2012 White Obama Lovers Map by County Project: COMPLETE!

[Nym90]

So if Obama had only done as well with whites in North Carolina as he did in West Virginia, he would've probably won North Carolina.

[Skill and Chance]

Excellent! After Oklahoma and (sigh) Texas with it's myriad of counties will be added - all South will be done))) And in some aspects this is the most interesting part of the project...

Personally, I don't consider TX nor OK to be part of the South. I almost don't even care to do the rest of the nation; as you said, the South really is the most interesting element. Speaking of areas that aren't the South...


DC & MD have been added.

DC 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 87.3%
MD 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 45.7%

It's an eternal question - whether Texas and Oklahoma are South or West? IMHO - both. But they are no less southern then Maryland is)))

I would argue Texas north and east of San Antonio is unambiguously the South.  Oklahoma is primarily in the Midwest, save for OK-02.  Regarding MD, the Eastern Shore is clearly still Southern and the DC suburbs clearly are not.  Baltimore is surprisingly ambiguous.  Its political behavior is more consistent with an Upper South metro area than with the Northeast.  But more than half the population lives in areas that are clearly not Southern as of 2010, so I am going to say it belongs in the North now.

[smoltchanov]

Excellent! After Oklahoma and (sigh) Texas with it's myriad of counties will be added - all South will be done))) And in some aspects this is the most interesting part of the project...

Personally, I don't consider TX nor OK to be part of the South. I almost don't even care to do the rest of the nation; as you said, the South really is the most interesting element. Speaking of areas that aren't the South...


DC & MD have been added.

DC 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 87.3%
MD 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 45.7%

It's an eternal question - whether Texas and Oklahoma are South or West? IMHO - both. But they are no less southern then Maryland is)))

I would argue Texas north and east of San Antonio is unambiguously the South.  Oklahoma is primarily in the Midwest, save for OK-02.  Regarding MD, the Eastern Shore is clearly still Southern and the DC suburbs clearly are not.  Baltimore is surprisingly ambiguous.  Its political behavior is more consistent with an Upper South metro area than with the Northeast.  But more than half the population lives in areas that are clearly not Southern as of 2010, so I am going to say it belongs in the North now.

Generally agree.

[muon2]

Excellent! After Oklahoma and (sigh) Texas with it's myriad of counties will be added - all South will be done))) And in some aspects this is the most interesting part of the project...

Personally, I don't consider TX nor OK to be part of the South. I almost don't even care to do the rest of the nation; as you said, the South really is the most interesting element. Speaking of areas that aren't the South...


DC & MD have been added.

DC 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 87.3%
MD 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 45.7%

It's an eternal question - whether Texas and Oklahoma are South or West? IMHO - both. But they are no less southern then Maryland is)))

I would argue Texas north and east of San Antonio is unambiguously the South.  Oklahoma is primarily in the Midwest, save for OK-02.  Regarding MD, the Eastern Shore is clearly still Southern and the DC suburbs clearly are not.  Baltimore is surprisingly ambiguous.  Its political behavior is more consistent with an Upper South metro area than with the Northeast.  But more than half the population lives in areas that are clearly not Southern as of 2010, so I am going to say it belongs in the North now.

Areas north of San Antonio generally do not feel like the South. The I-35 corridor from Austin through Waco to the DFW Metroplex is certainly not like the Deep South to its east. The are some elements of the Appalachian South, but the attitudes include a lot of the frontier thinking of the West. It's more like a merger of the southern Plains and the Ozark hills with just a bit of Mexican influence. For me it's the area that is uniquely and quintessentially Texas.

[Skill and Chance]

Excellent! After Oklahoma and (sigh) Texas with it's myriad of counties will be added - all South will be done))) And in some aspects this is the most interesting part of the project...

Personally, I don't consider TX nor OK to be part of the South. I almost don't even care to do the rest of the nation; as you said, the South really is the most interesting element. Speaking of areas that aren't the South...


DC & MD have been added.

