Gaming the States 2, day 7: New York

[Alcon]

Are NY precinct results online [question mark]

No, unfortunately.  I managed to get a worker to feel bad enough for me that she sent me an electronic canvass.  Beforehand she asked me to drive in to read/copy it but I convinced her that gas is a little pricey for that.

[Torie]

Are we sure that it is not the case that  among older rich whites (maybe outside the entertainment industry) Clinton isn't beating Obama most places?  (I think I will check out La Canada.) And yes, the Upper East Side is rather heavily Jewish, actually I think.

Sorry, everyone is going to have to work with me a bit here on NYC geography.  The area to which I am speaking is an area extending from 3rd Avenue to Central Park, and between East 59th and East 96th.  The specific precincts I focused on were hyper-affluent ones located around 96th & Park, 86th & Madison, 80th & Park, 75th & Madison, and a few others that I cannot remember.  I also checked, and they range from a low of 9% above-65 to a high of 22%.  About 40% of my randomly-chosen precinct samples are in block groups in which half or more of the population is between ages 20 and 44.  I do not think my sample trends remarkably old for affluent areas.  In fact, most hyperaffluent areas actually trend older.

I'm not sure about Jews, but are Manhattan's elite heavily Jewish?  There's really no way to check religious affiliation, beyond proximity to a place of worship...and obviously, it's Manhattan, and too dense to be possible.

Ya, they are actually. As a totally wild guess, I would not be surprised if the Jewish percentage were somewhere in the range of 40%, maybe of bit more than 50% of the voters in these hyper rich precincts. I "visited" some very high  income precincts in LA and Orange County outside the entertainment industry belt (think less Jewish), and the vote was about evenly split between between Clinton and Obama. Oh, after a quick visit to Beverly Hills, it looks about 60-40 Clinton (entertainment and pretty heavily Jewish, but a lot of them are of Iranian background now).

[Alcon]

Hehe, I got to head over to LA County's Elections site and see this guy:



Miss that wanker.  Hope he's playing nice down there.

Anyway, that's interesting.  I suppose this is the sort of thing I can never prove objectively (damn it), but I still think being from New York helped Clinton to carry Manhattan.  I'm surprised Sam disagrees.

Do you happen to have a link to the LA County abstract, Torie?  Should be pretty interesting.

[Torie]

Hehe, I got to head over to LA County's Elections site and see this guy:



Miss that wanker.  Hope he's playing nice down there.

Anyway, that's interesting.  I suppose this is the sort of thing I can never prove objectively (damn it), but I still think being from New York helped Clinton to carry Manhattan.  I'm surprised Sam disagrees.

Do you happen to have a link to the LA County abstract, Torie?  Should be pretty interesting.

I checked out what may be the wealthiest precinct in the United States in Homby Hills, Los Angeles city precinct number 9001408. It went 152 Obama, 109 Clinton. So after maybe your net worth passes 25 million, one starts to swing towards Obama - or something. 

Anyway, here is the precinct file (for LA City, it doesn't help much since it is by numbers (but the precincts are organized by city, so one check say check what happened in near totally Hispanic San Fernando for example, or black Inglewood, or Mandarin Chinese Monterey Park, or Armenian Glendale, and see who was doing what to whom). And  if one is industrious, one can go to the map utility, and dig up info like I did on the Homby Hills precinct.

[Brittain33]

Are we sure that it is not the case that  among older rich whites (maybe outside the entertainment industry) Clinton isn't beating Obama most places?  (I think I will check out La Canada.) And yes, the Upper East Side is rather heavily Jewish, actually I think.

I seem to remember Georgette Mosbacher using the Upper West Side as a euphemism for the Jewy parts of Manhattan a few years ago, and not favorably.

[Sam Spade]

A few points:

1. There are more WASPs in this area than pretty much anywhere else in NYC (not saying much - I am actually in one of NYC's few other areas of WASPdom).  But Manhattan's elite is more Jewish than WASP (there Torie is quite right), especially nowadays (my area is being taken over by wealthy Jews also - slowly).
2. There's another storyline to this, however.  The WASPs are strongest in the 60s and 70s, as I recall - that's where the really affluent areas are.  As you move further north, their numbers decline rapidly.
3. The interesting connection - this area of the world has many more registered Republicans than New York does on average, and when you get to the 60s and 70s, I can tell you that the registration numbers get close to being even.
4. My gut says, if anything, that it's the WASPs who are most likely to be registered Republican.  Therefore, the Jew elite vote will skew a bit more than it normally does.
5. I am a little surprised on the age breakdown, because the Upper East Side is simply not very trendy nowadays (although still enormously wealthy).  Hunter College is located on the outskirts, but I doubt few of the people who attend there live in this area, and there are no other colleges.  Perhaps the Upper East Side women have parents who live out of town - and the women want to live in the city, but in a safe area, so they live there.  Sounds ridiculous, but I know a couple of these types - they don't vote in the city, I do know.
6. There are tons of embassies and consulates on the Upper East Side in the areas you're talking about - they may skew the results a bit, I don't know how much.

