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JimJamUK
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« Reply #50 on: January 17, 2022, 10:44:28 AM »
« edited: January 17, 2022, 11:02:39 AM by JimJamUK »

My logic for that was that PA-14 does have quite a bit of exurban, and frankly in some parts, suburban areas, which more closely fits the description of a flipping district which vileplume gave. If you look at income maps of the Pittsburgh area lots of PA-14 is very poor but there are also big chunks of Westmoreland and Washington counties which are quite prosperous.

I don't the demographics of PA-12 and PA-09 super well, but both have very poor industrial areas. Though there is the much more Tory seeming area of Lebanon in PA-09.
14 has some ex industrial areas that would traditionally be monolithically Labour and still pretty comfortably so, while the exurban developments would be hurting Labour but Pittsburgh would probably be one of the most cultural Labour metropolitan areas so even wealthy commuters may not have flipped the seat in 2019.

I haven’t got the population distribution to hand, but 9 strikes me as definitely Conservative in 2019 and probably 2017 actually given how much of it is either exurban Berks or agricultural. 12 is a safe Conservative seat as the post-industrial small towns, insofar as they vote Labour, would be outvoted by the large agricultural areas and the Harrisburg commuter belt in the south of the district.
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Sol
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« Reply #51 on: January 17, 2022, 11:07:32 AM »

I think you might be underestimating the extent to which both PA-09 and PA-12 are both quite ex-industrial.

In PA-09 everything north of Berks is ex-coalmining areas, which is why Democrats used to win a lot of those bits. That certainly doesn't mean they wouldn't have flipped in 2019 of course--independent of Labour collapsing with rural voters there's also a decent counterweight in Lebanon and northern Berks, which is more ag oriented.

PA-12 doesn't really have much in the way of Harrisburg commuterland fwiw--Perry is part of the MSA but it's a quite peripheral area to that metro area and is a pretty small percentage of the district's population. I can buy it flipping for sure but Labour probably has a high floor on account of State College and the small post-industrial cities and towns (Williamsport is a big place!)
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Sol
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« Reply #52 on: January 17, 2022, 11:15:04 AM »

The embarrassment of revealed ignorance continues, with a pass at the South (excluding the southern states which are a part of the Northeast corridor, like Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware).



There were also some very difficult elements here. In particular, there are several parts of Southern states, particularly in Alabama, the Carolinas, and Tennessee, which had and still have to some extent an industrial economy, one which developed in the early and mid 20th due to the South's ununionized and cheap labor. These places mostly vote Republican these days--the industrial labor isn't and never really has been unionized to the same extent as the North, except in Alabama iirc. I most went with giving these areas to the Conservatives, with exception of urban centers and areas with a union tradition.

The other big question is racial polarization, and that was a bit easier because I just decided that it would basically pattern in the same way as the Democrats and Republicans do irl. That said, I did decide that Cubans would likely be Tory-leaning in a stronger way than irl, with a more overtly socialist Labour and a less overtly racist Conservative party.

Again, this is a rough election year for Labour (or should it be Labor?). In a better year they'd have MO-05, MO-08, KY-01, KY-02 and AL-05, with a decent shot at winning classic marginals NC-02, NC-08, NC-09, and mayyybe TX-14.

It's funny how in a lot of places these actually look a lot more like real results--that may actually be a Texas congressional map from the earlier part of last decade, and Georgia is of course identical to the map from 2015 to 2019. Really shows how much more the GOP has held up rich southern urban areas until the recent past.
NC-02 looks to be coloured in red in your map. Which I'm guessing is a mistake. I could see it being LD though.

Also I think Labour would be stronger in KY-06 than KY-02? From memory KY-06 has part of the big coal region?

Yeah the non-union industrial areas are interesting. From memory outside of Alabama the industry tends to be lighter (and therefore possibly less Labour/social democratic friendly), but I could be wrong. Certainly the nature of unionisation could be very different in the South if one party was pushing harder for unionisation.

Yeah NC-02 was a mistake. I had initially colored it yellow, but upon reflection it seemed like the sort of place which would have flipped fairly recently but stuck around, a bit like other heavily university influenced constituencies. Lib Dems and Cons would certainly have a shot there too.

Wrt: KY-06, I had forgotten that they had added those areas! Certainly makes it more winnable for Labour, but the bulk of the seat is in Lexington and surrounds, which maybe don't seem as friendly?

KY-01 and KY-02 are due to the western coalfield.
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JimJamUK
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« Reply #53 on: January 17, 2022, 12:14:37 PM »

I think you might be underestimating the extent to which both PA-09 and PA-12 are both quite ex-industrial.

