oregon chat!

[Torie]

OK, Alcon. Color it down to a senior moment. Maybe it was some pundit I was reading. I said 10 rather than 20 however, so I am not sure I it is conservator time for me yet however.

[Alcon]

OK, Alcon. Color it down to a senior moment. Maybe it was some pundit I was reading. I said 10 rather than 20 however, so I am not sure I it is conservator time for me yet however.

And I quoted it and still got it wrong...which I guess counts as youthful indiscretion.  Or something.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Something in the SUSA poll that looks kind of odd but can probably be chalked up to subsample size: Obama only does a point better in the 18-34 demographic than he does statewide. And he does much better 35-49 demographic.

Also it has Obama winning Hispanics though that's also with a very small size. For once I'm quite thankful about the fact that Hispanics in an area basically never vote.

[Gustaf]

Primaries are rarely blow-outs, either way (excepting some obvious cases, like Illinois or Arkansas). And it IS a closed primary. Sure, Clinton won't win the white Democrats vote 2-1 like she did in Pennsylvania but I doubt it will be an Obama landslide. I expect him to get around 55% or so.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Delegate allocation is unfavorable to her though:

OR-1 - Despite some favorable areas, Hillary needs to win Washington county (affluent suburbia) to win here. Doubt it.
OR-2 - The Clintons are just not popular here (to put it mildly)
OR-3 - This is Portland. Duh.
OR-4 - Can Hillary win a district that contains Eugene? Don't bet on it.
OR-6 - Maybe she can win here. But it's the only district with an even number of delegates.

[Rob]

I doubt he'll break 60%.

As good of a place as any to post my outdated, guess-y prediction map



Lightest shades are essentially guesses (the East was a nightmare to do).  Medium shades are leans.  Dark shades are relatively certain, and I'd be a little embarrassed if I were wrong.

Edit: Lincoln County (the light-pink mid-coast county) should probably be guess-Obama, but whatever.  I think I was thinking it's older and more unionized than it is, but mostly I think it's hippies.

Salem may go for Clinton (Salemites were voting for Kevin Mannix in Dem primaries, before he became a Republican), along with satellite-town Dallas (Polk County). Otherwise, looks good.

As might be expected, Eugene is crazy for Obama. I was seeing his stickers pop up on cars, student's backpacks, etc as early as last summer.

[Alcon]

I'll trust your judgment on that, Rob.  I know very little about Marion County other than sprawl-land seems rather conservative and will probably be good for Clinton.

Polk County has Western Oregon University, which is mainly why I gave it to Obama.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'll trust your judgment on that, Rob.  I know very little about Marion County other than sprawl-land seems rather conservative and will probably be good for Clinton.

Conservative yes, but why would the Democrats there be good for her? As much as I hate it sprawl-land does benefit Obama being educated and affluent.

[Alcon]

Conservative yes, but why would the Democrats there be good for her? As much as I hate it sprawl-land does benefit Obama being educated and affluent.

Marion County sprawl is not particularly upscale, as far as I know.  It's just lots of new-ish middle-class family housing.  Obama does OK there but not great, and he could get crushed in the exurban areas.  Obama has pretty polarized exurban performance.  In exurb areas where a lot of the Democrats are older or working-class, which I think Marion County's tend to be like, he gets slaughtered.

Comparably, Spanaway and Graham, Washington, were some of Obama's worst areas in western Washington state despite Graham being rather affluent.  I don't see the outer sprawlburbs of Marion County as being much different than those areas.

It's hard to tell though.  There seems to be a striking difference between long-settled sprawl developments and new ones.  Salem's are overwhelmingly new.  I imagine city proper will be good for Obama.  It all depends on places like Keizer.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Remember too that Obama does very well among state employees. A ton of those around Salem obviously.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is this a closed or open primary [kvestyon mark]

[Alcon]

Remember too that Obama does very well among state employees. A ton of those around Salem obviously.

That's true but, if Marion County was so overwhelmingly state employees/college students, it would be Democratic.  Obviously the Democrats will be state employees at a higher rate but there are considerable other industries there.

