2012 White Obama Lovers Map by County Project: COMPLETE!

[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.

[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.

[muon2]

From what I've seen on DRA for 2008 there are significant differences in voting patterns for urban Latinos compared to their rural counterparts. As with whites, I might expect the Latino D vote % to be higher in urban areas. There's also the problem of turnout, especially in rural areas.

Consider rural Bailey county, NW of Lubbock.

VTD 1: HVAP 47.7%, SSVR 30.2%, McCain 76.4%.
VTD 2: HVAP 28.6%, SSVR 19.4%, McCain 83.1%.
VTD 3: HVAP 78.6%, SSVR 67.8%, McCain 39.6%.
VTD 4: HVAP 62.2%, SSVR 48.2%, McCain 61.1%.

A fit from HVAP to Obama would predict the white vote is negative 12% Obama. At least the SSVR comes out with a white vote of negative 2%. It still isn't real, but it's closer.