In PA-09 everything north of Berks is ex-coalmining areas, which is why Democrats used to win a lot of those bits. That certainly doesn't mean they wouldn't have flipped in 2019 of course--independent of Labour collapsing with rural voters there's also a decent counterweight in Lebanon and northern Berks, which is more ag oriented.

PA-12 doesn't really have much in the way of Harrisburg commuterland fwiw--Perry is part of the MSA but it's a quite peripheral area to that metro area and is a pretty small percentage of the district's population. I can buy it flipping for sure but Labour probably has a high floor on account of State College and the small post-industrial cities and towns (Williamsport is a big place!)
The coalfield in PA-09 is actually a lot smaller that it might immediately appear. Montour, Columbia and a good chunk of Lucerne isn’t ex coal mining, and even quite a bit of Carbon and Schuylkill is exurban/rural. These areas are largely not voting Labour. It’s the sort of district that because of population trends would have been a lot better for Labour in the past than now.

That’s a fair comment re; Harrisburg. What I meant was that the southern end is reasonably well off given how rural it is which will in part be Harrisburg commuters (but also for other small cities I concede). I just don’t think the small industrial cities would be able to carry Labour over the line. Williamsport isn’t tiny, but it’s still only a small proportion of the district, and a few other small urban areas like State College, Bradford, Lewisburg don’t add up to much more. Most of the population of the district lives in non-incorporated rural areas which would vote overwhelmingly Conservative (as they long have Republican).
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« Reply #54 on: January 17, 2022, 04:17:50 PM »

Anyone else see parallels between New London and Copeland?
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vileplume
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« Reply #55 on: January 17, 2022, 07:08:40 PM »
« Edited: January 17, 2022, 07:39:10 PM by vileplume »

Though the poorest voters still *tend* to vote Labour in the UK, and Democrat in the US.

Income still matters, certainly much more than ever more amorphous concepts of "class".

I would say wealth as opposed to income as there are of relatively high earners (young renter in London/other big cities) who due to high cost of living is pretty cash poor by the end of the month. The elderly homeowner with a decent pension from some midlands town with an industrial heritage is much more financially secure than the young urban professional from the previous sentence despite on paper having a lower income.

Looking solely at income of an area won't really tell you much at all. You also control for cost of living factors, home ownership rates, poverty rates, wealth inequality etc. to draw accurate conclusions from the data.

Ash Sarkar was absolutely correct when she said (and I paraphrase) that Labour hasn't lost the working class, it's just the nature of who the working class is has fundamentally changed. The modern working class is not the mineworker and the steelworker, it's the call centre worker, the single mother working 3 jobs, the retail worker, the barista, the struggling young graduate doing a-not-great paying office job, the recent immigrant working minimum wage jobs that much of the rest of society won't do, much of the renter class etc. These people disproportionally live in big cities.

A lot of the sons and daughters of the aforementioned mineworkers and steelworkers on the other hand, who disproportionately live in provincial towns and villages, are homeowning pensioners and aren't working class anymore other than in the cultural sense of the word. Considering this, it's hardly surprising these people would go over to the Tories (their 'natural' home) when the cultural link with Labour was severed.

I don't know if the same sociological trends are as prevalent in the US but they will exist, at least to an extent.
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morgieb
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« Reply #56 on: January 17, 2022, 09:08:40 PM »

The embarrassment of revealed ignorance continues, with a pass at the South (excluding the southern states which are a part of the Northeast corridor, like Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware).



There were also some very difficult elements here. In particular, there are several parts of Southern states, particularly in Alabama, the Carolinas, and Tennessee, which had and still have to some extent an industrial economy, one which developed in the early and mid 20th due to the South's ununionized and cheap labor. These places mostly vote Republican these days--the industrial labor isn't and never really has been unionized to the same extent as the North, except in Alabama iirc. I most went with giving these areas to the Conservatives, with exception of urban centers and areas with a union tradition.

The other big question is racial polarization, and that was a bit easier because I just decided that it would basically pattern in the same way as the Democrats and Republicans do irl. That said, I did decide that Cubans would likely be Tory-leaning in a stronger way than irl, with a more overtly socialist Labour and a less overtly racist Conservative party.

Again, this is a rough election year for Labour (or should it be Labor?). In a better year they'd have MO-05, MO-08, KY-01, KY-02 and AL-05, with a decent shot at winning classic marginals NC-02, NC-08, NC-09, and mayyybe TX-14.