DC 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 87.3%
MD 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 45.7%

It's an eternal question - whether Texas and Oklahoma are South or West? IMHO - both. But they are no less southern then Maryland is)))

I would argue Texas north and east of San Antonio is unambiguously the South.  Oklahoma is primarily in the Midwest, save for OK-02.  Regarding MD, the Eastern Shore is clearly still Southern and the DC suburbs clearly are not.  Baltimore is surprisingly ambiguous.  Its political behavior is more consistent with an Upper South metro area than with the Northeast.  But more than half the population lives in areas that are clearly not Southern as of 2010, so I am going to say it belongs in the North now.

Areas north of San Antonio generally do not feel like the South. The I-35 corridor from Austin through Waco to the DFW Metroplex is certainly not like the Deep South to its east. The are some elements of the Appalachian South, but the attitudes include a lot of the frontier thinking of the West. It's more like a merger of the southern Plains and the Ozark hills with just a bit of Mexican influence. For me it's the area that is uniquely and quintessentially Texas.

I certainly agree that Texas from Houston west is not like the Deep South.  However, it is pretty equivalent to places like Nashville, Richmond and Charlotte that have generally maintained an Upper South feel even with massive population growth.  And a substantial portion of the recent migrants to such places moved there in part because they admire the Southern lifestyle.

[muon2]

Excellent! After Oklahoma and (sigh) Texas with it's myriad of counties will be added - all South will be done))) And in some aspects this is the most interesting part of the project...

Personally, I don't consider TX nor OK to be part of the South. I almost don't even care to do the rest of the nation; as you said, the South really is the most interesting element. Speaking of areas that aren't the South...


DC & MD have been added.

DC 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 87.3%
MD 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 45.7%

It's an eternal question - whether Texas and Oklahoma are South or West? IMHO - both. But they are no less southern then Maryland is)))

I would argue Texas north and east of San Antonio is unambiguously the South.  Oklahoma is primarily in the Midwest, save for OK-02.  Regarding MD, the Eastern Shore is clearly still Southern and the DC suburbs clearly are not.  Baltimore is surprisingly ambiguous.  Its political behavior is more consistent with an Upper South metro area than with the Northeast.  But more than half the population lives in areas that are clearly not Southern as of 2010, so I am going to say it belongs in the North now.

Areas north of San Antonio generally do not feel like the South. The I-35 corridor from Austin through Waco to the DFW Metroplex is certainly not like the Deep South to its east. The are some elements of the Appalachian South, but the attitudes include a lot of the frontier thinking of the West. It's more like a merger of the southern Plains and the Ozark hills with just a bit of Mexican influence. For me it's the area that is uniquely and quintessentially Texas.

I certainly agree that Texas from Houston west is not like the Deep South.  However, it is pretty equivalent to places like Nashville, Richmond and Charlotte that have generally maintained an Upper South feel even with massive population growth.  And a substantial portion of the recent migrants to such places moved there in part because they admire the Southern lifestyle.

My visits there disagree with your assessment. I find little in common between the TX I-35 corridor and Richmond and Charlotte, and only a slight in similarity in feel to Nashville (in part due to the commonality from country music out of Austin). Dallas/Ft Worth reminds me as much like OKC or KC. But as I said I think that area is a unique blend that helps define TX.

[Adam Griffin]

Delaware has been added.

DE 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 48.4%

The three counties in VA that were off have been corrected.


Also, I'm creating another (cleaner but less precise) version of this map alongside my original one:

[Torie]

Incredible work. Thank you.

[Adam Griffin]

Incredible work. Thank you.

Thanks! I also don't think I ever thanked you for the analysis of Davidson that helped reaffirm my own findings: a good read.

[Mr. Illini]

Delaware has been added.

DC 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 48.4%

The three counties in VA that were off have been corrected.

Obama only won 48% of the white vote in Washington DC??

[Boston Bread]

Delaware has been added.

DC 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 48.4%

The three counties in VA that were off have been corrected.

Obama only won 48% of the white vote in Washington DC? ?

Delaware, not DC. In DC Obama got over 80 percent.

[Adam Griffin]

Yeah, sorry: that was a typo from where I copied/pasted the original DC update.

Delaware: 48.4%
DC: 87.3%

[Skill and Chance]

Yeah, sorry: that was a typo from where I copied/pasted the original DC update.

Delaware: 48.4%
DC: 87.3%

Delaware being left of Maryland really surprises me.

