Talk Elections

Wisconsin has somewhat of an east-west divide within the state (perhaps a German/Scandinavian thing)

Ohio has the 7 formation with the counties on Lake Erie and bordering PA or WV being industrial and democrat while the rest of the state republican (save for maybe Dayton)

Pennsylvania has the T formation (although western Pennsylvania isn't nearly as dem as it used to be)

NC and VA also have somewhat of an east-west divide with a heavily black and democrat tidewater area and a more republican mountainous western area

New Mexico sort of has a reverse L within the state that votes differently from the rest of the state. In the 20s, that area was democrat while the rest of the state was republican, now its the inverse

Colorado has the C formation ranging from the traditionally spanish populations in the south to the trendy ski/mountain towns and Denver.

Oklahoma also used to have somewhat of a north-south divide although that ended circa 2000

WV: The eastern panhandle is much more Republican than the rest of the state.

KY: This is kinda north-south; the counties in the south-central region are Republican while  almost everywhere else is Democratic or competitive.

MS: Pretty obvious; outside of the delta, there are only a few pockets of Democratic strength.

North Georgia is heavily Republican, with its loyal to party roots going all the way back to the 1800s. Democrats were more competitive here in past decades, but the amount of Republicanism present was far greater than their virtual non-presence throughout the rest of state. The SE interior of the state is also very Republican in the modern day.

The Fall Line is the predominant geographic divide in Georgia and the Democrats traditionally speaking have dominated on both sides of it as it runs from SW to NE. There's also the Atlanta metro area and the areas along the coast.

So basically, it looks similar to a ying-yang or percentage symbol.

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I thought north GA was pretty friendly to Zell Miller type Dems.

I assumed this was more of a national/Presidential discussion on state divides. There are levels to how the regions in Georgia vote depending on whether it's local, state or national. For example, Chattooga County, Georgia still hasn't had a Republican elected to local office. They continue to support Democrats at the state and national level by larger margins despite being surrounded by staunch Republicanism, but the area will probably never vote for a Democratic president again. It's an isolated, older community. This would be a more accurate display of local/state trends:

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Dixiecrats did alright in NE Georgia in the post-Civil Rights era oddly enough but it was mainly at the local and state levels. I believe Ed Jenkins was our last Democratic congressman from North Georgia through 1992. Nathan Deal was a Democrat for his first term before flipping in 1995. Zell Miller did well specifically because he was from Towns County. The Democratic Party is essentially dead throughout the uber-vast majority of North Georgia.

A lot of North Georgia was pro-Union and have stuck with the party by and large since then. Over time, though, the area changed with the party. It's always been conservative but has gotten worse in recent decades. It's harder to observe the trends for Presidential elections in North Georgia throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s but it's still fairly clear; LBJ won in traditional Republican bastions of North Georgia and then Nixon won over Wallace, due to less support for segregationist policies. They obviously went on to support Nixon again, followed by Carter twice (given). It's been reliably Republican for presidents since then.

most of North Georgia back in the day was a democratic stronghold but you're correct in that there were pockets of republican strength, particularly near the TN border: https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html. East Tennessee of course has always been Republican. I would guess the reason for north Georgia being so republican is that there aren't a lot of blacks to keep the margin down, similar to a place like AL 4. I would wager that the whites in areas like GA 9 are at least marginally more democrat voting than the ones in GA 2.

Historically Democrats did best in Central Valley and rural Northern California counties. While they still tend to do better in the North than the South, they now do best in counties that touch the ocean (including the San Francisco/Suisun bay).

Cascade Mountains.

Florida's I-4 corridor divides Florida between the (excluding Orlando & Tallahassee) Republican-voting North Florida region and the (excluding the rural central bit and most of the Gulf Coast besides Tampa Bay) Democratic-voting South Florida.

that's not entirely true. South Florida outside of the tri-county area is a GOP stronghold (like Fort Myers or Naples.

Yeah, but as a general rule (and I did say excluding rural central Florida and the Gulf Coast).

Arkansas: Republicans in the northwest (Bentonville area) and Democrats everywhere else (more so in state/local elections than presidential ones)

Texas (modern day): Democrats in South Texas and El Paso versus Republicans everywhere else

Texas (historical): Republicans in and around San Antonio and the Hill Country versus Democrats everywhere else

Alabama: the horizontal strip of heavily Democratic counties that conveniently coincides with the most African-American part of the state

How could you forget Austin?!

Fair enough, I assumed we were talking more about regions rather than specific cities, since just about any decent sized city is going to vote Democratic.

Westa Woosta, in terms of intraparty political style and rhetoric (with the arguable exception of Springfield).

Historically, TN is pretty easy; everything around or east of Knoxville is Republican while Middle TN  and the delta is Democratic.

County Divide

Bergen County in Northern New Jersey is D by the George Washington Bridge but the Northern end of Bergen County is fairly R like between where Route 17 runs between the Garden State Parkway and the New York Thruway by the NJ/NY state line.

