted regarding '16 GE Pres vs '18 CD-18 Swings:



What does this data tell us?

1.) The highest turnout was in the two places with the highest level of Educational Attainment (Mount Lebanon and Upper St Clair) which had respectively 74% and 70% turnout levels compared to the 2016 General Election, and the next highest level of Turnout was in Bethel Park and Elizabeth Townships.

If we look at the % of the '18 Democratic vote compared to the '16 GE, we see the Democratic Candidate capturing 87% of the Vote in Mt Lebanon, 86% in Bethel Park, 84% in Upper St Clair, and 81% in Elizabeth Township.

We see the 'Pub nominee capturing 60% of the Trump vote in Mt Lebanon, 59% in Bethel Park, 63% in Upper St Clair, and 65% in Elizabeth Township....

1.) It's pretty clear that in Mt Lebanon there was both a mixture of Democratic Base turnout combined with Cross-Over Trump > Lamb voters (After all his home base community) even within the context of relatively high Republican voter turnout).... Overall margins swings were significantly less than we saw in many of the other largest communities within South Allegheny.

2.) Upper St Clair which is the wealthiest and most educated larger municipality, had one of the lowest swings to Lamb compared to Trump '16 %, and had the 2nd highest % level of Republican voters compared to 'Pub GE Pres numbers.

Although I have no doubt that there were quite a few Trump > Lamb voters here, it does not appear that the Upper-Income Anglo voters here (MHI $106.3k/Yr) were nearly as significant as elsewhere within South Allegheny, despite the fact that this was a + 19% McCain '08 district that in '16 became a + 4% Trump district, and then a 55-45 Dem district in '18 Special Election.

Still, it is worthy of noting that this is first time ever in recent political history that this Community has voted Democrat, and with the exception of 2016 has been the most Republican community within South Allegheny.

3.) Bethel Park--- 

If we look at the 2018 Special Election results, it's pretty clear here based upon turnout and % of choice, that there was a significant amount of Trump > Lamb crossover voters compared to many other larger municipalities within the district.... 

If we cross-ref against the other data this appears more like a moderately Middle/ Upper-Middle-Class Community within So Allegheny that is relatively close to the overall Demographic Profile.

4.) Elizabeth----.... Since 2016 has become one of the highest level Republican strongholds within this portion of the County and one of the only 'Pub 18 Municipalities in '18....

We see the lowest differential between Trump '16 and 'Pub '18 numbers, in a high turnout election for both candidates....   Sure it was the 'Pub nominees home town, but still cross-over voters appear much lower here than elsewhere within the district....

5.) Where it appears that we might seem some of the biggest swings are in places such as Jefferson Hills, Pleasant Hills, and Collier.

6.) North Fayette and Robinson are iffier since looking at the overall turnout levels, how much of the swing was a depression of the Republican vote versus voters that swung from Trump '16 to Lamb '18.

7.) Still not so sure about Moon, Scott, South Fayette, and Whitehall regarding the question of Dem/Rep turnout versus Trump > Lamb voters.

Anyways, still looking in more detail at individual precinct results, but wanted to do a first dive into the whole Democratic/Republican Base Turnout question versus Trump voters that swung towards Lamb.

 
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« Reply #19 on: April 02, 2018, 11:34:14 PM »

Is the data available for Tuscaloosa County yet?  It might be interesting to compare and contrast it with Lee County, since Tuscaloosa has a far larger population that has nothing to do with the university, but also a large university population.
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« Reply #20 on: April 03, 2018, 02:06:43 AM »

Is the data available for Tuscaloosa County yet?  It might be interesting to compare and contrast it with Lee County, since Tuscaloosa has a far larger population that has nothing to do with the university, but also a large university population.

Extreme Conservative, good to see you around these parts... you are in my Top Ten category for posters from the Southlands when it comes to objective political election data, demographics, and analysis, even though we might frequently not see eye-to-eye on a wide variety of political topics.

No---- I have not yet been able to obtain precinct level data from Tuscaloosa County for the 2017 Alabama Special Election, although it is actually on my "top wanted list" for this election.

Tuscaloosa County is fascinating for a wide variety of reasons, as I'm sure you and many other Atlas observers are well aware....

