Why was Obama so strong in the Midwest

[Motorcity]

Why was Obama so strong in the Midwest? Sure he was from the Midwest and had strong black turnout, but he is from Chicago. Chicago isn't popular with the other parts of the Midwest. I personally think John McCain and Mitt Romney were poor fits for the Midwest. But maybe there was anger to the Bush administration. Here are recent election margins for the Midwest if anyone is curious

MI
2000: 5.13%
2004: 4.05%
2008: 16.44%
2012: 9.5%
2016: -0.32%
2020: 2.78%

PA
2000: 4.17%
2004: 2.5%
2008: 10.32%
2012: 5.38%
2016: -0.72%
2020: 1.17%

WI
2000: 0.23%
2004: 0.58%
2008: 13.92%
2012: 6.94%
2016: -0.77%
2020: 0.63%

OH
2000: -3.51%
2004: -2.1%
2008: 4.58%
2012: 2.98%
2016: -8.1%
2020: -8.0%

IA
2000:  0.31%
2004: -0.67%
2008: 9.5%
2012: 5.8%
2016: -9.4%
2020: -8.1%

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

I personally think John McCain and Mitt Romney were poor fits for the Midwest. But maybe there was anger to the Bush administration.

These are two big factors, but also Obama was able to talk in an aspirational way that really appealed to a lot of people, see for example his "no blue states, no red states, only the United States" speech.

And specifically on race, he was able to appeal to white Midwesterners in a very specific way: "We may not all look the same or speak with the same accent, but we all care for one another and stand up for each other, regardless of difference, because we're in this together."

I think it was DFB who said that he discussed the United States in a way that portrayed us as a family, which is very, very appealing to the average voter.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Obama's style was very effective towards getting people to support him, provided they weren't at once turned off because of race, ideology or what they heard about his background.

[Motorcity]

I personally think John McCain and Mitt Romney were poor fits for the Midwest. But maybe there was anger to the Bush administration.

These are two big factors, but also Obama was able to talk in an aspirational way that really appealed to a lot of people, see for example his "no blue states, no red states, only the United States" speech.

And specifically on race, he was able to appeal to white Midwesterners in a very specific way: "We may not all look the same or speak with the same accent, but we all care for one another and stand up for each other, regardless of difference, because we're in this together."

I think it was DFB who said that he discussed the United States in a way that portrayed us as a family, which is very, very appealing to the average voter.

Why don't more politicians talk this way?

[#LANK]

Obama ran a populist, pro-government intervention campaign in a time where the economy was in free-fall due to deregulation. This made him very popular with the historically pro-labor Democrats of Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and PA. In 2012, he ran a similar campaign emphasizing how the stimulus saved the economy from total collapse during the Great Recession and had the benefit of running against a man who literally said "let Detroit go bankrupt". Again, he did extremely well in union households, winning them by 18 points. In comparison, Clinton only won union households by 8 points in 2016.


This is shown by the geography of Obama's wins. He ran up superb margins in working-class strongholds such as Luzerne/Erie/Lackwanna PA, Macomb/Monroe County in Michigan, Trumbull/Ashtabula/Mahoning County in Ohio, the Iron Range in Minnesota, and the Driftless Area of Iowa/Wisconsin.


This explains the Midwestern firewall much better than I ever could

[Bootes Void]

more likely people associated the republicans with George Bush so that didnt help them. Also back then Democrats were much culturally and socially moderate so they didnt push people away on the culture wars

[It's Time.]

I wonder why...

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html

[DaleCooper]

I agree with what everyone has said in the thread so far, but upon looking at the list of results by year, I'm realizing that I never quite appreciated how much those states swung rightward in 2012.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

The Ds had Dem Gov that won by more than the 2018 Govs, we had Doyle, Granholm, Blagi that won big, not by tiny margins

[Mr. Smith]

He wasn't.

Gore, Kerry [slightly more credit for doing the near impossible in Ohio], Hillary, and even Biden were bad fits....or if we want to be more generous, Bush Jr and Trump were decent picks.