It's funny how in a lot of places these actually look a lot more like real results--that may actually be a Texas congressional map from the earlier part of last decade, and Georgia is of course identical to the map from 2015 to 2019. Really shows how much more the GOP has held up rich southern urban areas until the recent past.
NC-02 looks to be coloured in red in your map. Which I'm guessing is a mistake. I could see it being LD though.

Also I think Labour would be stronger in KY-06 than KY-02? From memory KY-06 has part of the big coal region?

Yeah the non-union industrial areas are interesting. From memory outside of Alabama the industry tends to be lighter (and therefore possibly less Labour/social democratic friendly), but I could be wrong. Certainly the nature of unionisation could be very different in the South if one party was pushing harder for unionisation.

Yeah NC-02 was a mistake. I had initially colored it yellow, but upon reflection it seemed like the sort of place which would have flipped fairly recently but stuck around, a bit like other heavily university influenced constituencies. Lib Dems and Cons would certainly have a shot there too.

Wrt: KY-06, I had forgotten that they had added those areas! Certainly makes it more winnable for Labour, but the bulk of the seat is in Lexington and surrounds, which maybe don't seem as friendly?

KY-01 and KY-02 are due to the western coalfield.
Yeah that's fair with NC-02. Certainly would've leant Tory before 2017, anyway. There aren't really many areas in the UK like the Research Triangle AFAIK which makes it tricky to decipher, but yes most uni constituencies are either Labour or LD at this point.

WRT KY-02/06 - yes the Western coalfield would generally mean good things for Labour (but obviously not in 2019), but IIRC KY-02 also has a fair bit of more standard rural areas compared to KY-01? I think Lexington could definitely vote Labour as the party currently stands, though on the flipside some of the mining areas might've flipped (or at least tightened) which makes it a tricky balancing act for Labour, perhaps. But I think in a good year Labour win all three (plus KY-03/05)
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vileplume
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« Reply #57 on: January 18, 2022, 11:06:37 AM »
« Edited: January 18, 2022, 11:20:36 AM by vileplume »

The embarrassment of revealed ignorance continues, with a pass at the South (excluding the southern states which are a part of the Northeast corridor, like Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware).



There were also some very difficult elements here. In particular, there are several parts of Southern states, particularly in Alabama, the Carolinas, and Tennessee, which had and still have to some extent an industrial economy, one which developed in the early and mid 20th due to the South's ununionized and cheap labor. These places mostly vote Republican these days--the industrial labor isn't and never really has been unionized to the same extent as the North, except in Alabama iirc. I most went with giving these areas to the Conservatives, with exception of urban centers and areas with a union tradition.

The other big question is racial polarization, and that was a bit easier because I just decided that it would basically pattern in the same way as the Democrats and Republicans do irl. That said, I did decide that Cubans would likely be Tory-leaning in a stronger way than irl, with a more overtly socialist Labour and a less overtly racist Conservative party.

Again, this is a rough election year for Labour (or should it be Labor?). In a better year they'd have MO-05, MO-08, KY-01, KY-02 and AL-05, with a decent shot at winning classic marginals NC-02, NC-08, NC-09, and mayyybe TX-14.

It's funny how in a lot of places these actually look a lot more like real results--that may actually be a Texas congressional map from the earlier part of last decade, and Georgia is of course identical to the map from 2015 to 2019. Really shows how much more the GOP has held up rich southern urban areas until the recent past.

The South is the massive problem area for this exercise as if you picked up the Tory Party and dumped them into America with a near-unchanged platform, they'd do horribly with Southern Evangelicals many of whom probably go third party. I'm sure if forced to choose the greater part would pick the Tories over Labour (particularly the rich suburban every-Sunday churchgoing types) but the very poor evangelicals in the backwaters would more not vote, back some Farage-esque third party or if very poor maybe even back Labour as the Tories aren't giving them as much of the cultural incentive to override their economic interests. Labour would do much better than in this map for these reasons, probably with a hard right insurgent party winning seats too.

I mean, the whole point of this exercise is that that's not what one does--rather it's about coming up with the closest fit for the parties involved's coalitions and stretching that in a case where that's not obvious. I obviously would have given UKIP some seats if I was modeling earlier elections, but I wasn't.

Precise realism isn't the goal--the point here is just a thought experiment.

