Oregon 2016 GE Pres Results

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Dang Douglas and coos county are look like there going the way of West Virginia and northern Maine

[Keep cool-idge]

Dang Douglas and coos county are look like there going the way of West Virginia and northern Maine

Douglas County has long become much more Republican at every level than ME-02 (Northern Maine), but hasn't quite move into West Virginia territory (Yet)....  It's hard to believe it's the same county where Dukakis outperformed his national average in '88.

Coos County is a slightly different beast, and generally Pubs have only been able to keep it to about a 10-12% point margin in recent elections, and I strongly suspect that '16 was an aberration at the Presidential level, because of the unpopularity of HRC, and support for Trump's economic message among many protectionist voters in the County.

Also, Coos County has perhaps a more defined core of voters in North Bend / Coos Bay, and several other surrounding Unincorporated areas that tend to have a Democratic lean, that will typically offset to some degree the extremely heavily Republican margins in rural areas that moved Republican much earlier than the Cities....

Douglas County, although I haven't done the full v 2.0 treatment yet, has both a smaller "urban" component, and additionally the City (Roseburg) started to swing Republican much earlier than Coos Bay/North Bend.

Much of this has to do with the different economic profile of the two counties. Although they share a closely interconnected trading structure, Coos Bay has historically seen itself as more of Port City, rather than a Mill Town. The role of Industry and Government acceptance of Trade Unions in Coos Bay goes back to the New Deal and World War II. Although there have been demographic change in Coos County, the legacy and history of the Union Movement and Farmer Co-Ops still exists in both the cities and rural areas, that has tampered support for the Republican Party, in a way not seen in Douglas County. Unlike many other Mill Towns in Oregon, Roseburg never really had an extensive Union presence in the Mills, let alone rural areas.

The obvious similarity between both counties in the extend to which unemployment has been higher than almost anywhere else in Oregon every time we hit a recession.... The unemployment rate of Douglas County hit 15 % in 1/92 and 18.1% in 2/09.

In Douglas County, much of the locals ire was blamed on the environmentalist movement in '92, that led to an overnight shift in voting patterns within the County. Interestingly enough, the Great Recession was not blamed on the failed economic policies of Republican President George W. Bush, to the same extent.

One item that is often ignored is what happens when there is a catastrophic economic collapse within an industry/region. Individuals that are in the their '20s/'30s, or aren't necessarily tied down to mortgage payments, kids in school, etc, frequently drift down the road to other communities, where they have an established social network and jobs are more plentiful, with greater opportunities.

What this means practically, is that Coos and Douglas County are increasingly aging, the core "employment aged worker group" is shrinking. I know personally five individuals that left Coos County in their '20s/ early '30s some 15 years ago to move to the Central Willamette Valley.

In the case of Coos Bay and Roseburg, generally they are more likely to move to places like Eugene/Springfield or Grants Pass/ Medford, and sometimes further afield to Salem/Albany/Corvallis.

Some of the loss of a younger population in these areas, has actually contributed to Democratic vote gains in the Cities of the Rogue River and Willamette Valley....

The similarity between many of these communities in Coos/Douglas and parts of West Virginia and Maine cannot be understated. I would actually add many parts of upstate Wisconsin to the mix as well, where perhaps there is closer similarity to parts of Southern Oregon than WV or ME-02.

Still, there are few counties in Oregon, outside of Eastern Oregon, that I would consider "going the way of WV", but certainly Douglas County would be the one in Western Oregon that would most likely earn that title... (Although Josephine has traditionally been more Republican, it's offset by some surprisingly strong Democratic support in many rural areas, as well as greater demographic changes taking places in the largest population center Grants Pass, that potentially makes it a more elastic voter base. Especially now that there is no such thing as 24x7 law enforcement in Josephine County, and even the City of Grants Pass has almost no cop coverage at night, I wonder how long the anti-tax fervor among California retirees will last in the only place in Oregon that voted Goldwater in '64?


 

So my grandmother lives outside reedsport so I know the whole coast area very well everyone on the river road probably voted for trump coos bay is becoming harder and harder for the democrats to win it's very white also I think there is a bit of coastguard there as well now when you do the redo Douglas county see if you can find the smith river road precinct also Winchester bay would be a good place to cover as well also I wonder if Lincoln county was a fluke or not with it becoming a swing county or just Hillary being the worst candidate ever.

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Oregon County Update #32- Grant County--- Pop 7.4k--- MHI $35.1k/Yr



Grant County ever since the first European settlers moved in shortly after Oregon became a State, has always predominately been a County based upon Natural Resource production.