Is this a closed or open primary [kvestyon mark]

Closed.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Closed.

Does the pattern of registration mirror closely the Kerry vote in Oregon or not?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Remember too that Obama does very well among state employees. A ton of those around Salem obviously.

That's true but, if Marion County was so overwhelmingly state employees/college students, it would be Democratic.  Obviously the Democrats will be state employees at a higher rate but there are considerable other industries there.

This is kind of like saying that if Mississippi was so overwhelmingly black Kerry would've won it so Obama shouldn't have counted on the black vote there.

[bgwah]

I doubt he'll break 60%.

As good of a place as any to post my outdated, guess-y prediction map



Lightest shades are essentially guesses (the East was a nightmare to do).  Medium shades are leans.  Dark shades are relatively certain, and I'd be a little embarrassed if I were wrong.

Edit: Lincoln County (the light-pink mid-coast county) should probably be guess-Obama, but whatever.  I think I was thinking it's older and more unionized than it is, but mostly I think it's hippies.

The Washington primary map is what I would look at for comparisons. The more I think about it, we both thought Clinton would win more Eastern Washington counties than she did. She won working class formerly Democratic counties (Asotin and Pend Oreille) and the counties with large hispanic populations, and lost everything else except for Garfield.

I expect a similar result in Eastern Oregon, though I don't know enough about the counties to make specific predictions.

As for Western Oregon, Western Washington was easy to predict (I got 19/19), so I doubt there will be many surprises there. One thing that sticks out to me on your map is the county with Astoria---that seems like Obamaland to me.

[Alcon]

Closed.

Does the pattern of registration mirror closely the Kerry vote in Oregon or not?

I know what you're getting at, and the answer is, sorta.  Kerry did well among independents in some counties and Bush did well among Democrats in others.  My inclination is that Bush-voting Pennsylvania Democrats are a little different than Oregon ones.

Here's a statewide map comparing November 2004 Presidential results to November 2004 partisan registration.  I compared the vote share for Kerry to the Democratic registration share.  Overall, Kerry outperformed Democratic registrations by 32.7%, and Bush outperfomed GOP registrations by 33.5%.  For the purpose of the map below, this would be GOP outperformance by net 0.8%, meaning the lightest GOP color.  I did them in intervals of 10. 

Edit: Intervals of 10-what?  I have no idea what I was talking about.  I think I meant 3%.



The result was cooler than I expected (every county fits!!!), but predictably confusing.  It's hard to find a model of DINO-dom with unaffiliated voters around who don't vote 50/50 in every place, or even represent the counties as a whole.

I would say that Obama should perform better the lighter the color, but Eastern Washington Oregon is confusing.  Heavily Republican areas with anti-environmentalist sentiments weren't bad for Obama in Washington, and they may not be in Oregon either.  It all depends on how the DIROs (Democrats in Registration Only) feel.

My inclination is that Bend and Hood River are going to make that all moot.

[Alcon]

This is kind of like saying that if Mississippi was so overwhelmingly black Kerry would've won it so Obama shouldn't have counted on the black vote there.

That would be a valid point if Marion County had any industries that were so heavily Republican as to be comparable to Mississippi whites.  You know what I meant.

[Alcon]

The Washington primary map is what I would look at for comparisons.

The trouble is, if these DIROs in Eastern Oregon would have gotten our primary system, I imagine they'd have taken a Republican ballot.  I'm not so sure it is comparable.

[Alcon]

I want to bump this for the hopefully-ironic art for the Willamette Week's endorsement of Obama.



I know what you're thinking.  Yes, that is the Columbia River Interstate Bridge behind him.

I should also have some juicy registration information tomorrow and be able to draw some conclusions from it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Washington primary map is what I would look at for comparisons.

The trouble is, if these DIROs in Eastern Oregon would have gotten our primary system, I imagine they'd have taken a Republican ballot.  I'm not so sure it is comparable.

