Oregon 2016 GE Pres Results

[Nym90]

Regarding what happens to the Trump voters in the future, I think you raised an important point.

If a Trump voter otherwise voted Dem down the rest of the ballot (as clearly many did in small towns in Oregon this year), that would seem to indicate they were voting for Trump for economic reasons and those voters seem to me the most likely to abandon him in the future if (almost certainly when) his economic promises remain unfulfilled.

A lot of these towns/areas (not just in Oregon but nationally) voted strongly for Obama in 2008, which helps support the idea that it's long term economic decline that is the source of their frustration, and thus they will vote Trump out in 2020 if it continues.

Trump voters who also switched to the GOP column downballot, on the other hand, are more likely to be voting for him and his party for cultural reasons, and feeling the world as a whole is passing them by and they don't recognize it anymore, and have finally gotten fed up and switched, and Trump and the GOP I believe are much more likely to be able to keep those voters in their column through beating the drum of cultural resentment/disenfranchisement.  Think the people who eat up stuff like the "War on Christmas" memes and such....the Fox and Friends watchers, etc. Many of whom sadly are former Democrats.

[NOVA Green]

A point to consider:

Statewide turnout in Oregon was up significantly from 2012, after having declined in 2012 from 2008 and having declined in 2008 from 2004 (the last one was a bit of a surprise to me as turnout nationally was up...perhaps the fact that Oregon was no longer a targeted swing state like it was in 2000 and 2004 hurt turnout).

So even though Trump's percentage of the vote statewide was the lowest of any Republican since Bob Dole (and only barely better than Dole by three hundreds of a percent), he did get more total votes than Romney or McCain did.

Likewise for Clinton, despite having the lowest percentage of the vote for any Dem candidate since Gore in 2000, she received more total votes than Obama in 2012, second in state history only to Obama in 2008.

I bring this up because I wonder how it would impact your analysis. I wonder if turnout levels in these small mill towns that swung so heavily Republican was higher than it has been in the past (indicating that there were a lot of previously non voters coming out for Trump) or whether it was more stable and thus really was a collapse in the Democratic vote as the percentages indicate.

Very good point, and I was following the discussion that you and Timothy87 were having on the following '12-'16 turnout thread, which is completely fascinating in and of itself since it mixes discussion of population growth & turnout in an awesome visual format....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=254989.0

Thanks RI for starting that thread!!!

Now--- the question that I can't answer at this time is:

What caused the dramatic drop-off in voter turnout and registration between the '04 and '08 elections and between the '08 and '12 elections?

This subject probably deserves its own thread, since Oregon is normally a state with extremely high voter turnout rates, and it is curious as to why there was such a dramatic decrease in both '08 and '12....

My personal suspicion, is that the Great Recession, which hit Oregon much worse than most states in terms of total unemployment levels (~10% in '08?), and associated dislocation of families looking for work elsewhere in the country, combined with general cynicism towards establishment politics in many parts of the state likely played a role, perhaps even more so than the "Oregon is no longer a swing state" theory (Although that possibly played a role to some extent as well).

Me and my wife were actually part of the decreased turnout levels in '12, since I relocated with my employer for a job in California, and never cancelled my registration, nor transferred it to nor voted in California, because I shifted out to Texas driving less than a week before Election Day.

So....

Question #2 (Bolded above) and excuse my paraphrasing:

Did turnout levels in mill towns that swung Republican heavily come from a dramatic increase in voters that had dropped off the voter registration rolls, or was the turnout level relatively stable?

So the former would essentially indicate a dramatic influx in new voters, and the latter would indicate that former heavily Democratic voters were swing hard towards Trump....


The difficult part of answering the question, is that unfortunately with the hodgepodge of Oregon election data at a precinct level, it is hard to pinpoint exact communities in terms of party registration and turnout levels....

Additionally, we have the wildcard that is automatic DMV voter registration that added an huge surge of both first time voters, as well as former voters that dropped off of the registration list.

So, how to try to assess/ analyze the data attempting to use a relative apples to apples comparison?

There are two sets of data available that can show us both voter registration by party between '04 and '16, as well as data that can show us turnout levels by party registration between '04 and '16.

Since, I can't run through the data by individual communities/precincts, it's probably best to look at some individual counties to look at both overall party registration numbers as well as turnout numbers....