Starting with the Mining boom of 1862 when Gold was struck at Whiskey flats, to the 160 acre homesteads established by Ranchers over the subsequent three decades, and later the commercialization of Timber Production in the Mid 1900s with a large quantity of Ponderosa Pine within the County, have shaped the social, economic, and political landscape of the County.

As was the case in much of rural Eastern Oregon, historically the Democratic Populist/Progressive Movement tended to resonate quite well during election season, while the Republican Party tended to dominate the cities and farming regions of the Central and Northern Willamette Valley.

Still, even then it was a slightly Republican leaning County compared to others in the region, but Kennedy and and Carter only lost by 8% in '60 and '76 respectively. Even in '84 Mondale captured 33% of the vote here, which is actually pretty impressive, considering what Dem Pres candidates received these days.

Here is the historical graph of Grant County votes for Pres by Party:



So let's look at the County level numbers from 1980 to 2016 to see recent trends.



What really stands out here is 2000 was the peak of Republican Pres support in the County, and it appears to be incrementally slipping.... to be fair, it does appear that Democratic support has been slipping as well since '08, and although Obama was definitely not an ideal Democratic candidate out here, he did manage to keep Republican numbers down to barely over 70%.

What is interesting here, is that it is also one of the few counties in Oregon that has actually experienced a significant decline in population over the past 10-15 years, so how many of these changes are a result of natural death/birth numbers, net out-migration of younger folks and net in-migration of others....

So, what does the population data and demographics say about Grant County?

Age: 25% (65+ Yrs), 35% (60+ Yrs), 44% (55+ Years). Millennials (18-35) account for only 14% of the population.
Race/Ethnicity: 92.8% White, 3.1% Latino, 3.0% Mixed, 0.6% Other
Ancestry: 26% German, 23% "Unclassified", 17% "Other", 14% English, 14% Irish, 7% "American", 5% Scottish....

This is likely because of the Sheep Ranchers that moved to the area during the "Range Wars" of the 1870s-1890s where Irish, Scottish, and Basque Sheep Ranchers were in armed conflict against Cattle Ranchers for control of "Free Ranging" rights in the County/Region...

Scroll down to slightly halfway through the link, and you will read some pretty interesting history regarding the Range Wars....

http://www.izranch.com/the-pioneers-of-izee

Employment/Food Stamps--- Grant County has one of the highest unemployment rates in Oregon as of December '16, somewhere between 6-7% unemployed. 20% of the Population are receiving Food Stamps, which is actually a bit high considering the concentration of Seniors in the County.

Occupations: 4.0% Fire Fighting (!), 2.9% Science, 4.2% Farming, 6.6% Facilities, 1.1% Law Enforcement, 6.1% Construction, 13.7% Management

Industries: 1.9% Oil/Gas/Mining, 16.0% Agriculture, 2.9% Utilities, 7.7% Government, 9.5% Hospitality

So here you see the impact of farming and other resource-based industries.... When I see counties like this, "Management" tends to heavily be dominated by individuals that own their own farms/ranches, since for all intents and purposes we are talking about small business owners running their own joint.

Again, as mentioned elsewhere, Agriculture as an industry also includes forestry and fishing, although realistically these days it is much more likely to be tied to ranching, since the last Mill in the County was on the verge of shutting down in '09, and might well be gone today.

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/06/last_mill_in_grant_county.html

66% of the County is owned by the Federal Government, and various environmental restrictions related to harvesting Timber on Public land have shifted production to privately owned land (Of which there is much less in many parts of Eastern Oregon than Western Oregon). Meanwhile we have major issues in Grant County with both Forest Fires and Insect Infestations, and although generally both environmentalists and resource dependent communities agree that this is a major issue, we lost six Mills in the County in just the past 20 years, and the only ones that appear to understand the issue are Democratic Senators from Oregon, and Republican Greg Walden from CD-02.

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/06/last_mill_in_grant_county.html

Education: 10.5% < HS Degree, 59.2% HS Diploma, 30.3% (Greater than HS Degree).... Of the total population 21% has a Bachelors Degree or higher.

So---- let's pull a few graphs of historical results by County for US-SEN and OR-GOV, before I flip to the next page...

US SENATE: Grant County



So interestingly enough, Dem results have been upticking, and Wyden performed the best a Democrat has done in Grant County Oregon, since his election in 2004.

Now, why has Wyden been able to exceed any Democratic Presidential election results since 1996 in Grant County?

Merkley in 2014 captured 32.8% in '14, achieving a 27% swing here between '08 and '16.

