2012 White Obama Lovers Map by County Project: COMPLETE!

[traininthedistance]

I'm a little surprised that North Carolina whites didn't vote for Obama at a higher rate, especially when compared to Tennessee.

I actually think the most interesting part of this is the level of rural white Dem support still left in NC, particularly when comparing the NC mountains to areas just across the border in any direction.  However, I did assume Raleigh and Charlotte white voters were a lot more Dem than the nation, so that part is surprising.  It will be very interesting to see VA for this reason.  I wonder if Obama actually won white voters in Fairfax or Henrico?

Possibly Fairfax, depending on what assumptions we're making about the Asian vote.

Henrico?  No way.  Obama probably did win whites in Richmond proper, though.

[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.

[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.

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.

You should be safe with WV (since it is so white overall) and DE (because there are only three counties and they're all large).  The others are probably worth checking out: Forest is probably the largest outlier but I wouldn't be surprised to see a couple others here and there.

[traininthedistance]

One big update/dump with all remaining NE states added!

VT 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 66.3%
RI 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 60.2%
MA 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 57.8%
ME 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 55.5%
CT 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 52.6%
NY 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 51.2%
NH 2012 statewide share of the white vote for Obama: 50.3%

God bless Berkshire County.