How Did Division I-A College Football Cities vote by PRES in 2020?

[Sailor Haumea]

SEC-West- Tuscaloosa, Alabama

This was a bit of a challenge for several reasons:

1.) I did not have a current precinct map to work off of.

2.) Some of the precinct voting locations changed between 2016 and 2020.

3.) There are possibly some split- precincts at work.

4.) Once again in Alabama we see Absentee & Provisional ballots not redistributed to the voting precincts, but instead thrown into a lump county basket.

That being said, I did not want to neglect the home of the Crimson Tide, and plus as I was already doing some work on Alabama, it seemed logical to continue, regardless of the inherent frustrations involved.

Let's start with a precinct map of Tuscaloosa County, which I had to "reverse engineer" from 2016.



Now let's look at a map of where the City Limits are located:



Here are the precincts which I coded as either City or Split Precincts. After trying to review these against City Boundaries, I have excluded precinct #24 from the City numbers as the majority of the population appears to be in unincorporated areas around Holt. The other split-precincts appear to have a significant majority of the POP within City Limits.



Tuscaloosa City 2020 GE PRES
26.8% of County Vote Share:       -7.2% 2016 > 2020

Biden:    14,988      (62.1%)        +26.0% Biden        (+1.4% Trump Swing)
Trump:     8,718      (36.1%)
Misc:          429       ( 1.8%)
Total:     24,135                          -14.1% Decrease 2016 > 2020

Tuscaloosa County (Non City) 2020 GE PRES
58.7% of County Vote Share:     -3.8% 2016 to 2020

Biden:   13,572       (25.6%)           +47.4% Trump     (+2.6% Trump Swing)
Trump:  38,649       (73.0%)
Misc:         720        ( 1.4%) 
Total:    52,941                              +2.3% 2016 > 2020

Absentee / Provisional 2020 GE PRES
14.5% of County Vote Share:        +11.0% 2016 > 2020

Biden:         9,205     (70.3%)          +41.7% Biden     (+59.3% Biden Swing '16>'20)
Trump:        3,750     (28.6%)
Misc:             141      (1.1%)
Total:        13,096                             +357.1% Increase 2016 to 2020                         


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Tuscaloosa City 2016 GE PRES
34.0% of County Vote Share:

HRC:       17,224     (61.3%)        +27.4% HRC
Trump:     9,527      (33.9%)
Misc:        1,357      ( 4.8%)
Total:      28,108   

Tuscaloosa County (Non City) 2016 GE PRES
62.5% of County Vote Share:

HRC:     13,419      (25.9%)           +44.8% Trump
Trump:  36,572      (70.7%)
Misc:      1,736       ( 3.4%) 
Total:    51,727

Absentee / Provisional 2016 GE PRES
3.5% of County Vote Share:

HRC:          1,119     (39.1%)          +17.6% Trump
Trump:       1,624     (56.7%)
Misc:             122      (4.3%)
Total:         2,865

How to attempt to break down the Absentee / Provisional Vote in 2020?

If we assign the 2020 Absentee / Provisional votes by the 2016 City / County / Other distribution:

Tuscaloosa would have 34.0% of County Votes in 2020= 30,658 TVs

This would add an further 2,550 votes to the City of Tuscaloosa...

If we were to uniformly assign % breakdown by City / County:

Tuscaloosa City:

Biden: + 1,793         (16,781)-   62.9%        +27.5% Biden    (+0.1% Biden Swing). 
Trump: +  729          ( 9,447)-    35.4%
Misc:    +    28          (   457)
 
Naturally it is extremely improbable that Tuscaloosa City vs Rest of County % Votes broke down uniformly and DEM % were likely much higher in the City than in the rest of County, which is pretty overwhelmingly Republican, outside of a couple small DEM precincts in Northport, plus Tuscaloosa split-precinct #24 by Holt Uninc Areas.

The frustrating part of the Unknown is that between 2016 and 2020, there were an additional 7,472 Voters (+9.0% increase from 2016 TVs), but we simultaneously had roughly a +10k increase in Absentee / Provisional Ballots not coded by precinct!

Where did these votes come from?

Still, we do have at least a few data points.

Now let's look at the 2016 and 2020 GE PRES Results with Swings, and also throw in the % Vote Change '16 to '20 to account for the dramatic increase in votes not assigned by precinct:



What does this all mean?

1.) It is patently clear that undergrad students at the University of Alabama swung hard Biden in 2020. Dorm Vote= Precinct #27

+18.0% DEM Swing '16 > '20.

2.) It also appears that "off-campus" student voters also swung hard Biden, looking at precincts # 28, 39, & 40.

3.) It starts to get questionable regarding Alabama African-American Swings towards Trump looking at Precincts # 36 & 37, which are part of the historical "Black Neighborhoods of Tuscaloosa"...

Miniscule swings of "same day votes", while meanwhile unknown % numbers of Absentee & Provo Ballots.

4.) Precinct # 15 stands out a bit, as it is not only the most Republican precinct in the City, but also overwhelmingly Anglo with an MHI of something like $128k/Yr, where there appears to have been a swing towards Trump, and also a significant increase in "same day" precinct votes between '16 and '20.

Went to a family wedding in that precinct way back in the mid 2010s, so it's possible that the "posh part of town" had some increase in pop '16 > '20, which might explain those variables, or could possibly be something more like Montgomery County TX, where the wealthy white Pub's liked Trump and their tax cuts too...

IDK.... especially with such a huge % of votes not assigned by precinct in 2020.


   

I'm interested in how Auburn voted for both President and Senate - I know Trump won it by 13% in 2016, and I'm curious how much Biden closed the gap, and also if there was a noticeable Trump/Jones crossover vote that might have been Auburn fans.