How Would Your State Vote on Secession?

[Del Tachi]

The independence referendum in Scotland got me thinking:  How would different U.S. states vote on the issue of independence from the United States?

Here's how I would imagine things would shake-down in Mississippi.

No - 66,1%
Yes - 33,9%

No's Best County - Oktibbeha, 88,7% for No
Yes's Best County - Tishomingo, 53,7% for Yes

It would be especially interesting to see votes in Texas, Hawaii, Alaska, and a couple of other states

[Del Tachi]

If the state were to vote on the separation of Chicagoland, it would be a fascinating map. In this proposal, the counties of Lake, Cook, DuPage, McHenry, Kane, DeKalb, Kendall, and Will would become their own state. This is much more feasible than simply Cook becoming its own state. In this vote, you would have strong support in the southern part of the state and moderate support in Cook County. Strong opposition would come in the collar counties and liberal counties downstate and out west.

It would be quite interesting if the entire state of Illinois was allowed to vote on whether or not to essentially give Chicagoland the boot - haha!

If only the Chicagoland counties were allowed to vote on such a proposal, do you think the numbers in Cook County would be enough to overcome the high margins in the well-to-do suburbs?

[Del Tachi]

If the state were to vote on the separation of Chicagoland, it would be a fascinating map. In this proposal, the counties of Lake, Cook, DuPage, McHenry, Kane, DeKalb, Kendall, and Will would become their own state. This is much more feasible than simply Cook becoming its own state. In this vote, you would have strong support in the southern part of the state and moderate support in Cook County. Strong opposition would come in the collar counties and liberal counties downstate and out west.

It would be quite interesting if the entire state of Illinois was allowed to vote on whether or not to essentially give Chicagoland the boot - haha!

If only the Chicagoland counties were allowed to vote on such a proposal, do you think the numbers in Cook County would be enough to overcome the high margins in the well-to-do suburbs?

It sure would be interesting. Typically you have downstate and Chicago being very opposed in elections with the suburbs being swingy. In this case downstate and Cook are more or less in agreement with the suburbs being very opposed.

Illinois is currently a blue state largely because the suburbs are able to tack on enough blue votes (on top of Chicago) to put the state out of play with downstate largely irrelevant. If we go back to the days of swing-state Illinois, we see it was a swing state because Chicago and the suburbs were very much opposed (the suburbs were staunch Republican pre-1990's). Downstate was, though, split at the time between GOP corn country (it still hasn't changed) and the blue dog southern third (that's changed a lot).

My guess is that Chicago + downstate would put the NO team out of play, but if it were strictly Chicagoland voting it would be more competitive.

I mean, I was just trying to make the point that allowing Downstate to vote on the issue of Chicago statehood would be analogous to letting the entire UK vote on the question of Scottish independence; i.e., not very democratic. 

[Del Tachi]

The independence referendum in Scotland got me thinking:  How would different U.S. states vote on the issue of independence from the United States?

Here's how I would imagine things would shake-down in Mississippi.

No - 66,1%
Yes - 33,9%

No's Best County - Oktibbeha, 88,7% for No
Yes's Best County - Tishomingo, 53,7% for Yes

It would be especially interesting to see votes in Texas, Hawaii, Alaska, and a couple of other states

I'm just curious Del Tachi, what would the white vs. black vote look like? Since MS is the most racially polarized state in the US.

I think the map speaks pretty clearly for itself.  The Delta is the most No-voting region in the state, and I imagine that the statewide Black vote would favor "No" by close to 80%.  Whites would probably support No by over 60%, which, now if I think about it, extrapolating those figures seems to suggest that giving "Yes" 33% statewide support is extremely generous.   

[Del Tachi]

The independence referendum in Scotland got me thinking:  How would different U.S. states vote on the issue of independence from the United States?

Here's how I would imagine things would shake-down in Mississippi.

No - 66,1%
Yes - 33,9%

No's Best County - Oktibbeha, 88,7% for No
Yes's Best County - Tishomingo, 53,7% for Yes

It would be especially interesting to see votes in Texas, Hawaii, Alaska, and a couple of other states

I'm just curious Del Tachi, what would the white vs. black vote look like? Since MS is the most racially polarized state in the US.

I think the map speaks pretty clearly for itself.  The Delta is the most No-voting region in the state, and I imagine that the statewide Black vote would favor "No" by close to 80%.  Whites would probably support No by over 60%, which, now if I think about it, extrapolating those figures seems to suggest that giving "Yes" 33% statewide support is extremely generous.   

Are you basing your "Yes" counties off anything in particular? The 2000 Flag Vote?

I find it hard to believe that Yes could win a single county, especially ones in the Northeast where white people still vote Democrat (gasp!) from time to time. And I can't imagine 20% or even 2% of blacks backing it.

Ironically, Jones County might be a Yes vote if anyone is.

I just now looked at a map of 2001 flag referendum results, and I think there'd be a strong correlation with the best counties for the old flag being the best counties for the "Yes" campaign.

As for your comment about Northeastern Democrats - I think that the fact that there are still very conservative White people in Mississippi who vote Democrat shows their collection disconnection to national politics rather than a genuinely more liberal ideology.  They sound more like yes voters to me.