[Adam Griffin]

Missouri has been added.

MO 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 35.8%

[Adam Griffin]

Pennsylvania has been added.

PA 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 44.0%


I invite those familiar with PA to give it an extra-close inspection, as the general variance in color throughout many areas makes me wonder if I could have made any mistakes. This may just have to do with PA having relatively few, large counties.

[Adam Griffin]

Ohio has been added.

OH 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 42.0%

[Gass3268]

Really cranking them out now!

Love this thread so much.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

It's interesting to see how few white people voted for Obama in Christian County, the county with the highest percentage of African Americans in Kentucky.  Jefferson County (Louisville), however, has 41% of whites voting for Obama, even though it has a high African-American population.  I guess living in an urban area makes you more liberal.

[traininthedistance]

Pennsylvania has been added.

PA 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 44.0%


I invite those familiar with PA to give it an extra-close inspection, as the general variance in color throughout many areas makes me wonder if I could have made any mistakes. This may just have to do with PA having relatively few, large counties.

The large populated areas all pass the smell test– in particular I am not surprised to see so much of a difference between Lackawanna and Luzerne, though you might have been.  

What is an issue– and it is an issue in the majority of states, not just PA, is rural prisons skewing the numbers in certain low-population counties, by basically air-dropping nonvoting minorities into heavily white areas.  I was wondering about Forest County, and checked out its townships in Wikipedia, and lo and behold it has a 274-bed juvenile detention center:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howe_Township,_Forest_County,_Pennsylvania

Not a lot of beds... but given how small Forest is, that moves the needle quite a bit.  I'm sure there are several other examples in PA, which I could try and dredge up at some point for you.  And, also, examples in many other states.

Correcting for this phenomenon will be a pain, I'm sure.  Sorry.

[Ebsy]

Missouri is pretty much as expected, though I'm surprised Obama did so well in the counties south of Jefferson County. It might not take much for Clinton to actually win a few of them.

[Mr. Illini]

Democrats underperform epically among urban whites in Hamilton Co OH

[Adam Griffin]

Pennsylvania has been added.

PA 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 44.0%


I invite those familiar with PA to give it an extra-close inspection, as the general variance in color throughout many areas makes me wonder if I could have made any mistakes. This may just have to do with PA having relatively few, large counties.

The large populated areas all pass the smell test– in particular I am not surprised to see so much of a difference between Lackawanna and Luzerne, though you might have been.  

What is an issue– and it is an issue in the majority of states, not just PA, is rural prisons skewing the numbers in certain low-population counties, by basically air-dropping nonvoting minorities into heavily white areas.  I was wondering about Forest County, and checked out its townships in Wikipedia, and lo and behold it has a 274-bed juvenile detention center:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howe_Township,_Forest_County,_Pennsylvania

Not a lot of beds... but given how small Forest is, that moves the needle quite a bit.  I'm sure there are several other examples in PA, which I could try and dredge up at some point for you.  And, also, examples in many other states.

Correcting for this phenomenon will be a pain, I'm sure.  Sorry.

I actually have been doing this, at least for the South, because...well, it's obvious why. MO, WV, OH, PA, MD & DE were not assessed for prison populations, in part because I was expecting the racial discrepancy between the prison and the county it is in to be less than in southern states. For these states, I do need to probably go back and compile a list of the counties where institutions are and assess the situation, but I was hoping to get by except in cases where a county appeared very out of place with its neighboring counties.

[Adam Griffin]

IN has been added.

2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 38.0%


I'll now also be including a map of each state's total on the main page, along with the numbered county results and the smaller, non-numbered county results.

[dpmapper]

Loving the map.  Modest suggestion - maybe the state borders could be thickened slightly?  It's getting a little difficult to pick them out, now that there are a lot of curvy ones.   

[Adam Griffin]

Loving the map.  Modest suggestion - maybe the state borders could be thickened slightly?  It's getting a little difficult to pick them out, now that there are a lot of curvy ones.  

Glad you like it. I've considered this, and I'll likely begin adding more comprehensive line definitions to it here soon (it was a bit easier to tell in the South; in some areas there are straight lines and in a few cases, I actually did thicken them a bit due to some states not fitting precisely with each other).

EDIT: This is complete.