Obama won Boise, Idaho

[Fuzzybigfoot]

By a hair.  He won it 50% to 47% (roughly).  I used Microsoft Excel to calculate the precinct results (from the Atlas site) and match them to the precinct locations from the Ada county board of elections (http://www.adaweb.net/Clerk/Elections/PollingLocations.aspx).  

I don't have the exact results on this computer, but it was something like a 4,000 vote spread Obama had over McCain.



Kind of interesting, seeing as how the county was so partisan in the last few elections.




Please comment!  

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Democrats always do well in big cities, but in a conservative area like Idaho this is supprising.

[Bo]

Interesting, but not surprising. Obama only won Ada County by single digits, so I figured he won the city itself since Boise probably has many conservative suburbs.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Interesting, but not surprising. Obama only won Ada County by single digits, so I figured he won the city itself since Boise probably has many conservative suburbs.

I think McCain won it by 6%.  But still, since Boise makes up 2/3 of Ada county's population, it would be hard to make a prediction on how the city itself would go. 

I read that Bush won Boise 55% to 43% over Kerry, which would mean the city swung 15% to the Dems, a 5% Dem trend.

[Bo]

Interesting, but not surprising. Obama only won Ada County by single digits, so I figured he won the city itself since Boise probably has many conservative suburbs.

I think McCain won it by 6%.  But still, since Boise makes up 2/3 of Ada county's population, it would be hard to make a prediction on how the city itself would go. 

I read that Bush won Boise 55% to 43% over Kerry, which would mean the city swung 15% to the Dems, a 5% Dem trend.

Sorry. I meant to say "Obama only lost Ada County by single digits." Also, for most cities, suburbs are more conservative than the cities themselves (typically due to having less minorities).

[Fuzzybigfoot]

In another red state, Obama also won the City of Topeka, Kansas. He lost Shawnee County by 200 votes, but won the City of Topeka.

I have not crunched all the precinct data, but I suspect that Obama also won the City of Wichita. I suspect that he won the City of Wichita but lost Sedgwick County due to the heavily-Republican suburbs and rural areas in the county. That is what the numbers would indicate.

That is why only us election geeks really understand the nuances of the whole red state/blue state mythology. Many of the most important cities within so-called red states actually lean Democratic.

I think Wichita was probably somewhat close, but I don't think Obama won it.  In 2000, the city was only about 4% less Bush leaning than the rest of the county.  And Sedgwik County went 55-43 McCain, so I think it's very unlikely Obama won.