I understand that, but if the Tories are doing worse than the GOP with poor white evangelicals than the GOP does (they'd win the rich ones) then it's inevitable that Labour would be competitive in many GOP held districts with high African American populations across the South. Examples of districts that would vote Labour or at least be competitive would be GA-01 and GA-12 (only Trump+12/Trump+13). Poor rural black voters (as well as those in Savanna and Augusta) would vote heavily as a block for Labour and if poor white evangelicals don't keep up near-GOP/North Korea-esque margins for the Tories (which is very unlikely) the districts go red.

The Tories would do significantly better than the GOP with a certain type of African American voter, the not-very liberal at all businessman/businesswoman, who would be found in places like the suburbs of Atlanta not in rural heavily African American towns. Rural heavily Black areas (of which there isn't a good comparison for in the UK) for historical reasons would be rock solid for the mainstream left whatever label they go by.
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Sol
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« Reply #58 on: January 19, 2022, 10:44:03 AM »

Part 3:



There are several constituencies on here which probably would have been Labour voting most of the time--thinking MI-01, OH-06, maybe WI-07--but which fell because of the right's overperformance last election. MI-09 is probably a classic swing district, and IL-17, IN-02, and IN-07 are winnable as well.

There were a few judgements calls as well. Both Indianapolis and Columbus are hard to compare to cities in the UK--they're both expanding, "new growth" cities with smaller histories of industry. I decided to split the difference and give Columbus to the Lib Dems and Indy to the Cons, since the latter is a lot less professional/managerial. (You can probably tell that I'm relying a lot on voting patterns from before our current alignment.)

Another call I made was to have Labour drastically underperform the Democrats in a lot of the rural agricultural Midwest. Democratic strength in places like Iowa or Western Wisconsin is fairly recent and is the outcome of the ag crisis and a higher degree of secularism. Similarly agricultural areas in the UK vote much more decisively to the right, iirc.

Chicago was an interesting area to do--you can really see the north-south class divide which is invisible in current election maps.
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« Reply #59 on: January 19, 2022, 01:07:07 PM »

There are several constituencies on here which probably would have been Labour voting most of the time--thinking MI-01, OH-06, maybe WI-07--but which fell because of the right's overperformance last election. MI-09 is probably a classic swing district, and IL-17, IN-02, and IN-07 are winnable as well.
IN-08? Or is that too 'classically' rural?
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JimJamUK
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« Reply #60 on: January 19, 2022, 01:20:35 PM »


Another good attempt which is mostly agree with. Nit-picking, i suspect Minnesota 8th would very likely have flipped Conservative in 2019, the actual Iron Range is quite small and Labour would need very large margins out of it and Duluth to overcome the agricultural areas (which they would have got pre-2019). Ohio 14th would also likely have voted Conservative as its mostly suburban/exurban Cleveland. I also don't think Michigan 1st would be a swing district, the Upper Peninsula would be winnable but the Lower Peninsula part is either agricultural or vacation homes, both awful places for Labour. Its a similar case for Wisconsin 7th (but the Green Bay based 8th district would certainly be winnable for Labour). I also suspect Indiana 8th (SW Indiana) is post-industrial enough to be won pre-2019.
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Хahar 🤔
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« Reply #61 on: January 19, 2022, 01:46:49 PM »

It's a little bit disappointing that this exercise is based on 2019, since it seems like the size of that result is obscuring patterns that might otherwise be interesting. The Liberal Democrats seem like mostly an afterthought so far; the enormous size of American districts would certainly hurt them, but it seems like they should be a factor in the sort of places that might be too rich to vote Labour (Westchester County, Connecticut, the northern suburbs of Chicago, maybe the rich parts of Southern cities).
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #62 on: January 19, 2022, 02:20:11 PM »

It's a little bit disappointing that this exercise is based on 2019, since it seems like the size of that result is obscuring patterns that might otherwise be interesting.

Yes, this is a real problem. The Conservatives led by 12pts at the last GE - that's really not a 'normal' baseline to work off.
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Sol
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« Reply #63 on: January 19, 2022, 02:31:31 PM »


Another good attempt which is mostly agree with. Nit-picking, i suspect Minnesota 8th would very likely have flipped Conservative in 2019, the actual Iron Range is quite small and Labour would need very large margins out of it and Duluth to overcome the agricultural areas (which they would have got pre-2019). Ohio 14th would also likely have voted Conservative as its mostly suburban/exurban Cleveland. I also don't think Michigan 1st would be a swing district, the Upper Peninsula would be winnable but the Lower Peninsula part is either agricultural or vacation homes, both awful places for Labour. Its a similar case for Wisconsin 7th (but the Green Bay based 8th district would certainly be winnable for Labour). I also suspect Indiana 8th (SW Indiana) is post-industrial enough to be won pre-2019.