The Sixth largest County in Alabama, home to arguably the most well known University/College within the State, that although it has a slightly higher % of Brothers and Sisters than the State at Large, is still overwhelmingly White.

Obviously within Tuscaloosa itself you have a fairly educated population, regardless of the U of A student vote, that may or may not have voted within their home Counties during the Winter Break.

Now Tuscallosa itself only accounts for 50% of the County Vote, and meanwhile out in the Eastern section of the County you have Vance, Alabama home to a major Mercedes-Benz Plant....

I referenced the dramatic surge towards Doug Jones in the areas right around the major Honda Plant in Calhoun County in one of my Alabama posts above, obviously we all know that the Huntsville Area has a major Auto Sector component (Which I have thus far bypassed because of their tricky precinct changes between '12 and '16).

I would not be surprised if some of the major swings in Tuscaloosa County actually happened in the Eastern portion of the County, where basically Moderate Republican professionals dumped the Nutjob 'Pub Senate dude, and flipped hard Jones, just like many other educated Upper-income Alabama voters did.....

Still, without access to raw data it is hard to see what exactly happened in Tuscaloosa County.... Obviously one would expect that since Classes were closed for the Season, many Undergrad students voted at home in their parent's precincts, leaving the City of Tuscaloosa itself more of a mixture of "Townies and Gownies" (Profs and Grad Students). but it doesn't sufficiently explain the overall election results, without looking at the other 50% of the County, where even if most of the U of A students were gone, would logically mean that this Democratic leaning City would have a much smaller voter share compared to the County compared to a normal General Election....

Anyone want to anonymously send me a link or file of precinct data from Tuscaloosa County, will be happy to review and ad to the mix... Wink
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« Reply #21 on: April 03, 2018, 07:16:41 AM »

Fivethirtyeight finally did this analysis that I've been waiting for someone to do. Thought it might be interesting to see how it measures up with your more granular analysis:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/be-skeptical-of-anyone-who-tells-you-they-know-how-democrats-can-win-in-november/
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« Reply #22 on: April 07, 2018, 06:50:11 PM »

As Richard Nixon used to famously say when talking to his key advisers regarding a wide range of Policy Issues from Vietnam, to the Civil Rights Movement transitioning to Northern States, Economic Policy, etc:   

"How Will it Play in Peoria"Huh?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_it_play_in_Peoria%3F

Although Richard Nixon was talking about Peoria, Illinois and not Peoria, Arizona, it is perhaps a fitting barometer of the 8th Congressional District of Arizona, where Peoria represents almost 25% of the Vote Share of the district, and essentially will provide a key test of Trump's ability to keep the Republican Party brand intact within a fast growing Exurban City within the Sun Belt, where in theory Trump's American Nativist and Hardline stance on immigration should be a winning proposition.....

Let's start with taking a look at the relative vote share by Community within AZ-08.



So as we see the vote share within the Congressional District is roughly as follows:

Peoria- 23%
Glendale- 17%
Surprise- 16.5%
Phoenix- 11%
Goodyear- 9%
UNINC-OTHER- 8%
Sun City- 7%
Sun City West- 4%
Others- 5 %

Why do I provide such significance to Peoria within CD-08, compared to other communities within the District, other than just the raw percentage of the vote coming from this "City"?


Basically any roadmap for Democratic victory within CD-08 will by necessity involve exceeding Democratic Maricopa County Sheriff candidate Paul Penzone's numbers in a district where Trump ally "Sheriff Joe Arpaio" won by 16,000 votes ( +5% Rep), while Trump won it by 70k votes (+ 20.7% Rep).

There are a huge number of Trump > Penzone cross-over voters that traditionally vote Republican, that any Democratic Candidate will need to win in this hardcore Rock-Ribbed 'Pub Suburban/Exurban Phoenix district.

Here's a chart of the '16 Sheriff Results by Place within CD-08.



Let's look at the '16 Presidential Results by Place within CD-08:



Now, to put this all within the larger context, we have not only the largest voting bank within the District, but additionally the place with almost the highest percentage of Trump > DEM Sheriff cross-over voters in 2016, other than some Upper-Income parts of Phoenix which I'll get to later !!!!

