National Average Trending: An Incredible Waste of My Life

[Cubby]

Alcon thats really cool what you're doing. I like when you give descriptions of what certain counties are like, such as in WA and OR (but I guess you know those b/c they are near you) Its not a waste of your life, enquiring minds want to see maps

Whats up with Okanogan County? It seems like a big forest area, hardly the type of place to swing strongly to Kerry.

I'm eagerly awaiting more maps

[Cubby]

How do you know it was a 9/11 trend effect though? While it's a plausible explanation, has anyone actually gathered any evidence for this? I mean, the biggest GOP shifts were in Rhode Island and New Jersey, not New York. A lot of these northeastern areas voted Republican before Clinton, it could just be the fact that neither Clinton nor Gore was on the ticket.

Some of the NY suburbs showed a sharp shift.  Nassau County went from a 19 poit Dem victory in 96 & 2000 to a 5.6 point Dem victory in 04 (a shift from 11.5% more Dem in 96 to 19% more Dem in 2000 to 8% more Dem in 04)  Suffolk County went from being 11% more Dem than the national average in 00 to 3.5% more Dem than the national average).  Both counties shifted Dem against the national average from 88-00 in every Presidential election.  Also I tend to think its the 9/11 shift (which seemed to evaporate especially after Katrina) when you look at the fact the counties mentioned were only a few points more Dem than the national average last year, but approval ratings show Bush's approval 10-13 points LOWER here now than the national average (polls showed Bush hovering around 30% on Long Island about a month ago when his national approval was in the low 40's.

Now only though a handful of people this theory kind of holds with some members of my family who voted for Clinton twice, voted for Gore in 2000, but voted for Bush in 04 primarily due to his 9/11 handling, but now wish they didn't vote for him.  Another point is in part some of the areas that saw a shift  to the GOP in 00-04 (Long Island, parts of Jersey) that were once Republican & trended heavily Dem in the 90's) are socially liberal areas.  Not exactly something that will cause any trend to the GOP in the last couple years

You are absolutely right Smash. I was stunned by Bush's increase in the New York Metro Area. I think the same situation applies to Connecticut except we also had the Lieberman factor (ie he wasn't on this ticket). I had been predicting 60%+ Democrat for NY and CT, nearly that for NJ, yet the lingering 9/11 feelings and perhaps the GOP convention countered what people's actual feelings were.