Comparing Rural to Urban Vote in Indiana

[StateBoiler]

So I divided the state population into quarters and then counted up all the votes from the 92 counties with the counties ranked from most votes to least votes. Each quarter has exactly 25% of the vote +/- 1. The "line counties" I divided equitably into each quarter to get the 25% division. So for example, the 3rd-largest county in number of votes in 2020, Hamilton, took the 1st quarter above 25%. So to get everything to equate, 76.2% of the Hamilton county vote counted into the 1st quarter and 23.8% into the 2nd quarter.

Here's elections I've done so far. My goal is to do the presidential, governor, and Senate elections going back to 2000 (thank you to the asshole Wikipedia editor for 2016 on back that combined the Libertarian and write-in vote into "Other" and made by job harder).

2020 President

1st Tier: Marion, Lake, plus 76% of Hamilton
2nd Tier: 24% of Hamilton, Allen, St. Joseph, Hendricks, Porter, Johnson, Vanderburgh, Elkhart, and 32% of Tippecanoe
3rd Tier: 68% of Tippecanoe, Monroe, Clark, Madison, LaPorte, Delaware, Vigo, Hancock, Floyd, Howard, Boone, Bartholomew, Morgan, Kosciusko, Warrick, Wayne, Grant, Dearborn, and 56% of Dubois
4th Tier: 44% of Dubois plus all remaining counties

Tier 1: Biden +136,592 (Biden 58.1%, Trump 40.1%, Jorgensen 1.8%, Other 0.1%)
Tier 2: Trump +96,333 (Trump 55.3%, Biden 42.6%, Jorgensen 2.0%, Other 0.1%)
Tier 3: Trump +156,518 (Trump 59.3%, Biden 38.6%, Jorgensen 2.1%, Other 0.1%)
Tier 4: Trump +371,100 (Trump 73.5%, Biden 24.6%, Jorgensen 1.9%, Other 0.0%)

2020 Governor

Tier 1: Myers +23,761 (Myers 47.7%, Holcomb 44.6%, Rainwater 7.7%)
Tier 2: Holcomb +189,320 (Holcomb 57.7%, Myers 32.7%, Rainwater 9.6%)
Tier 3: Holcomb +216,206 (Holcomb 58.4%, Myers 29.8%, Rainwater 11.8%)
Tier 4: Holcomb +356,841 (Holcomb 65.3%, Myers 18.1%, Rainwater 16.6%)

2016 President

Tier 1 line is 77% of Hamilton, Tier 2 line is 52% of Tippecanoe, Tier 3 line is 87% of Henry

Tier 1: Clinton +100,579 (Clinton 54.2%, Trump 39.6%, Johnson 4.8%, Other 1.4%)
Tier 2: Trump +129,121 (Trump 56.1%, Clinton 37.3%, Johnson 5.0%, Other 1.7%)
Tier 3: Trump +168,334 (Trump 59.0%, Clinton 34.6%, Johnson 5.1%, Other 1.3%)
Tier 4: Trump +327,284 (Trump 71.0%, Clinton 23.6%, Johnson 4.6%, Other 0.9%)

2012 President

Tier 1 line is 65% of Allen, Tier 2 line is 32% of Monroe, Tier 3 line is 79% of Henry

Tier 1: Obama +126,397 (Obama 58.7%, Romney 39.5%, Johnson 1.5%, Other 0.2%)
Tier 2:  Romney +116,462 (Romney 57.9%, Obama 40.2%, Johnson 1.7%, Other 0.3%)
Tier 3:  Romney +90,642 (Romney 55.7%, Obama 41.9%, Johnson 2.2%, Other 0.2%)
Tier 4: Romney +186,949 (Romney 63.0%, Obama 34.6%, Johnson 2.3%, Other 0.1%)

I'm definitely going to do Obama 2008 and Joe Donnelly 2012.

[Roll Roons]

Biden's extremely strong performance in the Indy metro is not really talked about.

[lfromnj]

Biden's extremely strong performance in the Indy metro is not really talked about.

More just the upscale part regarding northern Marion/Hamilton/Boone/Hendricks.

[StateBoiler]

2008 President

Tier 1: Obama +174,894 (Obama 62.2%, McCain 36.8%, Barr 0.8%, Other 0.2%)
Tier 2: McCain +8,041 (McCain 50.0%, Obama 48.8%, Barr 0.9%, Other 0.3%)
Tier 3: McCain +42,590 (McCain 52.4%, Obama 46.2%, Barr 1.1%, Other 0.3%)
Tier 4: McCain +95,872 (McCain 56.1%, Obama 42.2%, Barr 1.5%, Other 0.2%)

Democratic path to victory. Do well in the cities of course, but you have to accommodate everyone outside of the cities to cut down the margins there. I may just skip to the 2012 Senate race next. But from 2008 to 2020 you'd have quite the line chart for each segment.

Biden's extremely strong performance in the Indy metro is not really talked about.

Still 4 points worse than Obama 2008.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Interesting Romney did better in Tier 2 than Tier 3, but not too surprising.

[StateBoiler]

2012 Senate election

Joe Donnelly-Democrat 1,282,729 (50.0%) - .04% above a majority, Obama did not get a majority in 2008)
Richard Mourdock-Republican 1,135,668 (44.3%)
Andy Horning-Libertarian 145,374 (5.7%)

1st quarter - Donnelly +190,840 (Donnelly 62.6%, Mourdock 32.8%, Horning 4.7%)
2nd quarter - Mourdock +388 (Mourdock 47.4%, Donnelly 47.4%, Horning 5.2%)
3rd quarter - Donnelly +16,532 (Donnelly 48.2%, Mourdock 45.6%, Horning 6.2%)
4th quarter - Mourdock +59,923 (Mourdock 51.4%, Donnelly 42.0%, Horning 6.6%)

Donnelly gets a huge margin from Marion, Lake, and 77% of Allen counties, but he also won counties or ran much tighter in counties that have shifted away from Democrats the past decade: won Vigo, won the Anderson/Muncie area, won River Country. In the smallest-population counties the margin was much tighter in spite of Mourdock still winning them.

By the way, I did a variance on the vote for the 2020 presidential election. The county that has the lowest variance to the state was Vigo, at 0.9%. I thought that would make some people either laugh or roll your eyes considering Vigo's longstanding bellwether status.

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

Biden's extremely strong performance in the Indy metro is not really talked about.

Yeah, the Suburban Indianapolis swings were similar to the Suburban Dallas swings. I was not expecting that before the election.