1.) Columbia County:

Party Registration & turnout:

2004: (27.6k RV)---- 45 % D- 33% R- 22% NAV     TO: 91%D- 91 % R- 80% NAV
2008: (27.6k RV)---  47% D- 31% R- 21% NAV      TO: 90% D- 89% R- 77% NAV
2012: (27.1k RV)---  44 % D- 32% R- 24% NAV     TO: 86%D- 89% R- 72% NAV
2016: (31.8k RV)-    39 % D- 31% R- 31% NAV     TO: 87%D- 90% R- 60% NAV

So, we see a dramatic increase in voter registration +17% between '12 and '16, likely partially as a result of new voter registration laws, combined with the bulk of the +4.7k new voters tilting heavily Republican!

So between '12 and '16 net Dem registration gain was ~380 voters, Republicans gained ~1,060 voters and NVAs shot up 3,240 voters!

Now NVA turnout decreased dramatically, but you now have a net 600 vote Rep registration gain, with a +3% turnout advantage in '12/'16 combined with new voters, and overall these trends overwhelmingly benefited Trump....

2.) Coos County

Party Registration & turnout:

2004: (38.1k RV)---   42% D- 37% R- 21 % NAV    TO: 87% D   - 89% R- 76% NAV
2008: (35.4k RV)---   44% D- 36% R- 20% NAV     TO: 88* % D- 88% R- 73% NAV
2012: (32.5k RV)---   40% D- 38% R- 22% NAV     TO: 87% D-    89 %R- 72% NAV
2016: (37.3k RV)---   34% D- 36% R- 30% NAV     TO: 88% D-   90% R-  57% NAV

So again, we see a +15% voter registration between '12 and '16, with 4.8k "new voters"....

Dems lost 420 RVs during that time, and Reps gained ~ 1,070 new voters, NVAs +4.1k...

So again not only did Dem turnout languish, but Republicans overwhelmingly won the war of "new" RVs between '12 and '16....

3.) Douglas County


Party Registration & turnout:

2004: (65.2k RV)----   34% D- 46% R- 20% NAV      TO: 84%D- 87%R- 69% NAV
2008: (62.9k RV)---    36% D- 46% R- 19% NAV      TO: 84%D- 86%R- 67% NAV
2012: (58.2k RV)---    32% D- 48% R- 20% NAV      TO: 83%D- 87%R- 68% NAV
2016: (66.1k RV)---    27% D- 44% R- 29% NAV      TO: 85%D- 89%R- 54% NAV

So again we see a +14% increase in the voter rolls between '12 and '16 with almost 8k "new" voters...

Dems lost 920 voters, Reps gained ~1.5k voters, and NVA gained 7.3k voters....

4.) Josephine County

Party Registration & turnout:

2004: (48.2k RV)---- 31%D- 48%R- 21% NVA    TO: 87%D- 90%R- 74% NVA
2008: (49.5k RV)---  33%D- 45%R- 21% NVA    TO: 85%D- 86%R- 68% NVA
2012: (47.5k RV)---  31%D- 46%R- 24% NVA    TO: 82%D- 86%R- 65% NVA
2016: (55.2k RV)---  28%D- 42%R- 31% NVA    TO: 83%D- 88%R- 54% NVA

So net increase in voters rolls '12-'16:   +16%

Dems +720 voters, Reps + 1.3k voters, NAV +5.7k voters

5.) Linn County


Party Registration & turnout:

2004: (57.2k RV)----- 36%D- 43%R-21% NAV     TO: 91%D- 93%R- 81% NAV
2008: (60.6k RV)---   38%D- 41%R- 21% NAV     TO: 85%D-88%R- 71% NAV
2012: (58.9k RV)---   35%D- 42%R- 24% NAV     TO: 85%D-89%R- 71% NAV
2016: (70.6k RV)---   31%D- 39%R- 31% NAV     TO: 86%D-90%R- 59% NAV

So net increase in voter registration rolls '12-16: +20%

'12-16 RV change: Dems +1.3k, Reps +2.7k, NAV +7.7k

So if we look at Coos & Douglas counties, it appears clear that there were a number of Democrats that changed party registration in order to vote for Trump in the primaries, that had already moved away from the Democratic Party at the Federal and State level....

It also appears that in both counties the NAVs heavily favored Trump....

If we look at Columbia County, although we see a significant Republican gain off of the "new" voters, there wasn't a net loss of Democratic voters, but the NAVs appear to have gone much more heavily Republican than average in a county where Dems still maintain an 8% RV edge...

Josephine County has a higher population growth rate than Columbia, Coos, and Douglas and overall the numbers were a bit more constant, however Obama actually performed relatively well there in '08, and the Reps only led 2:1 in "new voters" between '12 and '16....

Additionally, look at the turnout differential between '08 and '16, and it's pretty clear that there was a lot of initial enthusiasm for Obama that dropped off in '12 and the bulk of the "new" voters in '16 swung overwhelmingly Trump.

