LA and NC 2014 Congressional Races

[Miles]

For comparison, here's 2008:

[smoltchanov]

Thanks, Miles. It's enough to look at many parishes in South-Western and central parts of state))) Not only there, but mostly - there... Very eloquent....

[Miles]

Hagan vs Obama in the Triangle area (Wake, Durham, Orange and Chatham counties):



Collectively, Hagan ran about 2.5% ahead of Obama in the quartet of counties; she carried them 61/36 as opposed to 60.5/38 for Obama 2012.

The bad news was that Hagan only got 68% of Obama's raw votes. If turnout was equal to 2012 in just these four counties (and they had the same percentages going to each candidate), Hagan would have cut Tillis' statewide margin from 45.6K votes to just about 2,900 votes.

The state elections board hasn't allocated the early/absentee votes by precinct yet; after 2012, I think it wasn't until mid/late-January until they released the report with the non-election day votes tabulated by precinct. My allocation method should be pretty close, but I may revisit this map if (when?) the elections board releases the exact numbers.

[Miles]

Mecklenburg County:



Hagan held up a lot better than I expected in south Charlotte. The problem looks like turnout in the non-white precincts; they make sort of a blue downward-facing cresecnt in the middle of the county. Interestingly, in the precicnts making up Tillis' House district (at the northern cap of the county), he was generally running a few points behind Romney; I guess the voters that know him best weren't as fond of him.

Hagan ran slightly behind Obama; she won the county 59.2/38.1 while he carried it 60.7/38.2. The turnout dropoff was worse than the Triangle. The county only cast 59% of the votes it did in 2012.

[Miles]

I already hit on most of this LA stuff, but this is still interesting:

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[ElectionsGuy]

I think people are definitely wrong when they say black turnout goes down in midterms. It only went down slightly this time (nationwide) and it went up during this runoff, its fairly consistent. The obvious unavoidable problem that Landrieu had all along was the abandonment of the democratic party among whites (especially white Catholics). Even nationwide, the democrats have a problem of whites slowly shifting more Republican as the country gets more racially diverse.

[Miles]

^ The dropoff between the primary and runoff was much steeper with whites. Whites went from 55% primary turnout to 45.5% in the runoff; blacks only fell from 47% to 42%.

Even with all the press about 'low enthusiasm' for the runoff, blacks only turned out at a slightly lower rate than whites.

[Miles]

The Triad (Guilford and Forsyth counties):



Again, the blue precincts are generally heavily Democratic, so Hagan performing worse there is mostly a function of lower turnout.

[Miles]

Tillis vs Amendment 1 in Mecklenburg County:



As a percentage of his vote, I think there's a good chance Tillis had more Against voters than For voters.

I have a feeling that there were more Hagan/For voters than Tillis/Against voters (just going by the sheer margin Hagan carried the county by).

My precinct in southern Charlotte was 56% Tillis, but voted 53/47 against Amendment 1; a pretty typical result for that area.