It appears that Dems running for US Senate, are getting close to capable of achieving Dukakis level numbers in Grant, and that despite the County having become overwhelmingly 'Pub at the Pres level, that "Liberal Democrats" are actually improving, since they are addressing the immediate concerns of their constituents, in a County that has only recently become overhwelmingly Republican at a Presidential Level.

OR-GOV: GRANT County



OR-GOV results exhibit a remarkable consistency, that I have commented elsewhere on regarding "Upstate" and "Downstate" voting patterns....


Next Stop.... precinct data from Grant County.

Can't wait also my project I'm still wanting to do it just need to finish 😉 And work on lewis

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Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0



So as part of my exercise in going back and updating some of the earliest posts on the thread, and those needing the most rework, as well as including additional data sets in the collection, we will now revisit Columbia County.

Here are the links to my two previous posts regarding Columbia County, so for the sake of redundancy, I will avoid repeating myself here, but strongly suggest going back and giving a brief read-through, since there are tons of interesting information and context, in a County that flipped to the Republican Party having voted Democratic for every election since 1932.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252085.msg5417454#msg5417454

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252085.msg5421432#msg5421432

For anyone interested in the subject, I would also strongly recommend checking out the works of James Allen, who has published some pretty cool work on the Political Geography of Oregon.

Here's a link to his excellent Columbia County post on another Forum....

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/26/1550192/-Oregon-Political-Geography-Columbia-County

Ok--- brief synopsis of Columbia County.... a rare example of WWC County heavily rural and small town in nature that has long been a Democratic stronghold at the Presidential level, and until somewhat recently out-performed Democratic Party support compared to Oregon as a whole in both US-SEN and OR-GOV election.



US Census Data:

Pop: 49.3k
Age: 15% 65+, 30% 55+, 18% 18-34, 23% <18 (!!!),
MHI: $55.0k/Yr (20% Households > $100k/Yr,  29% < $30k/Yr, 40% < $40k/Yr)
Race/Ethnicity: 89.9% White, 4.2% Latino, 3.0% Mixed, 1.5% Other (Native), 1.0% Asian, 0.2% Black.
Employment: 52.2% 25-64 Yrs Employed
Food Stamps: 18.1%
Relative Occupations: 5.6% Repair, 5.9% Transportation, 1.6% Fire Fighting, 6.7% Construction, 1.0% Law Enforcement, 8.4% Production
Relative Industries: 0.3% Oil/Gas/Mining, 1.8% Utilities, 6.3% Transportation, 18.3% Manufacturing, 7.9% Construction.
Education: 27.9% > HS Degree (18% College Degree +), 61.7% HS Degree, 10.4% No HS Diploma

So, y'all get the picture.... the collar is very blue in Columbia County with almost 1/5 jobs directly tied to manufacturing, not to mention various other associated areas like trucking and repair gigs supporting the various manufacturing plants and ports within the county and surrounding area.

What is extremely interesting is the % of the population that is under the age of 18, since obviously this will be the next generation of voters in the County, and these numbers are much higher than I would have expected....

Ok--- so how has Columbia County voted over the past 100 years???



So, when I refer to Columbia County as a classic New Deal Democratic County, the chart above shows that to be the case, where Dems would barely hit 30% prior to FDR, and then suddenly they are clocking 60-70% for FDR, Truman even almost hits 60%, General Eisenhower even narrowly loses in '52, as does Nixon in '72 and Reagan in '84....

Here's another graph from a more recent historical period....



Very interesting.... so starting in 1980 Dems are struggling to get 50% of the Pres Vote, with John Anderson performing very well in Oregon, including Columbia County. Anderson voters roughly split 50-50 in '84 and Mondale wins. In '88 and the aftermath of the Reagan Recession still being felt in Mill towns throughout Oregon, Dukakis achieves the highest level of support for a Democratic Pres candidate in the past 36 years. Look at '92 and Perot does well in the County, as he did in much of Oregon, but Dem numbers still remain at about 50% through '04. Still it's pretty clear that the surge of support for 'Pub Pres nominees was between '92 and '04, likely heavily a result of the politics of Timber in Oregon. Still Obama in '08 achieves the 2nd highest level of support for a Dem Pres nominee since '80, and manages to mitigate dramatic swings in '12.

What happened in '16???  There was a relatively marginal increase in the 'Pub Pres vote, but still less than 50% of the Total Vote (TV), and support for 3rd Party Candidates surges to their highest level since Perot.

At this point, I am still extremely skeptical about Columbia County going through a complete realignment at the Presidential level, considering the unique circumstances of the '16 Pres race.

US SENATE:



So several interesting takeaways here.... Dem US SEN numbers have remained relatively flat since '92, with the exception of the spike in '04. Meanwhile look at the 'Pub trends since '08, and the decrease of support over four election cycles. Now, look at the support for 3rd Party Candidates, especially in '14 and '16, where these votes are to the Left of Wyden and Merkley respectively.