Wrt: MN-08, I think that Labour probably would have just held on. The Iron Range is actually quite a lot of the seat--it's just shy of an outright majority. Quite a bit of MN-08 is also not especially agricultural--a lot of it is historic logging territory actually so I assume Labour would do a bit more similarly to Democrats irl. Plus I could see Labour actually doing even better with natives. Similar story with WI-07 and MI-1 except the proportions are different, but all have a strong historic Labour base as they did irl--the whole industrial zone by Lake Superior historically in the U.S. was far left and union heavy even in comparison to other similar areas in the rest of the country, and would consequently probably give Labour insane margins even if they were slightly cut down in 2019.

I don't know the Cleveland area especially well, but I get the impression that OH-14 is heavy on the kind of lower middle class "white ethnic" voters who also predominate in places like IL-03. Cleveland also seemed to me to resemble the kind of place, like Merseyside, where Labour might overperform due to the conservatives being uniquely weak. There's also Ashtabula which seems like it would give Labour a strong floor.

WI-08 is interesting--it doesn't seem to me like a Labour-friendly seat, given the importance of tourism and that the Fox Cities are sort of quintessential right wing voting areas--small, not too unionized, homogenous, and relatively middle class and economically stable. But I easily could be wrong!

You're definitely right wrt: IN-8; I always forget the coalmining history of that part of the country. There's a decent argument for Labour also having a shot at Mary Miller's district too, lol.

Something I didn't really talk about but which matters also I think are kind of parochial or historic influences on voter behavior which are particularly pronounced in the Midwest, like the sort of inordinate strength Republicans have in Cincinnati or Eastern Wisconsin. Not really sure how to model these--it doesn't matter a ton anyway given that the vagaries of the lines kind of take away that question, but it's sort of an interesting thought experiment.
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Sol
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« Reply #64 on: January 19, 2022, 02:38:05 PM »
« Edited: January 19, 2022, 03:03:45 PM by Sol »

It's a little bit disappointing that this exercise is based on 2019, since it seems like the size of that result is obscuring patterns that might otherwise be interesting. The Liberal Democrats seem like mostly an afterthought so far; the enormous size of American districts would certainly hurt them, but it seems like they should be a factor in the sort of places that might be too rich to vote Labour (Westchester County, Connecticut, the northern suburbs of Chicago, maybe the rich parts of Southern cities).

Yeah, that's fair enough.

To be honest I think I keep on forgetting about the Lib Dems, in part because I'm trying to correct for a bias I have towards wanting the Labour Party to do well. Most of the places I would have pegged as Lib Dem-maybe some of the NoVA seats, SC-01, IL-09, maybe some of the Broward seats--would have otherwise gone with the Tories, and that felt kind of like hurting the Conservatives out of bias. Meanwhile the only Labour-held seats that seem like it could go Lib Dem thus far are NC-02 and MD-03.
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Хahar 🤔
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« Reply #65 on: January 19, 2022, 03:02:11 PM »

It's a little bit disappointing that this exercise is based on 2019, since it seems like the size of that result is obscuring patterns that might otherwise be interesting. The Liberal Democrats seem like mostly an afterthought so far; the enormous size of American districts would certainly hurt them, but it seems like they should be a factor in the sort of places that might be too rich to vote Labour (Westchester County, Connecticut, the northern suburbs of Chicago, maybe the rich parts of Southern cities).

Yeah, that's fair enough.

To be honest I think I keep on forgetting about the Lib Dems, in part because I'm trying to correct for a bias I have towards wanting the Labour Party to do well. Most of the places I would have pegged as Lib Dem-maybe some of the NoVA seats, SC-01, IL-09, maybe some of the Broward seats--would have otherwise gone with the Tories, and that felt kind of like hurting the Conservatives out of bias. Meanwhile the only Labour-held seat that seems like it could go Lib Dem thus far is NC-02 and MD-03.

Sure, I understand the impulse to just assume that Labour would win everywhere. I also don't exactly understand which urban voters who are too rich to vote Labour vote Conservative and which vote Liberal Democrat; my instinct as an American is to say that they'd all be Lib Dems, but that's clearly not right.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #66 on: January 19, 2022, 03:16:32 PM »

Sure, I understand the impulse to just assume that Labour would win everywhere. I also don't exactly understand which urban voters who are too rich to vote Labour vote Conservative and which vote Liberal Democrat; my instinct as an American is to say that they'd all be Lib Dems, but that's clearly not right.