What else makes Peoria particularly significant when it comes to CD-08?

It generally mirrors the overall Demographics of the District.

AZ-CD08: Race & Ethnicity:



Peoria AZ: Race & Ethnicity:



Arizona CD-08: Household Income by Place:



Arizona CD-08: Education by Place:



Ok---- we have now established the Peoria is really perhaps the key place to watch in CD-08 when it comes to electoral margins.


Peoria Election Results 2012 PRES and 2016 GENERAL:



So what we see here is again how reliably Republican Peoria is, even in the 2016 Presidential Elections, with the local County elections for Sheriff being the only real case of a major deviation from recent voting history.

Now, although I haven't compiled the numbers for other Maricopa County downballot races, it does appear that in places like Peoria there was not only a major rejection of "Sheriff Joe" running under the Republican banner, but also to a significant extent local elected County offices from County Attorney, to County Recorder, to County School Superintendent even in solidly Republican precincts in Maricopa County.

It is potentially an early warning sign that Anglo Middle-Class Exurban voters are starting to reject their Maricopa County Republican Party Machine at a local level, and might well move on up the Food Chain in 2018.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but many of these voters went Democratic in essentially a nationalized election (County Sheriff) for the first time in their voting histories in a Metro Area where in theory the whole "Anti-Immigrant" shtick used be a shoe-in for any Republican Candidate running for office.

Glendale, Arizona:

In theory, Glendale should be the closest potential thing to a Democratic stronghold in the event of a massive 2018 Democratic Wave election.

It has a huge 17% of CD-08 votes, Trump "only" won by 12.5% of the Vote, and the Democratic Candidate for Sheriff captured a whopping 52% of the Vote against Arpaio.

The reality is that CD-08 was basically designed to take to most Democratic and Latino portions of Glendale and pack them into the district in the South, and essentially left the 2/3 of the City with the most traditionally Republican voters "Up North" as a safety insurance policy.

So although overall Glendale was only (45-47 Trump) in 2016, the 25% of the Population outside of CD-08 was (59-33 Clinton).

The 80% of Glendale remaining within the district incorporates a mix of Working-Class / Lower Middle-Class communities in the Southern precincts that tend to be heavily Anglo with a decent Latino Population, to rolling North to heavily Upper Middle-Class Anglo precincts in the far Northern part of the City.

Here is a Map of Glendale Arizona shaded by % of Latinos within the Population....



So for anyone not used to looking at these types of maps, basically what you are looking at with the darkest shading are heavily Latino precincts, not located within Arizona CD-08, and the part of Glendale you see North of the Giant dividing line, includes some precincts in "South Central" Glendale that might be around 25 % Latino.

Here is a Map shaded by Median Household Income for Glendale that shows that the heavily Upper-Income parts of the City reside in the Northern Part of the City.



Here is a Glendale precinct map that shows the overall Trump > Clinton margins by Precinct:



Note there are three precinct cut off the Map (Butler +9 HRC, Caron +4 DJT, Glencroft +6 HRC), but I think y'all get the picture that this should normally be considered solidly Republican Suburban Country under a normal "Generic Republican" Universe.

Now, we are looking a potential scenario where places like the Gerrymandered most 'Pub section of Glendale is looking like a potential Democratic stronghold within CD-08 in November '18, in a similar fashion like Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania went from being a Lean Republican suburb of Pittsburgh to an overwhelmingly Democratic stronghold within barely over 10 years....

Ok--- that might be a bit of a stretch, but still the South Pittsburgh 'Burbs of PA-18 mostly resisted the major Dem swing in Upper-Income Anglo 'Burbs in the '16 GE (+ 5% '12 >'16 Dem Pres Swing) and then came swinging hard with massive whacks off the baseball bat....

Anyways--- have tons of more data from the 142 precincts that make up AZ CD-08, but unlike PA CD-18, there are no Ancestral Democratic voting blocks that are available to come back to the fold to add to major swings in Suburban/Exurban Republican areas for a win.