OR GOV:



So here's where you really start to see the decline of Democratic support in Columbia County... Starting in '10 'Pubs started to win the vote at the County level, and even if we roll back in time Dems have had difficulty capturing 50% in the County, even when they were winning the Gubernatorial Vote... I have mentioned "Upstate-Downstate" Oregon voting patterns before, and these types of patterns are not unusual, especially in a State with an extremely weak political party structure compared to most other states in the Union.

Although overall numbers were pretty static, once you start seeing the swings that happened in '10 at the Gubernatorial level, made many of us wonder, at what point might Columbia vote 'Pub at the Presidential level?

Now--- the Voting Population of Columbia County is becoming increasingly connected to the Cities of the County between '88 and '16, that have the highest population growth rate in places like St Helens and Scappoose, which we will get to in the next installment.

Interestingly enough the Rural parts of Columbia County tended to be more Democratic than the Cities until fairly recently (We'll get to that topic a bit later).

Now, one must wonder to what extent the significant increase in the "Rural Vote Share" within the County between '12 and '16 were voters that went Obama '08/ didn't vote in '12, and came out to vote Trump '16? IDK, the answer yet, but something that I will look at once we get to rural parts of the County....



Next stop, rolling through some of the individual cities/towns/rural areas....

I get the feeling that Columbia is going to be a swing county for the next 2-5 elections then go the way of coos county
While Cowlitz is going to go solidly republican in 4-8 years.

[Keep cool-idge]

Based on what exactly?

We haven't even gotten to the cities yet in Columbia County, especially St Helens and Scappoose which is really where most of the population growth rate is occurring.

Not only that, the County overall has been moving increasingly Democratic at the US Senatorial level, and has generally been a "Swing County" for 'Pubs at the OR-GOV level.

Not saying you are wrong about Columbia being a "swing county"  at a PRES level, but precisely where the 'Pubs have been gaining votes are in the Rural areas (That used to be more Democratic than the cities/towns). The unknown are the largest cities, and even in the smaller communities and rural areas the question is really how much of this change is a result of older ancestral Democrats passing away, to be replaced by individuals that were "Reagan Democrats" back in '80/'84, and much younger back then....

The other item to note, is that the '16 Trump/Clinton election was a bit unique at a PRES level, especially in a County so dependent on Timber related employment. Trump "promised" Oregonians at a campaign rally in Eugene back in May '16 that he would bring Timber jobs back to Oregon.

Although it was generally ignored in the National Media ('Pub Primary over Cruz/Kasich drop out right before), it was still heavily covered in statewide media, especially in Timber dependent regions of Oregon.

Meanwhile, HRC in many of these same communities is associated with her husband Bill Clinton, that in many parts of Oregon was seen as not addressing the very real crisis that folks in "Timber Country" (Basically most of Oregon outside of Metro Portland) were facing.

One of the big dividing lines was about exporting raw logs from our forests overseas, so that they could be milled in Asia, while meanwhile we have insane unemployment levels in communities throughout my State.

This was one item that united all Oregonians...  What happened in '08, as a result of the Bush Jr recession, created another round of Mill closures, including of a permanent nature.

Many voters in these communities that voted for Obama in '08 and/or '12 felt that he would help bring desperately needed support so that small town schools wouldn't close and people could pay the mortgage on their house.

Unfortunately, all too many resource dependent communities in Oregon have been abandoned by both Democrats and Republicans alike at a Presidential level for three decades.

Now, although I'm not an expert on Washington politics, I have spent a bit of time in Cowlitz County,  especially in the Longview-Kelso area (50% of County Vote), and if anything it actually might well be  more likely to swing back harder towards the Dems than Columbia County....

Longview-Kelso is a Labor Union stronghold, and although there is a close connection between Columbia and Cowlitz Counties historically, geographically, and politically, honestly Cowlitz is more likely to shift back to a "Lean D" column than Columbia in the Post-Trump Republican era, mainly because of the rural/City splits as a % of Pop between these two counties.

Photo below is a snippet of a massive Labor Demonstration only a few years back in Longview when one of Port Owners tried to bring scab workers to replace Longshore workers on a West Coast Port.

Yikes that protest looks nasty.
Okay just very briefly going through the **** it's looks like Longview barely voted Clinton while kelso voted for trump by a decent margin of 12 points.
As for Columbia county you are probably right.
In my view if the dems are to win these voters back I think Joe Biden would be the strongest candidate Bernie and john bel Edwards are strong as well.