Areas trending REP

[TeePee4Prez]

I'm not sure where this idea that the industrial midwest is trending GOP comes from. The Appalachian foothills in SW PA & SE OH, maybe, but the rest of the region?

If anything, I suspect that the Tea Party backlash will be less strong in the auto belt than in the rest of the country (except obviously culturally liberal or minority areas). But this will be hard to tell for a while, without a competitive statewide race in MI or IN.

And I also love the PA trending right phenomenon.  I had arguments with supersoulty back in 2004 about this.  He was talking about the older Dems dying off out in western PA.  He was right, but if anything the older folks dying off in Jack Murthastan actually helps the Democrats in Presidential elections because they were socially conservative racists who were trending Republican anyways.   

The only areas I could see are:

Appalachia- SW Pennsylvania/SE Ohio/West Virginia/E Kentucky/Western Virginia
Upper/Outer South- TN, AR, MO, LA, OK

An area I'm familiar with.  Not as sharp as the above 2, but I noticed some kinks here.  And dare I say.. race maybe an issue, but still:
 
Blue collar white Northeast Corridor- Northeast/South Philly, Staten Island, Some parts of NJ, Eastern MA (interesting trends here.  If Bill Delahunt/Steve Lynch were to retire..), Parts of Rhode Island.   

[TeePee4Prez]

The thing that may fool people about MN is that it was (relative to the national average) kind of artificially Democratic in the 80's because of (a) Walter Mondale and (b) its relative lack of urban ghetto/crime/white flight-type problems which were highly salient in that decade. So certainly in a broad sense it has trended Republican since then. But since then it's been pretty consistently around a couple of points more Democratic that the national average in all elections, give or take a point or two.

b is a good point I've actually never thought of before.

I think this is one of the most important factors behind voting patterns in the 80's. Compared to now, for instance, Dukakis's vote looks quite weird: how do you lose IL, MI, MD, and southeast PA while winning WV, southwest PA, the upper midwest and the Pacific northwest? Well, compare: Chicago, Detroit, DC, Baltimore & Philly are all majority-minority and had major problems with inner city riots and depopulation. Whereas Pittsburgh, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Portland and Seattle are all majority white, plus in resource extraction areas (Appalachian coal, the MN Iron Range and the northwestern timber areas) the nature of the industry forces an unusual pattern of union Democrats in small white towns. So people won't be so afraid of Willie Horton etc.

Never thought of it this way, but you're dead on.  With the larger cities, there's also the issue of economics/tax cuts over social issues in the 1980s which was definitely true then.  You also have some of the 'resource extraction' areas going through a near Great Depression at the time with local unemployment as high as 30% in parts of Western PA.  Those people shall I say did not have the luxury or really had to worry about crime/race/Section 8 housing issues.  It really wasn't until 1992 after the Bob Casey/Bill Clinton debacle that the suburbs started rapidly trending DEM.  Ironically, Bob Casey Sr.'s strong anti-choice stance actually helped the Democrats do better in PA and got them more fundraising.  They could now well afford to abandon SW PA and focus on places like SE PA, NJ, suburban NYC, and CT which would be a greater boon financially.  Thing is the Dems always have and still will need labor support.  Sometimes that can be a tough triangulation especially when there are many union people with socially conservative (and sometimes racist) views.  There were some Wards in Philadelphia that either narrowly went for/against Obama that I know could have been much worse had the union not directed their members.

[TeePee4Prez]

FWIW: This same phenomenon is part of the same reason the Democrats are growing in metro Columbus. Having a (perceived) moderate business sympathetic black mayor like Mike Coleman, who's actually popular among white voters, helps avoid the black city/white suburb antagonism seen in other metro areas like Cleveland and Cinci.

I kinda thought Mike Nutter would do the same in Philly.  He actually had to raise taxes so....  Think it ends that.  I didn't think Cleveland was that bad with that.  I've heard of Cinci hardly having ANY white Democrats and some racial strife there.  I don't know Ohio too well though.