Not-So-Solid South

[koganbot]

South and southwest Texas, scattered bits of Oklahoma, Louisiana's northern fringe, almost all of Mississippi, the bulk of Alabama (minus the very top and the Mobile area), the eastern fringe of Arkansas, southwest and northeast Georgia, South Carolina (most of it), southeast Virginia, central Kentucky, south central Ohio, the Baltimore area, most of New Jersey, all but the western part of New York, Vermont's middle third, and bits of Arizona and New Mexico and Colorado: what these have in common, according to a NY Times map, is that they all increased their vote for Obama compared to 2008 (while most of the country was decreasing its vote for him). And if we click on the 2008 map, most of those counties had shifted towards Obama in comparison to Kerry four years earlier (therefore they weren't shifting back this year from a Republican shift four years ago).

Since I was eyeballing a nondetailed map, which I'm assuming was county by county, I certainly missed things. E.g., I wouldn't be surprised if some of the small blue dots in Arizona came from counties with most of the state's population. Southeast Louisiana and those parts of Arizona seem to be the only two places that shifted back from a Republican shift four years ago (McCain, being from Arizona, got a larger vote there than a Republican would have normally).

I don't have an informed opinion here, but my guess is that in the southeast and southwest this trend is at least partly due to the Hispanic vote, and in the SE because of an increased black vote. And — I'm purely guessing here — maybe some of the cultural warfare issues (as opposed to economic issues) play less strongly to evangelicals than they did a decade ago. Of course, all of those SE and SW states except New Mexico voted for Romney, some overwhelmingly so. But, for instance, the 43.5% Obama took in Mississippi is a greater percentage than he took in West Virginia, Montana, and North Dakota (three states that just elected or re-elected Democratic senators) and almost as much as he took in Indiana and Missouri (which also just elected and re-elected Democratic senators).

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Re: your comment about Arizona, here's a map via Alex O that cross-references voting patterns with population density. So vast swathes of the midwest are light pinkish as opposed to deep blue urban centers.

http://microphoneheartbeats.tumblr.com/post/35658112097/skepticalavenger-chris-howard-america-really