Linn County doesn't fit as well into the overall narrative, but I wanted to pull a Mid-Valley County that used to be quite a bit more competitive for Democrats into the mix, and overall the county has been growing significantly in population, mainly because of the city of Albany, which is rapidly becoming a bedroom community not only for Corvallis, but increasingly for Salem as well...

We actually saw the closest thing to a registration parity in Dem/Rep registration levels in Linn that I have seen in many years....

We start to see the Reps move back to a +7 RV (2004 levels) edge in '12, and then we see a 2:1 margin for Republicans in "new" voters in '16.... with again the NAVs obviously swinging heavily Trump....

Now, I can't roll through every county in the state at this point, and unfortunately can't even pull out precinct level data for much of the state by RV/turnout by Party ID, but it certainly does appear that Trump benefited significantly from a surge of "returning" voters in many parts of rural timber communities in Oregon.

So, it does appear that at least in certain parts of Oregon, that there was a hidden population of voters that came back onto the voting rolls, after dropping off during the Great Recession, believing that Trump could and would bring his version of "hope and change" and "make American great again"....

Back to Nym's original question: It does not appear that voter registration levels were relatively stable in many of these communities, although overall turnout levels generally were for the two major parties, but significant drop-off of NAV turnout between '04 and '08.

[NOVA Green]

Regarding what happens to the Trump voters in the future, I think you raised an important point.

If a Trump voter otherwise voted Dem down the rest of the ballot (as clearly many did in small towns in Oregon this year), that would seem to indicate they were voting for Trump for economic reasons and those voters seem to me the most likely to abandon him in the future if (almost certainly when) his economic promises remain unfulfilled.

A lot of these towns/areas (not just in Oregon but nationally) voted strongly for Obama in 2008, which helps support the idea that it's long term economic decline that is the source of their frustration, and thus they will vote Trump out in 2020 if it continues.

Trump voters who also switched to the GOP column downballot, on the other hand, are more likely to be voting for him and his party for cultural reasons, and feeling the world as a whole is passing them by and they don't recognize it anymore, and have finally gotten fed up and switched, and Trump and the GOP I believe are much more likely to be able to keep those voters in their column through beating the drum of cultural resentment/disenfranchisement.  Think the people who eat up stuff like the "War on Christmas" memes and such....the Fox and Friends watchers, etc. Many of whom sadly are former Democrats.

Great point Nym----

If you don't mind my paraphrasing regarding Trump'16/ Ancestral Dem Voters:

1.) Voters that went Trump / Dem down-ballot '16

These voters might well return to the Dem Pres fold in 2020 if their personal econ conditions don't improve.

2.) Voters that went Trump / Rep down-ballot '16

These voters are most likely to shift their permanent identification to Republican and are likely gone for some time regardless.


My thought is that we need to separate Federal Elections from Statewide Elections, since in many parts of rural and small town Oregon their is a traditional "upstate"/"downstate" dynamic and there are many voters who will typically vote Democratic for President/Senate/US Rep and then switch and vote Republican for Governor/SoS/AG, etc....

So to use OR-CD-04 (Peter Defazio's district) which has been a subject of some discussion since it only very narrowly went for Clinton, if we look at results from '10/'12/'14/'16 and we see a significant dropoff in the same precincts/communities that swung most heavily Trump, that could indicate many of these voters are shifting away from the Democratic Party on a Federal level.... aka realignment of party identity and not just a rejection of the Democratic national brand and accepting a "New Republican" in the form of Trump who ran on an explicitly economic protectionist platform and focused on many themes involving unfair trade competition from China (Which is actually a big deal in these Mill towns, despite some on the forum that believe that Oregon is a totally "Free Trade" state.

I'll need to take a look at this topic further, but it might take me a little time, since am still working through some of the Presidential swings, and I'll have some more data to focus in on once I run through a few other places in Southern Oregon, the Oregon Coast, and Linn County....

Also, am seeing some interesting numbers from top performing Perot '92 communities and swings towards Trump in '16..... another avenue of exploration.

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #15: Wasco County    Pop: 25.2k- 2010 

Time to shift East of the Cascade Mountain Range again, and take a look at the 2016 Presidential Election Results from a county that in many ways is a barometer of swings in rural/small-town Oregon, that has had a tendency to flip back and forth between Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates for quite a few decades.