Dukakis, Mondale, and even McGovern overperformed the region...and that's without Bill Clinton's knockout wins there.

[mileslunn]

I agree with what everyone has said in the thread so far, but upon looking at the list of results by year, I'm realizing that I never quite appreciated how much those states swung rightward in 2012.

Except asides Ohio and Iowa, Biden got similar results to Gore and Kerry so it seems after Obama left things reverted to normal. 

Even Indiana which he only barely won in 2008 and lost in 2012, he still did better than Democrats normally do.  In Illinois overall you didn't see same shifts but if you took Illinois outside Chicago metro area, you saw similar swings too.  He did much better downstate than other Democrats.  Collar counties went heavily for Clinton and Biden for same reason suburbs did elsewhere.  Same reason Biden won by 14 points in Oakland County and dominated Philadelphia suburbs.

Minnesota is odd one out as not as hard a swing to Obama as others, but while swung towards Trump in 2016, in 2020 Biden was able to return it close to Obama numbers.  But if you look at county and precincts, Biden outperformed Obama in Twin cities metro area where about half state's population lives, but underperformed Obama in the rest of the state by quite a bit.

[SInNYC]

Well, this should put to rest claims that the midwest is voting R purely because of racism.

[Big Abraham]

He wasn't.

Gore, Kerry [slightly more credit for doing the near impossible in Ohio], Hillary, and even Biden were bad fits....or if we want to be more generous, Bush Jr and Trump were decent picks.

Dukakis, Mondale, and even McGovern overperformed the region...and that's without Bill Clinton's knockout wins there.

The Midwest was a lot more politically elastic some decades ago due to the industrial and union contingency, as well as the fact that voters were not as sharply divided along sex/education/race factors as today. The Midwest was more of a "microcosm of America" and thus highly competitive.

These days, while the union contingency is obviously still there, it has been considerably weakened and the Midwest is starting to look more like an anomaly to the rest of the nation. It's considerably whiter, less likely to graduate college, and more likely to work in manufacturing which, these days, is an industry that leans Republican. I don't think it's so much that "Biden/Hillary were bad fits for Wisconsin, look at how Dukakis won by a way more decisive margin there!" It's more, "Wisconsin's demographics line up with the GOP more than non-white, younger, and college-educated Democratic coalition." Hell, I mean even Dukakis and Bubba won WV, which had some pretty strong Midwestern union/labor influences (hell, even today a plurality of voters are registered Dems), but has been Titanium R. for about ten years now.

[It's Time.]

I agree with what everyone has said in the thread so far, but upon looking at the list of results by year, I'm realizing that I never quite appreciated how much those states swung rightward in 2012.

Yeah OH was very strange, it barely swung right.

[Del Tachi]

Bush's approvals were in the 20s on election day 2008, so of course Democrats were going to improve greatly among "elastic" Midwestern Whites

[Motorcity]

I agree with what everyone has said in the thread so far, but upon looking at the list of results by year, I'm realizing that I never quite appreciated how much those states swung rightward in 2012.

Yeah OH was very strange, it barely swung right.

Well Ohio barely swung left in 2008 (compared to the national average)

My theory is Ohio had has peak political turnout/patipcation since 2004, so everyone had their opinions cemented. Atleast until Trump came

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Well, this should put to rest claims that the midwest is voting R purely because of racism.

Re: race, as has been implied Obama in 2008 explicitly presented himself as a feel-good post-racial candidate. It was only after his re-election that Obama felt free to become a black president.



The difference between 2012 and 2016 is that the most salient issues switched from economic ones to cultural ones.

[Motorcity]

No one is talking about how Iowa swung 20 points between 2008 and 2016

Or that Michigan swing 17 points between 2008 and 2016

Or that Missouri swing about 20 points from 2008 to 2016. Same for Montana (yeah I know its not a midwestern state but historically it was the swing state for the plains)