Counties Obama never won in 2008

[Husker]

Here's a map I've been working on for a few days now.. I thought it would be interesting to see a U.S. map of counties that Obama did not win at all in 2008, either during the primary season or during the general election. Legend:

Red - Counties Obama won in November, doesn't necessarily mean he won it in the primary season
Green- Counties Obama won during the primary season but lost in the general election
Blue- Counties Obama never won
White - County level data does not exist or Obama was not actually on the ballot.


It looks to me that you could almost draw two circles: One over OK, AR, and northern and west TX where Obama just plain got creamed. The other circle would include Appalachia and the Rust Belt region. Obama did fine in urban areas of this region and won a few of the states, but he did awful in the rural areas in both the general and the primary.

If I have more time, I'll go through and indicate which counties he won twice. Any thoughts on this?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I can't see the picture

[Husker]

I think I have the problem solved, although the picture quality is much lower now...

[Alcon]

Cool idea, but it probably makes more sense to use advisory primaries than caucuses in states like Idaho, Washington and Nebraska.  Caucuses sort of muck this all up.

[nclib]

I would also be interested in considering the primary results of counties that flipped party in 2008. I would imagine Obama did well in the primary in counties that flipped to him (except the Latino counties), and that Clinton won almost all of the Kerry/McCain counties.

[Nym90]

It seems the only Kerry/McCain counties that Obama won in the primary were the two Louisiana parishes that went Kerry to McCain--Pointe Coupee and Assumption. For these I would assume there must have been either very low white turnout in the primary or very low black turnout in the general (or both).

I haven't found any other counties that voted for Kerry in 2004, Obama in the 2008 Dem primary and McCain in the 2008 general. If anyone finds any others feel free to correct me.

[Smash255]

It seems the only Kerry/McCain counties that Obama won in the primary were the two Louisiana parishes that went Kerry to McCain--Pointe Coupee and Assumption. For these I would assume there must have been either very low white turnout in the primary or very low black turnout in the general (or both).

I haven't found any other counties that voted for Kerry in 2004, Obama in the 2008 Dem primary and McCain in the 2008 general. If anyone finds any others feel free to correct me.

I don't really think its turnout.   Both parishes would tend to fit into the old school Dixiecrat type of counties.  Both were trending Republican, but Kerry was able to get enough of the white vote to hold on to them.  Both are around 30% African American, which likely resulted in a Primary that was around 50% African American.   

Obama had virtually no support among whites in Louisiana so any parish which was 30% African American, probably was enough for him to win a Primary (since that meant the primary was about 50% African American) but African Americans making up 30% of the overall electorate wasn't enough for him to win the General