2012 National and State PVI Bellwether Counties for All 50 States

[cinyc]

I show Norton as having voted for Obama in 2012 while Maidstone and Morgan were the only towns won by Romney. Norton has the most Republican PVI though, considering both 2008 and 2012.

You are correct.  I must have been reading the wrong column on my spreadsheet.  Thanks!  I fixed the text.

[cinyc]

I added an experimental town map for Maine.  As I noted in the text there:

Note: Trying to figure out PVIs for Maine towns is a bit more difficult than the rest of New England.  Unincorporated Maine townships sometimes report results separately, and at other times with the nearest larger incorporated town.  As such, I did not calculate PVIs for townships that only reported results for one cycle.  Also, in order to show unincorporated townships, I am using a shapefile from the State of Maine.  I was able to translate most of the results into that shapefile's list of town names, but am missing about 2000 votes statewide in the 2008 election.  So caveat emptor on these maps.

The maps generally look like I would expect for Maine, so while there are probably some errors and omissions, they're probably not numerous.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Good to have an updated version. The one from 2010 was beginning to show its age.

Also many of the images no longer work in that one.

[cinyc]

Good to have an updated version. The one from 2010 was beginning to show its age.

Also many of the images no longer work in that one.

I fixed the images on the 2010 thread, so they should all work now.  They are now hosted in the Atlas Gallery, so, in theory, they shouldn't break again.

[cinyc]

I added a ME-02 Town PVI map, showing that CD's bellwether for the CD vote.  I also added a Town Maps for Michigan.

Michigan's map is also experimental.  The census' County Subdivision shapefile cuts cities that span county borders apart.  Some Michigan cities don't have results for both parts of some of those cities - though it is possible that nobody lives in there.

I've run out of obvious states to do town maps for.  New Jersey may be possible, because town data is available online (albeit in a crappy format).  Are there any other states with publicly available town data? I have one more reserved post open after New Jersey.

[cinyc]

New Jersey Town PVI Maps are now up.  I was able to reconcile all of the New Jersey town election data with the census shapefile map (except for federal votes not broken down by town).  Thus, the New Jersey maps aren't experimental, like Maine, ME-02 and Michigan.

I'm almost out of states with readily available or reconcilable town data.  New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Indiana don't have easily found town data online; Ohio and Iowa break things down by precinct, but don't specify the town or municipality for each precinct.   

I think my next (and perhaps final) map will be of Wisconsin towns.

[cinyc]

Wisconsin Maps are up, completing this project - for now.  Like in Michigan, some Wisconsin municipalities cross county lines, and some have zero reported votes in some county parts.

I'd be happy to make close-up town maps for metro areas with or without labels, if anyone wants to see one.

[Heisenberg]

Great job, thank you very much!

[cinyc]

Minnesota Town PVI Maps
I found one more state with town data: Minnesota.  Note that to minimize data mismatches between vote results and shapefile town names, I used Minnesota's shapefile of 2010 MCDs instead of the census shapefiles.  There are over 2,700 cities, townships and unorganized areas in that shapefile.  Like for other states, cities that span counties are double-counted in this tally.

Hassan Township was dissolved into the city of Rogers in between 2008 and 2012, but is on the map.  Both it and Rogers' results are colored assuming a combined Hassan-Rogers tally for 2008.

There are three maps for each PVI type - statewide with bellwether labels, statewide without labels, and one of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area.  Areas in white had no votes in 2008 and/or 2012.

State PVI:






There are 141 Minnesota PVI bellwethers - far too many to name.  Some of the more prominent ones include the main portion of the city of St. Cloud in Stearns County, the city of Rochester, home of the Mayo Clinic, North Mankato, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburbs of Edina, Eagan, Burnsville, Cottage Grove, Inver Grove Heights, White Bear Lake (both parts in Ramsey and Washington Counties), Shoreview and Spring Lake Park.