More on this later, when it's not 2:30 AM for me.

[Alcon]

In fairness, this was the Upper East Side of 8 years ago by now   The median age could have very well risen, naturally and otherwise.

Interestingly, the area you say is WASPy didn't seem to vote remarkably differently than the area you say is Jew-y.  (If only the Census asked religion...)

If I knew where the trendy, less hyper-affluent areas were (Greenwich Village?  But that has gays!  Darn) I would check them.  What would be the Obama "anchor" areas in Manhattan?

[Torie]

One would think Harlem would be the anchor area for Obama, no?  And the precinct or two that takes in Columbia University presumably. How about Soho?  That sounds trendy.

[Alcon]

One would think Harlem would be the anchor area for Obama, no?  And the precinct or two that takes in Columbia University presumably.

I'm trying to find a representative sample of average, upper middle class WASPs (Obama's whitebread-and-butter).  Sorry for not making that clearer.

[Torie]

One would think Harlem would be the anchor area for Obama, no?  And the precinct or two that takes in Columbia University presumably.

I'm trying to find a representative sample of average, upper middle class WASPs (Obama's whitebread-and-butter).  Sorry for not making that clearer.

You are trying to find THAT in Manhattan? I would suggest that maybe you repair to Manhassat in Nassau County (sp).

[Alcon]

So, Obama lost solely because Jews and Hispanics outweighed WASPs and blacks?  Not because Clinton is popular in her home state?  Well, whatever...

I guess I lose this topic. 

[Torie]

So, Obama lost solely because Jews and Hispanics outweighed WASPs and blacks?  Not because Clinton is popular in her home state?  Well, whatever...

I guess I lose this topic. 

Why don't you look at the results of Greece, New York?  That is a well to do suburb of Rochester.
Or better yet, try the East Avenue section of Rochester.   That area from the pics (well worth looking at for their own reward) just seems to exude upper middle class WASP-dom.

[Sam Spade]

One would think Harlem would be the anchor area for Obama, no?  And the precinct or two that takes in Columbia University presumably.

I'm trying to find a representative sample of average, upper middle class WASPs (Obama's whitebread-and-butter).  Sorry for not making that clearer.

Upper-middle class WASPs in NYC?  Next-to-impossible.

Keep in mind, I said that the Upper East Side is a WASP-y area for NY, not a WASP-y area in general.  And the subtleties between Park Avenue and 70th and Park Avenue and 90th between Jews and WASPs is not that great.  The difference is less "old money" in those areas, and "old money" in NY has slightly more of a WASP twinge than otherwise.  Moreover, once you get to 96th and Madison/Park, in your example, it's really on the cusp of Spanish Harlem, so I might be careful - I don't know where that precinct extends to.

The key point that I was raising that exists on the Upper East Side that doesn't exist most elsewhere in NYC is labeled above - Republicans.  Undoubtedly, they trend WASP-y and they can't vote in a "closed" Dem primary.

I have one other question:  What were the actual numbers of the precincts you got?  I would like to know since I've been doing a little research into hyper-rich precincts in Houston and Dallas Texas...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So, Obama lost solely because Jews and Hispanics outweighed WASPs and blacks?  Not because Clinton is popular in her home state?  Well, whatever...

I guess I lose this topic. 

Why don't you look at the results of Greece, New York?  That is a well to do suburb of Rochester.

Where's precinct results? Though Obama did do pretty well in only 15% black Monroe County.

No doubt Obama would've won Brooklyn if it hadn't been in Hillary's carpetbagged "home state". Funny that I now prefer Boise, ID to New York City.

[Sam Spade]

So, Obama lost solely because Jews and Hispanics outweighed WASPs and blacks?  Not because Clinton is popular in her home state?  Well, whatever...

I guess I lose this topic. 

Why don't you look at the results of Greece, New York?  That is a well to do suburb of Rochester.

Where's precinct results? Though Obama did do pretty well in only 15% black Monroe County.

No doubt Obama would've won Brooklyn if it hadn't been in Hillary's carpetbagged "home state". Funny that I now prefer Boise, ID to New York City.

Yes, he would have won Brooklyn, on that we agree.  The second part of your comment is silly. But you do know what else is in Monroe County, don't you?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Some university I guess.

[Sam Spade]

Some university I guess.

Yep, University of Rochester.  About 8-10,000, as I last recall.  I almost went to the music school up there.

[Alcon]

I can't find precinct results for Monroe County.  New York tends to be stingy.

[Sam Spade]

I can't find precinct results for Monroe County.  New York tends to be stingy.

That isn't just in giving out precinct results, you know.

[Smash255]

One interesting thing to check out is on the NY BOE website, they have the enrollment breakdown of every election district in the state.