Oklahoma's Democratic trend

[bobloblaw]

In 2008, Oklahoma voted 66-34 for McCain. In 2012, it voted 67-33 for Romney. Despite the fact that the nation as a whole swung to the Republicans by 4 points, Oklahoma only swung 2 points. At this rate, I'm projecting Oklahoma will be a solid D state by the 2060s. Thoughts?

Youre a moron.

How about Romney being Mormon in a baptist state.  The fact is when you are up in the mid to high 60s percentage wise, there is not that much more to gain.

[bobloblaw]

Oklahoma really should be a lot more competitive than it is, but that doesn't mean it will be.

Why's that?  The OKC suburbs might be the most traditionally Republican parts of the state, and they're growing.

Except that it's no longer 1980, and suburban growth doesn't automatically equal Republican trends. If anything, it would inevitably indicate the opposite, as suburban growth is almost always fueled by outsiders. Newcomers to suburban areas do not take on the culture, politics and mindset of the natives; they demolish it.

Ask just about any long-term resident of a rural-turned-suburban Southern county why their community went from being largely Democratic in the 1960s and 1970s, to heavily Republican in the 1980s and 1990s, and again started trending back Democratic beginning in the 2000s.

How many Suburban Southern counties are trending Dem? And the ones that are usually do because of growing minority population, which I don't see as a huge thing in OKC or Tulsa's 'burbs.

First of all, I must insist that my example of looking at a Southern suburban county was used primarily because this is a) where the most growth has occurred in recent decades, b) where it continues to be in terms of nominal growth and not percentage growth, and c) where the political patterns have swayed back and forth the most. In short, they are the suburban counties that matter. I am not condoning the consideration of Oklahoma as a Southern state by any means, just as I don't consider Texas, Missouri, Kentucky, or most of Florida/Virginia to be in that category.

This is definitely not my favorite metric to use for "suburban Southern counties" (because it mainly uses metropolitan areas, which includes quite a number of not-exactly suburban counties), but was the closest high-resolution map that matched what needed to be mapped. If anything, it is generous to Republicans, but perhaps it also balance out the inclusion of more urban counties. Net-net, it is still generous to Republicans, because you have 2 or 3 exurban/potentially-rural counties for every 1 urban county included.

65% of these Southern metropolitan counties trended to Obama in 2012, compared to 35% that trended to Romney.

In Oklahoma in particular, 10 out of 16 counties trended to Obama.
721,177 votes were cast in the Obama-trending counties.
142,469 votes were cast in the Romney-trending counties.

Together, these counties make up approximately 65% of Oklahoma's votes in 2012. 54% of all votes cast in 2012 in OK were cast in counties that are in metropolitan areas that trended to Obama.

Romney's religion appears to have cost him 1-2 points in the deep south and gained him a few points in the west, UT, AZ, NV and ID mostly.