The classic division was always occupational - higher professionals being much more likely either to be Liberals in general or to cast the odd vote that way when unhappy with their usual preference, while managerial types were more likely to be loyal Conservatives. Employment sector would be another, with those working in senior public administration and the media often having Liberal tendencies and those working in finance and the like being strongly Conservative.
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JimJamUK
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« Reply #67 on: January 19, 2022, 03:31:04 PM »

The problem with identifying Lib Dem voting places is that in the UK basically anywhere that votes for them these days is voting based on local circumstances rather than natural national voting intention. Even the most obvious place of modern Lib Dem strength (SW London) sees their support decline heavily on the London Mayor/Assembly elections. Therefore, its hard to identify which places would for historical reasons have backed the Lib Dems and because of local strength have continued to do so, while its also unclear which middle class socially liberal districts would see their 'natural' Lib Dem vote of 20-25% double to actually elect Lib Dem Congressmen.
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JimJamUK
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« Reply #68 on: January 19, 2022, 05:49:26 PM »

Wrt: MN-08, I think that Labour probably would have just held on. The Iron Range is actually quite a lot of the seat--it's just shy of an outright majority. Quite a bit of MN-08 is also not especially agricultural--a lot of it is historic logging territory actually so I assume Labour would do a bit more similarly to Democrats irl. Plus I could see Labour actually doing even better with natives. Similar story with WI-07 and MI-1 except the proportions are different, but all have a strong historic Labour base as they did irl--the whole industrial zone by Lake Superior historically in the U.S. was far left and union heavy even in comparison to other similar areas in the rest of the country, and would consequently probably give Labour insane margins even if they were slightly cut down in 2019.

I don't know the Cleveland area especially well, but I get the impression that OH-14 is heavy on the kind of lower middle class "white ethnic" voters who also predominate in places like IL-03. Cleveland also seemed to me to resemble the kind of place, like Merseyside, where Labour might overperform due to the conservatives being uniquely weak. There's also Ashtabula which seems like it would give Labour a strong floor.

WI-08 is interesting--it doesn't seem to me like a Labour-friendly seat, given the importance of tourism and that the Fox Cities are sort of quintessential right wing voting areas--small, not too unionized, homogenous, and relatively middle class and economically stable. But I easily could be wrong!

You're definitely right wrt: IN-8; I always forget the coalmining history of that part of the country. There's a decent argument for Labour also having a shot at Mary Miller's district too, lol.

Something I didn't really talk about but which matters also I think are kind of parochial or historic influences on voter behavior which are particularly pronounced in the Midwest, like the sort of inordinate strength Republicans have in Cincinnati or Eastern Wisconsin. Not really sure how to model these--it doesn't matter a ton anyway given that the vagaries of the lines kind of take away that question, but it's sort of an interesting thought experiment.
I suspect we might be using different definitions of the Iron Range. The Arrowhead region makes up a large portion of Minnesota 8th but the actual mining communities in the Iron Range only make up the minority of a few counties. Its the latter which would have a very good Labour vote (certainly better than the Democrats particularly in the southern end). Thats a fair point on logging, I suspect Labour would do better with these communities than the average English rural community, but unless there's some small scale urbanisation I suspect it would only be relative success (definitely not as well as Democrats have traditionally done).

On Ohio 14, the suburbs nearest Cleveland are largely very well off but more importantly the district has a relatively large Jewish and Amish population, both of which would be very Conservative leaning. Therefore, the Labour voting industrial areas on Lake Erie would have been outvoted in 2019, though perhaps not in some previous elections.

That cultural point is potentially correct, but it seems to me that a fairly urban district with an industrial history should be winnable for Labour, and I suspect German Catholics in these sorts of areas would be more friendly to Labour than they have been in recent decades to Democrats. But I may be completely wrong as well!
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« Reply #69 on: January 20, 2022, 03:16:54 PM »
« Edited: January 20, 2022, 03:26:02 PM by vileplume »

In any case, at the risk of seeming dumb, I made the northeast corridor with UK-style parties. Might do the rest of the country in a bit.



I think this might actually work better for 2017 than 2019. A lot of reasonably working class post-industrial seats you have red would have flipped Conservative in 2019 (and would be pretty marginal before). As has been mentioned, Labour do crap in non-industrial rural areas so while there are post-industrial parts of Maine, New Hampshire and West Virginia that are strongly Labour, there are also parts that are near monolithically Conservative and would balance out the Labour vote to a large extent. Therefore, in 2019 the Conservatives would have flipped the central West Virginia district and potentially the northern one as well. The size of US congressional districts and states means that there would be many fewer safe seats in general.