Instead what we have is a new emerging Democratic Coalition in the most Republican Part of Metro Phoenix without any real historical Democratic Base (HRC won 12/142 Precincts in '16), with the overwhelming majority of the others won by Trump with Double Digits, and the only election in recent memory where a Democrat has won a huge chunk of real estate throughout the district was running as County Sheriff against a guy under multiple legal clouds, who cost the taxpayers of Maricopa County Hundreds of Millions of Dollars because of his shady law enforcement techniques.

My suspicion is that for a Democrat to win this seat it would take something like the following from the places within the district:

1.) Peoria (52-48 D)
2.) Glendale (59-41 D)
3.) Surprise (51-49 D)
3.) Phoenix (53-47 D)
4.) Goodyear (61-39 D)
5.) Sun City (44-56 R)
6.) Sun City West (41-59 R)
7.) Uninc Others (48-52 R)

To Be Continued.....





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« Reply #23 on: April 07, 2018, 06:51:36 PM »

Realized that maybe I jumped the gun a bit when it came to my original post regarding CD-08 and started jumping into the weeds a bit perhaps without providing the topline election numbers by community within CD-08....

Here is a Chart that I made for how the various places within AZ CD-08 voted from '12 to '16 for key races...



So, what does this data tell us within the context of the AZ-08 Special Election and potentially the AZ '18 GE???

First thing obviously to look at would be how the Democratic and Republican US SEN candidates performed in the 2012 AZ-SEN race...

The reason why I consider that significant is that here you had a Republican Senator significantly under-perform the US-PRES candidate in 2012 but still win by (56-39 R), so if Dems might potentially flip the district in a Special Election in '18, the Dem candidate would need to perform exceptionally well in places where Flake was relatively weak.

We can also look at the 2012 vs 2016 Presidential Election numbers as a potential data point in terms of areas where one might expect to see larger swings towards the Dem in the '18 AZ CD-08 Special Election....



So interestingly enough despite the "Latino Surge" of 2016, it appears that at least within the most heavily Latino and Working-Class part of the Congressional district, Millennial Latinos shifted heavily towards 3rd Party Candidates if we look at El Mirage for example.

Now, it does get confusing in the Suburbs and Exurbs of Phoenix when trying to separate the Anglo/Latino Vote, without going deep into the weeds of precinct results, but the immediate data does seem to suggest that the '12 to '16 Dem Pres Swings were more predominant in more heavily Anglo precincts within the district.

This is actually both positive and negative data when it comes to a Democrat running within the district for a "low turnout" Special Election....

The negative side is obvious, is that even with a "surge" of Latino Millennials voting in '16 for 3rd Party Pres candidates, will they actually turn out to vote in a 2018 Special Election?

The positive side is that there appears to have been a significant shift among Middle and Upper-Middle Class Anglos towards a Democratic Candidate in a big way for the first time ever in many of these communities....



Key question here, is to what extent was the rejection of "Sheriff Joe" considered to be more of an issue of corrupt local top cop and an Anti-Latino bigot to boot, vs a rejection among many McCain/Flake/Romney traditional 'Pub voters that gave Trump a pass in '16, that having voted Democrat for the first time in quite a few years, might continue to follow that path into the 2018 General Election?

I don't pretend to have the answers to any of these questions, and hopefully will have some time to go through the various communities that consist of CD-08 in greater detail before the upcoming special election.

Still, hopefully there is some food for thought here....



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« Reply #24 on: April 07, 2018, 06:52:37 PM »

Decided to shift focus slightly here, since it appears that we will have some updated results of Early Vote totals by Partisan Registration and Arizona State legislative districts to potentially provide us with some means of trying to interpret early voting results as they roll in from the Great State of Arizona...

People might want to file away or bookmark some of this data as a reference point over the next couple weeks....

So here is a chart I made that shows the current Early Voting numbers by legislative districts compared against the 2016 General Election and 2014 General Election that gives us an idea of the relative vote share by State Districts.



I'll try to keep updating this semi-regularly as we get updated results for EV numbers by district.

Now, the key caveat here is that the numbers for '14 and '16 are the total vote share by district (Including Election Day ballots, as well as all Early Voting ballots) and obviously the numbers on the left are constantly under development.