18 Minnesota towns qualify as super bellwethers, scattered throughout the state.  In Southwestern Minnesota, they include the cities of Storden, Cottonwood County, Tracy, Lyon County, Slayton, Murray County, and Maynard, Chippewa County.  They also include MSP-Suburban Eagan and Inver Grove Heights, Dakota County, the portion of Lake City in Wabasha County, St. Joseph, Stearns County, near St. Cloud, Skyline, Blue Earth County, near Mankato, Acton Township, Meeker County, the city of New London, Kandiyohi County, Clarissa, Todd County, Bricelyn, Faribault County, the city of Faribault, which is in Rice County, Onamia Township, Mille Lacs, County, Dalton City, Otter Tail County, Ball Bluff Township, Aitkin County and the Rainy Lake Unorganized territory, Koochiching County in extreme Northern Minnesota.

National PVI:






Minnesota's PVI is only D+1.76.  Thus, a handful of state PVI bellwether towns are also national PVI bellwether towns.  There are 133 national PVI bellwether towns scattered throughout the state.  Some of the more prominent ones include MSP-suburban Apple Valley, Woodbury, Plymouth, Shoreview, Gem Lake, Vadnals Heights, Coon Rapids and Anoka, and the Northern Minnesota city of Brainerd.

Only 10 of these 133 minor civil divisions qualify as super bellwethers (with a PVI of less than 0.5 and a minor trend compared to the rest of the country).  They include the aforementioned city of Brainerd, Crow Wing County and Balsam Township, Aitkin County, both in Northern Minnesota, the cities of Westbrook, Murray County, Brewster, Nobles County, and Russell, Lyon County, in Southwestern Minnesota, Hayward Township, Freeborn County (near Albert Lea), Oshawa Township, Nicollet County (near Mankato), Hanley Falls, Yellow Medicine County, and MSP-Area Oak Park Heights, Washington County and Gem Lake, Ramsey County.

[cinyc]

Pennsylvania Town PVI Maps
**Highly Experimental**

I found some precinct-level data for Pennsylvania in the Harvard Election Results Archive, and was able to correlate the precincts with towns.  Unfortunately, when the town data is aggregated to county data, some county results don't match Atlas or the official state tally.  I don't know why (Missing Absentees? Faulty Data?) - so you should consider these maps highly experimental.  When calculating state PVIs, I used the amalgamated total votes in the Harvard data, so compared to Atlas/Offical data, it could be slightly off.

Anyway, here are the state PVI maps.  I'm including insets of the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Scranton-Wilkes-Barre Areas because most of the PVI Bellwethers are there.  Since there already are 4 maps, I'll make a PVI Map with no labels only upon request.

State PVI:








95 of Pennsylvania's over 2,500 townships, boroughs, cities and municipalities are state PVI bellwether towns.  Many of those towns are in the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton-Willkes-Barre and Erie suburbs.  

Only 9 of these 95 towns qualify as super bellwethers with PVIs of less than 0.5 and a low state trend from 2008 to 2012.  Three are in the Pittsburgh suburbs: Monaca borough, Beaver County, Pulaski township, Beaver County and New Kensington city, Westmoreland County.  Two are in Erie County: Girard township and Summit township.  Two are in bellwether counties: West Pittston borough, Luzerne County, and Kulpmont borough, Northumberland County.  Philadelphia-suburban Upper Providence township, Delaware County, and South Pymatuning township, Mercer County near Sharon, Pennsylvania and Youngstown, Ohio, round out the list.

National PVI:








119 Pennsylvania towns are National PVI Bellwethers.  Again, many are clustered in the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Scranton-Wilkes-Barre suburbs.  

Of the 119 towns, 12 are super bellwethers.  Three are in Southwestern Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh: Baden borough, Beaver County, South Heights borough, Beaver County and Perryopolis borough, Fayette County.  Two are in Western Pennsylvania near New Castle, Sharon and Youngstown, Ohio: South New Castle borough, Lawrence County and Hermitage city, Mercer County.  Two are in the swing county of Northumberland in the Allentown-Bethlehem area: Mount Carmel township and Coal township.  Three are in Central Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg: Shippensburg borough, Cumberland County, Port Carbon borough, Schuylkill County and Reilly township, Schuylkill County.  Upper Gwynedd township, Montgomery County, near Philadelphia, and Elkland borough, Tioga County in North-Central Pennsylvania, round out the list.