On specific seats, Labour wouldn’t win the Staten Island based one, but they may win a couple more in New Jersey (modestly well off racial minorities and Catholics would mostly vote Labour, it’s the properly well off white suburbs/exurbs where they bomb). Labour wouldn’t win the central Pennsylvania district, but they might win the west central one (lots of coal mining history). The Portland district would probably vote Labour (and heading in the opposite direction to northern Maine) while Vermont wouldn’t necessarily be that safe for Labour. Unlike some other posters I actually agree on metro DC. Labour would do well on the Maryland side largely due to black voters and some working/reasonably middle class support, but do terribly on the Virginia side due to a combination of insane wealth, fewer racial minorities (and much of the non-white vote here is Asian which tends to be more class based), and employment being more defence/private sector based rather than civil service bureaucrats.

Tbh thinking about it it's exceedingly unlikely that Vermont would even be Labour. Sure, they'd win Burlington but get nowhere elsewhere, even in Hipster-leaning Windham County opposition to the Tories would come from the Lib Dems or the Greens .

People forget that the absolute immoveable base of the Tory party (as has been for as long as living memory) is aesthetically pleasing, fairly affluent/lacking in deprivation rural (note rural instead of remote) small towns and villages. Vermont, and New England in general, has this in spades. To American readers I can't stress enough how badly Labour does in these type of places, even when it is doing well nationally the party is basically non-existent. So I'm pretty sure that the Tories would win Vermont comfortably (at least as well as Phil Scott did, probably better in the rural areas) with the Lib Dems in second, with the Greens maybe getting 10% in a good year for them and Labour absolutely nowhere.
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« Reply #70 on: January 20, 2022, 03:39:28 PM »

On Ohio 14, the suburbs nearest Cleveland are largely very well off but more importantly the district has a relatively large Jewish and Amish population, both of which would be very Conservative leaning. Therefore, the Labour voting industrial areas on Lake Erie would have been outvoted in 2019, though perhaps not in some previous elections.

It's hard to imagine the Amish swinging an election. I think that the general presumption among Americans would be that Amish do not vote at all (certainly this was my presumption until I looked into it); this is not necessarily true, but Amish turnout is low and Amish are not generally an electorally important demographic. A number I just found for Amish turnout in the 2004 presidential election is 13%, which apparently has not been exceeded since. I am also unsure that the Amish would be a comfortable fit with the Conservative Party.

On that note, I think a useful dimension of this exercise would be to look at how religious affiliation would affect voting patterns. I think it's fair to say that the historic Tory base would be mainline Protestants and the historic Labour base would be Catholics. Southern Baptists and non-denominational Protestants are not quite as obvious a Conservative demographic, but this exercise doesn't really work unless we conclude that nowadays they're largely a Tory demographic. Given the historic focus of the LDS church on anti-communism, Mormons are an obviously Conservative group. I'll leave the question of Jews to someone who is more able to speak on the social positions of Jews in America and in Britain.
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« Reply #71 on: January 20, 2022, 03:52:02 PM »

I'll leave the question of Jews to someone who is more able to speak on the social positions of Jews in America and in Britain.

There has tended to be a significant political cleavage between those who are Orthodox* and those who are not (which has made surveys - always tricky given the small size of the community - a complete nightmare and very vulnerable to definition games) and along much the lines stereotype would demand, although this gap will have been... somewhat smaller... in the past couple of elections for certain obvious reasons. There have also been strong geographical patterns - again, less marked recently. There is also a tendency for support to be more conditional than the norm, which (as you know) is a common theme with many minority groups in Britain.

An area that really does need highlighting, though, would be East Asian ethnicities. In Britain these are low turnout groups but those who do vote are overwhelmingly (probably in the 90% territory in a good election) Conservative.

*With the caveat that Hasidic voting patterns are their own world, much might be expected.
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« Reply #72 on: January 20, 2022, 04:14:33 PM »

On Ohio 14, the suburbs nearest Cleveland are largely very well off but more importantly the district has a relatively large Jewish and Amish population, both of which would be very Conservative leaning. Therefore, the Labour voting industrial areas on Lake Erie would have been outvoted in 2019, though perhaps not in some previous elections.

