Law of Large Numbers: Why Aren't CA and TX Swing States, Why Isn't NYC Competitive?

[Skill and Chance]

This always interested me.  In theory, the most populated states and the largest city should vote closest to the nationwide average.  NYC is easier to explain because the lifestyle is very different from average, but note the 2nd-5th largest cities all have pretty average American car-based lifestyles and cover a mix of blue, red, and purple states.  Yet none of them show much regression toward the mean either. 

[Oryxslayer]

Self segregation. A city attracts a specific type of person, same with a suburb, a rural area, and all in between. Less because of political views but more because of community, schools, job, income, and culture. The result is that the largest areas are often just as unrepresentative of  country as small areas.

This is not just the US. I struggle to think of any country where the cities are representative whatsoever. The closest is perhaps Stockholm in Sweden, but the other cities are not.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This always interested me.  In theory, the most populated states and the largest city should vote closest to the nationwide average.  NYC is easier to explain because the lifestyle is very different from average, but note the 2nd-5th largest cities all have pretty average American car-based lifestyles and cover a mix of blue, red, and purple states.  Yet none of them show much regression toward the mean either. 

This is an interesting point.

I’d make the case though that larger states tend to be large in population because they have large cities; disproportionate to most states. Cali votes so blue not because the cities are that uniquely blue (though tbf the Bay Area kinda is) but because there aren’t the rurals to outvote the coast. Considering most the entire country outside nyc is car dependent, I don’t know how strong of a correlation one can say there is; especially when South Brooklyn which has many subway lines votes so heavily R

Same thing goes in NY; NY without NYC would be a swing state but NYC itself skews the state to be more urban and diverse than average.

[Former President tack50]

Basically because "reversion to the mean" does not really apply here. Cities certainly can have very distinct and different priorities to rural areas, and in the US that is one of the biggest factors in voting (tbf most countries do have at least some urban vs rural split)

Self segregation. A city attracts a specific type of person, same with a suburb, a rural area, and all in between. Less because of political views but more because of community, schools, job, income, and culture. The result is that the largest areas are often just as unrepresentative of  country as small areas.

This is not just the US. I struggle to think of any country where the cities are representative whatsoever. The closest is perhaps Stockholm in Sweden, but the other cities are not.

I mean, in Spain other than Barcelona (waaaay to the left of the nation) and to a much lesser extent Bilbao (nominally in-line with Spain at large, but with very different party makeups) for obvious reasons; the major cities voted fairly in-line with the nation. Then again, party differences in general here are smaller than the US (again with the Basque/Catalonia exceptions). Rural Castille votes at most around 65-35, not the 80-20 of the Great Plains for instance. (and interestingly, within rural Castille; it's not like the cities like Salamanca or Ávila are particularly more liberal than the villages)

[Oryxslayer]

Basically because "reversion to the mean" does not really apply here. Cities certainly can have very distinct and different priorities to rural areas, and in the US that is one of the biggest factors in voting (tbf most countries do have at least some urban vs rural split)

Self segregation. A city attracts a specific type of person, same with a suburb, a rural area, and all in between. Less because of political views but more because of community, schools, job, income, and culture. The result is that the largest areas are often just as unrepresentative of  country as small areas.

This is not just the US. I struggle to think of any country where the cities are representative whatsoever. The closest is perhaps Stockholm in Sweden, but the other cities are not.

I mean, in Spain other than Barcelona (waaaay to the left of the nation) and to a much lesser extent Bilbao (nominally in-line with Spain at large, but with very different party makeups) for obvious reasons; the major cities voted fairly in-line with the nation. Then again, party differences in general here are smaller than the US (again with the Basque/Catalonia exceptions). Rural Castille votes at most around 65-35, not the 80-20 of the Great Plains for instance. (and interestingly, within rural Castille; it's not like the cities like Salamanca or Ávila are particularly more liberal than the villages)

I actually thought of Spain and the city that immediately came to mind is Madrid - which is an interesting case of self-segregation working in the opposite of how we usually imagine it does in cities. Madrid boomed and attracted many during the dictatorship, so now you have a population that is on average more likely to be both wealthier and have fonder memories of the past.

Jerusalem is another such case, cause for religious reasons it attracts the most orthodox.

And even when such a city is divided, the self-segregation often leads to issues that all clearly agree upon. Take France last weekend, where almost every city went from near full-LREM in 2017 to now having the poor sections go left and the stable and wealthy ones go LREM. Which is a divide, but the divide between both of those sections and the rural RN regions is far, far, larger. The communities, social networks, and economic situations people interact with are different in different places - producing different results even if them politically might end up on similar teams.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Counterpoint; Florida, Pennsylvania

Florida is the third largest state and Pennsylvania is the 5th. Both have seen numerous closely contested election

[Del Tachi]

Because that's not what "the law of large numbers" is.  LLN states the long-run averages of random events will approximate the expected value.  Elections, states and voters are very non-random.

[TDAS04]

Counterpoint; Florida, Pennsylvania

Florida is the third largest state and Pennsylvania is the 5th. Both have seen numerous closely contested election

And Texas will soon be competitive.

[Unelectable Bystander]

Because that's not what "the law of large numbers" is.  LLN states the long-run averages of random events will approximate the expected value.  Elections, states and voters are very non-random.

Yes this explains it, the states in question have tendencies that make them not at all representative of the country. NY and CA are way more urban and diverse. TX is also much more urban (or urban/suburban) but has other factors overriding this one.

Florida (historically) actually has some tendencies that made it likely to swing in tune with the country. The racial makeup is a decent cross-section and it at least has some population in rural, suburban, and urban areas. It’s still probably slightly too old and urban though, and (I think) its white/Hispanic/urban/suburban/rural populations are all more republican than the nationwide average for each group.

Theoretically a large state that is a representative sample of the entire country should be very close to the country’s results, but  no state that fits this exactly. The transplant population of a state like Texas might be close, but it would still be too young/wealthy/educated to be a match