Although I don't pretend to be a fluent expert on the dynamics of Early Voting in Arizona, but in Oregon that has long been an all Vote-by-Mail State, we typically tend to see a massive surge of ballots show up in the last week on an election, and these frequently tend to come from younger and Middle-Aged voters, Cities/Suburbs, and tend to skew a bit more Democratic than some of the earliest wave of mail-in-ballots.

Thus far we are seeing one major trend in CD-08 vote share that stands out, which is the extremely lopsided numbers from State District 22, which has always been the largest "Vote Bank" in the district, and looking at an off-year election in 2014 tends to have an even heavier weight.

If we look at the next largest district State District 21 we see a relatively stable performance compared to '14 and '16.

Elsewhere thus far we are seeing significant drops in most other State Districts, with the exception of State District 13.

The largest % drop of EV in AZ-08 compared to total Vote Share by State District, is in District 20.

This is perhaps not surprising, considering that those districts that vote early early by mail, versus those areas with much higher rates of "Same Day" turnout are going to experience some variances, but it is still important to continue to observe going forward.

Now, how did these Arizona State Districts vote between 2012 and 2016 for some key races?



So what does this matrix that I generated tell us (If anything) about voting patterns in CD-08?

1.) Look closely at the 2012 US-SEN results by district to see how well a "New Republican Congressional Candidate" performed by State District in CD-08 in what was generally considered to be a favorable Republican election year.

      A.) We see really only three Republican State District strongholds (Districts 1, 15, and 22) and then some relative marginal numbers in Districts 13,20, & 21.

      B.)Some of the margins are explained by a 3rd Party Libertarian Candidate that performed quite well, but Trump still outperformed Flake in most of the State Districts as a % of Total 'Pub Votes, with the exception of State District 15, 29 & 30.

2.) The closest thing we have to a winning Democratic playbook in CD-08 would be the 2016 Maricopa County Sheriff Election where Sheriff Joe won by 5% within the CD.

    A.) We see a massive breakthough in House District 20 (Most of Glendale within the District), that was only +9 Flake in '12, and also where there was a significant drop in 'Pub support between the '12 and '16 Presidential Elections, but basically where even in the '16 Pres and '12 Sen election, only 52% voted 'Pub.

    B.) District 21 is starting to look like increasingly marginal 'Pub territory looking at the '12 US SEN results, Trump only capturing 54% in '16, and Sheriff Joe only winning in a squeaker here....

       As I previously stated, it's all about Peoria, Arizona and considering that Sun City didn't swing hard Dem on Sheriff, means that the part of the district in Peoria and Surprise likely played a key role here.

3.) Ok--- thus far we have seen much higher EV numbers come out of the most heavily Republican State Senate District within CD-08 (District 22) and also District 15 (One of the only other overwhelmingly 'Pub Districts), and much lower EV turnout among the handful of Dem leaning districts, and also within the key District 20, where Dem's need to win big in Glendale to make this anything close to a horserace).

4. Now, what do the early voting numbers tell us from CD-08 compared against previous margins from recent key elections?



So, interestingly enough the total Registered Republican vs Registered Democratic vote margins appear to be weakest in the most Republican Districts within CD-08.

The places where Republican vs Democratic EV turnout compared to previous elections is highest compared to total votes are in the most heavily Democratic or potentially Democratic leaning areas (Where there is much higher % of Same Day voting)....

There could be multiple explanations for the significant decline of Republican EV turnout in the most heavily Republican portions of the County, and certainly one could possibly be the explanation that I suggested earlier in this thread, that one can't automatically assume that Independents tend to Lean Democratic in this particular district, which could obviously perhaps explain why there appears to have been a bit of a collapse in the most heavily 'Pub Arizona districts, but that might well be a bit of a stretch.

At this point it's looking like the 'Pub numbers in State Districts (1,15, and 22) are starting to look fairly weak, district 20 (Must win heavily Dem area) strong, plus some relatively favorable early indicators from district 21 (Must flip Dem area)....

To be Updated and Continued accordingly, but still we now have some additional data points to watch the EV in "Real Time" without knowing how Dems/Reps/Indies will breakdown in final voting numbers within the district....


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