It's hard to imagine the Amish swinging an election. I think that the general presumption among Americans would be that Amish do not vote at all (certainly this was my presumption until I looked into it); this is not necessarily true, but Amish turnout is low and Amish are not generally an electorally important demographic. A number I just found for Amish turnout in the 2004 presidential election is 13%, which apparently has not been exceeded since. I am also unsure that the Amish would be a comfortable fit with the Conservative Party.

On that note, I think a useful dimension of this exercise would be to look at how religious affiliation would affect voting patterns. I think it's fair to say that the historic Tory base would be mainline Protestants and the historic Labour base would be Catholics. Southern Baptists and non-denominational Protestants are not quite as obvious a Conservative demographic, but this exercise doesn't really work unless we conclude that nowadays they're largely a Tory demographic. Given the historic focus of the LDS church on anti-communism, Mormons are an obviously Conservative group. I'll leave the question of Jews to someone who is more able to speak on the social positions of Jews in America and in Britain.

I don't necessarily know how the social attitudes of American Jews differ from British ones, but Jews in Britain regardless of how secular they are have been Tory since at least the time of Thatcher (though they did swing back a bit over the Blair era). The Jewish areas in the corridor from Golders Green to Radlett for example, are generally very wealthy, and seem to me to be fairly socially liberal and secular. These areas tend to be the strongest most loyally Tory wards in the area (look at how the Golders Green, Garden Suburb, Finchley Church End, Mill Hill, Edgware wards in Barnet and the Elstree and 2 Aldenham wards in Hertsmere vote for example). Unless American Jews are just way more left wing than their British counterparts (this is something I don't know) then it's very likely they would have gone the same way, they 100% wouldn't have voted for Corbyn* though.

*Though tbf Corbyn would have lost all 50 states save *possibly* Maryland. 
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« Reply #73 on: January 20, 2022, 04:25:21 PM »

On Ohio 14, the suburbs nearest Cleveland are largely very well off but more importantly the district has a relatively large Jewish and Amish population, both of which would be very Conservative leaning. Therefore, the Labour voting industrial areas on Lake Erie would have been outvoted in 2019, though perhaps not in some previous elections.

It's hard to imagine the Amish swinging an election. I think that the general presumption among Americans would be that Amish do not vote at all (certainly this was my presumption until I looked into it); this is not necessarily true, but Amish turnout is low and Amish are not generally an electorally important demographic. A number I just found for Amish turnout in the 2004 presidential election is 13%, which apparently has not been exceeded since. I am also unsure that the Amish would be a comfortable fit with the Conservative Party.

On that note, I think a useful dimension of this exercise would be to look at how religious affiliation would affect voting patterns. I think it's fair to say that the historic Tory base would be mainline Protestants and the historic Labour base would be Catholics. Southern Baptists and non-denominational Protestants are not quite as obvious a Conservative demographic, but this exercise doesn't really work unless we conclude that nowadays they're largely a Tory demographic. Given the historic focus of the LDS church on anti-communism, Mormons are an obviously Conservative group. I'll leave the question of Jews to someone who is more able to speak on the social positions of Jews in America and in Britain.

I don't necessarily know how the social attitudes of American Jews differ from British ones, but Jews in Britain regardless of how secular they are have been Tory since at least the time of Thatcher (though they did swing back a bit over the Blair era). The Jewish areas in the corridor from Golders Green to Radlett for example, are generally very wealthy, and seem to me to be fairly socially liberal and secular. These areas tend to be the strongest most loyally Tory wards in the area (look at how the Golders Green, Garden Suburb, Finchley Church End, Mill Hill, Edgware wards in Barnet and the Elstree and 2 Aldenham wards in Hertsmere vote for example). Unless American Jews are just way more left wing than their British counterparts (this is something I don't know) then it's very likely they would have gone the same way, they 100% wouldn't have voted for Corbyn* though.

*Though tbf Corbyn would have lost all 50 states save *possibly* Maryland. 
The American Jewish vote is historically and currently small-l liberal, taken altogether, and positioned opposite to Southern Evangelicals. In America, this religious divide is very much evident. In Britain, on the other hand, class voting becomes more predominant, and the UMC Jewish vote, for obvious reasons, gravitates to the Conservatives.
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« Reply #74 on: January 20, 2022, 06:18:22 PM »

Evangelicals are a marginal force in British politics, and it seems that Conservatism of the British type isn't objectionable to a lot of Democratic constituencies - whether rural New Englanders, American Jews or wealthy urban residents (save the obvious cultural symbols specific to the UK like the monarchy).

The GOP strength in state elections in Massachusetts and Vermont shows that conservatism can indeed adapt.
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