What makes you think there are so many "DIROs"? Oregon seems like a pretty partisan state, very little crossover from voters of the other side. The map you posted above just shows how the independents voted. Also proved by both Bush and Kerry receiving over 90% of their respective parties' votes in Oregon.

[Alcon]

What makes you think there are so many "DIROs"? Oregon seems like a pretty partisan state, very little crossover from voters of the other side. The map you posted above just shows how the independents voted. Also proved by both Bush and Kerry receiving over 90% of their respective parties' votes in Oregon.

That's logically, maybe mathematically, impossible in several counties.  Look, Bush won some registered Democrats in Grant County.  It's just ridiculous to say otherwise.  Not everyone bothers to update their voter registration, especially when there's no reason to.  A lot of people don't vote in non-presidential primaries, and a lot of people don't really care enough about which primary they're voting in to change affiliation.  Plenty of those folks voted Bush.

You're citing exit polls and simultaneously saying that the map represents independents.  That is a map where Kerry would be losing independents, albeit narrowly.  The exit poll had him win them them by 18 points.

For the record, when I say DIROs, I mean them as a distinct breed from DINOs.  These folks are so far gone that they will identify as Republicans to exit pollsters.  Some of them voted for Dukakis but probably wouldn't admit to it now.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

For the record, when I say DIROs, I mean them as a distinct breed from DINOs.  These folks are so far gone that they will identify as Republicans to exit pollsters.  Some of them voted for Dukakis but probably wouldn't admit to it now.

So in other words people who haven't bothered to update their registration because they never vote in primaries? Doesn't sound like a big factor to me. And if they do in fact identify as Republicans now, wouldn't hatred of the Clintons be the biggest factor in Eastern Oregon?

[Alcon]

So in other words people who haven't bothered to update their registration because they never vote in primaries? Doesn't sound like a big factor to me.

There will still be quite a few voters who never bothered to vote in primaries before.  This is the first vaguely interesting presidential primary has had in a while.  Say 50% of voters have participated in a partisan primary in recent history; then say turnout in this primary is 60%.    That still means up to 15-20% of the electorate is a first-time primary voter, and even a higher percentage is likely to be non-regular primary voters.  Accepting for a moment that there are more registered Democrats who vote GOP in the East than the West, that should be even higher in the East, approaching maybe upwards of a third of people who are voting but have had no reason to care about their partisan affiliation.

Besides, I imagine there are also some who voted in Democratic primaries because, why not?, but didn't actually vote for Democrats in the General.  Invariably, the Democratic primary vote share in Eastern Washington is higher than the subsequent General Election.

Democratic registrations in Eastern Oregon tend to be disproportionately phantom^*, another strong indicator of the kind of latent primary base that I'm talking about.

And if they do in fact identify as Republicans now, wouldn't hatred of the Clintons be the biggest factor in Eastern Oregon?

We'll see.  Personally, my bet is:   Eastern Oregon voters vote like the rag-tag bunch of libertarian Democrats, small-town Democrats, DIROs and displaced left-wingers they aer.  Obama wins, although not overwhelmingly, and Clinton does well in some counties.  The DIRO, anti-Clinton, racist, spite and rural populist votes effectively cancel each other out and Obama carries the district easily on the shoulders of Bend, Hood River and a few other areas of strong performance, probably in the northeast.

* - E.g., someone who registered more than eight years ago and never voted, or someone who registered more than twelve years ago and only voted once.  A lot of these probably moved and didn't return mail, or just lost interest in politics.  Or maybe they're waiting for Ross Perot to come back.

[Sbane]

Is eastern Oregon even that relevant to our discussion? How much of an impact can those rural areas really have. I would be interested to know how many of the people of the second congressional district actually live outside Medford/Ashland. Bend and Klamath falls are the only other big population centers I believe and they are usually filled with hippies and conservative conservative GOP. Also Klamath falls is quickly becoming full of crusty old Californians. Not sure how that will affect things.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It is worth noting that in the SUSA regional breakdown, Obama does better in the "rest of state" than Portland area. Now the Portland area is WAY broadly defined by SUSA, but still. But hwo knows, maybe they're oversampling Eugene or something.