State Divide:

Western Jersey Counties like Sussex and Huntedron County are fairly R where as Northeastern Counties like urban Essex and Hudson Counties are D. Somerset County in Central Jersey kind of balances the divide between Western Jersey Conservatism(Warren and Huntedron counties) and Northeast Jersey's(Essex and Hudson counties) neo-liberalism. Basically the west end of I-78 is conservative in Warren County by the PA Line and the East end in Newark(Essex County) is neo-liberal. I don't know where that puts Union County which is east of Somerset County and west of Essex County on I-78 in terms of left-right politics(maybe left of center?) Towns like Scotch Plains, Fanwood, Westfield, and Mountainside are not liberal bastions by any means on the Western Side of Union County. Union County votes D in all elections(State, local and Presidential) but not by the margins that Essex and Hudson does. The Eastern part of Union County has a big Hispanic Population in Elizabeth and is exploding right now in the town of Union.

Cook, Carbondale, and East St. Louis Democratic

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Don't Democrats always win that one southeast county in IL?

Wow, are there any other counties like this? Even more remarkable as a 67% McCain county.

I'm sure there are quite a few in Arkansas and West Virginia.

In MO, there is a huge difference between the counties around St. Louis and Kansas cities and the rest of the state.

It's funny to me to look at a map of Missouri in which a Democrat barely wins (McCaskill 2006). Visually, it's a sea of red with a few islands of blue, but I guess in Missouri those blue dots are where most of the voters are.

Also take a look at the Illinois gubernatorial map in 2010, or the New York presidential maps in 1968 and 1976.

Here's a cool map of metro Atlanta in 2008

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As you can see, there's a core base of democratic support in the city of Atlanta and the inner southern suburbs. This is where there's a ton of black voters and hipster liberals. Then it gets interesting as that blue sort of fans out in all directions from the city along the interstates- this is also where a lot of minority voters live. Then, as you get farther out into the outer suburbs it becomes almost blood red. These areas are white and conservative, and people there only go into the city for Braves games and concerts. And god forbid MARTA tries to expand into their communities.

In terms of areas outside ATL that are white and liberal, you'll really only find that in areas of Dekalb county like Decatur and a few scattered areas of North Fulton where a lot of wealthy northeastern transplants have put down roots.

For the most part, there aren't really any swingy regions in the metro area. The Democratic regions are super, super democrat, and the Republican regions are almost maniacally loyal to the GOP.

as is tradition (in the South).

The general area surrounding it is similar, but I'm not sure as to whether or not Republicans have been elected in other surrounding counties. Polk, Haralson and Floyd Counties all have much stronger Democratic tendencies at the local and state levels than the surrounding areas. If you look back a few decades - especially across the state line into Alabama - you can see where there was once a large, rural Democratic voting bloc that still somewhat retains its characteristics.

In NC, this has more to do with race than ideology. There are very few white liberals east of I-95 except right on the coast. Next week, it will be interesting to see the anti-gay marriage (and civil union, etc., but I digress) map, I bet the anti-gay support will be stronger east of the Triangle than in the mouintains.

yep that area has probably the largest concentration of jews in the south (except for the tri county area).

Woah that Meto Atlanta pic was pretty cool. I had to save it to my desktop.

It is a nice map, but a shame the colors are all wrong.

According to this map Obama is in trouble on his home turf.

Indiana just has the Democratic enclaves of Gary-Hammond-East Chicago, Indianapolis, and Bloomington. The most Republicn is CD's 2-6 which include everything from Fort Wayne in the northeast to Kokomo, Frankfort, Montecello, in the central and Carmel-Westfield in the south. As for southern Indiana Terre Haute and Bloomington are the Democrat enclaves with most of the rest as lean to solid R. This could change (and not in Obama's favor after yesterday's support of gay marriage)

Not necessarily : Pat Quinn did win with roughly this map. :P

There aren't many swing voters in the deep south because of racially polarized voting. It exists in GA and it's even worse in Alabama and Mississippi. Black voters feel a strong allegiance to the Democratic party, which is true in the rest of the US. But down here, the white voters also feel a strong allegiance the the Republican party. It transcends class, income, gender and even ideology sometimes. You may hear plenty of white people down here expressing doubts about Mitt Romney, but I can almost guarantee that they will vote for him in November, simply because he's the GOP nominee.

Among a lot of whites, I think that still, even in this day and age, there is the perception that a stealth race war being fought, and with rising black population and prominence, a lot of white people are freaked out. The GOP tapped into this fear years ago and now they have a lock on this vote.

And just an FYI, I am white and was born and raised in Georgia, so I hear these sentiments a lot from white people that they might not say among mixed company.

In Michigan, the LP is roughly divided into the Democratic east and the Republican west; this holds pretty much throughout the entire peninsula. Of course, the eastern half is far more populous and so the Republicans need to win big in the Detroit suburbs to help negate this in order to win the state.

In the UP, traditionally it has been the opposite, though this is more evident in local results than national ones nowadays.

the reason why Georgia whites are 3/4 republican has more to do with the type of white that is living there. Within the white community there are fewer gays, catholics, jews, seculars, singles etc who would be willing vote democratic and disproportionately straight protestant married people.

Rising Black Population? The Hispanic Population is bigger than the Black Population in the US. I agree if you want to say there is a rising Black Population in Georgia.