Wasco County is located in North-Central Oregon along the Columbia River Gorge.... Lewis & Clarke camped out here way back in the early 1800s when they were exploring the region. The Northern route of the Oregon Trail ended here, simply because it was so difficult to take wagon trains over the high Mountains and steep river gorge in the region, and early settlers would need to "pony up" (ok-failed joke) for a ferry ride, which I don't think happened until some dude created a business a decade later outside of Mosier in the modern NW part of the county, to ship the settler population over.

At one point technically the county was larger than many states in the Union, and the largest county in the United States.... rapidly these counties succeeded, although Hood River fell last in 1911 (?)....

Like many other counties along the Columbia River Gorge, the building of massive Hydro-Electric Work Projects during the 1930s not only drove employment, but also helped create a modern industrial infrastructure with The Dalles, Oregon being a major national center of Aluminum production to fuel the war effort during WW II and beyond.

http://nwnewsnetwork.org/post/aluminum-smeltings-questionable-future-northwest

Approximately 50% of the population of Wasco County lives in the Dalles, and about half the population is located elsewhere, in what in many ways is a predominately agricultural county.

Wasco is one of the largest agricultural counties in the state, producing both Wheat in the Columbia River "Grain Belt", as well as livestock (Cattle) especially in "South County", as well as some apples/pears/grapes, but is most well known in Oregon (Not on Atlas) as being the #2 Cherry producing county in the United States....

Best bet is many of y'all reading this that have ever bought cherries at a grocery store fresh, or frozen cherries, or any cocktail with cherries, have likely consumed agricultural product *made in Oregon*

Demographically, Wasco County is overwhelmingly Non-Latino White, with a rapidly growing Latino population, of whom a large proportion are <18 yrs, and the population over 45 years is overwhelmingly non-Latino White.

There is a significant Native American population concentrated in the SW portion of the County where the Warm Springs "Indian Reservation" as well as native populations mixed throughout the county.

Economically, this is still a fairly working-class county, and although there are roughly 670 farm operators, the vast majority are smaller farmers, with the exception of a smaller number of large wheat farmers and cattle ranchers.

Election Results 2000-2016:

2000: (43-50 Rep)      (7.5% Nader)    +7 R
2004: (47-51 Rep)                               +4 R
2008: (52-45 Dem)                              +7 D
2012: (48-48* Rep)                             +0 R
2016: (40-49 Rep)                               +9 R

Hmmm.... what's going on there where a Dem could typically pickup 47 %+ and a very high Nader vote in 2000 and drop to 40% in 2000?   Very odd....

So let's take a look at the largest city in the County, The Dalles which accounted for 56% of the county vote in 2016 vs 50% in 2000.

The Dalles--- Pop (15.3k)- 2015

1992: (44 D- 30 R- 27 Perot)                                                                            +14 D
1996:  ?
2000: (46 D- 48 R- 5 Nader)                                                                             +2 R
2004: (49 D- 50 R)                                                                                           +1 R
2008: (55 D- 43 R)                                                                                          +12 D
2012: (50 D- 47 R)                                                                                            +3 D
2016: (42 D- 45 R)   (4% Write-Ins (Bernie?); (7% Lib); (2% Green)                 +3 R

So these numbers look a bit odd at first glance.... how could the city have gone from +12 D to +3 R in just a few election cycles? Meanwhile the Democratic numbers dropped 13% from Obama '08 numbers and there was only a +2 % R from '08 and a drop-off in Rep support between '12 and '16?

Most of the major swing from Dem Pres to Rep Pres voters appears to have happened between '12 and '16, and then there was a drop-off for both nominees, with essentially a huge drop-off of Democratic voters between '12 and '16.

The Dalles- Precincts---

Precinct 01- NW part of the city. 75% White, Median Household income $28-33k/Yr. Median Household Age 45-53. Unemployment Rate 9-13%.

2004: (51-47 D)    +4 D
2008: (55-42 D)    +13 D
2012: (51-46 D)    +5 D
2016: (40-49 R)     + 9 R

I could be totally off base here, but it sure fits the profile of former union workers at the plant that got mothballed back not so many years ago, where people laid off were clearing $50k+/Yr, when manufacturing was shipped to China....

This is not just an issue in one county/City/precinct, this is an issue of an entire industry getting shut down, and workers throughout the Pacific Northwest are seeing their jobs getting shipped wholesale overseas under "Free Trade" agreements that both Democratic and Republican Presidents have supported for decades....

Here are a few local stories that talk about in industry in general, and The Dalles in particular...

http://nwnewsnetwork.org/post/aluminum-smeltings-questionable-future-northwest

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/06/columbia_gorge_bucks_economic.html

Democrats lost 11% off of their 2012 numbers and Trump gained 3% over Romney (His only net gain over Republican '12 numbers in the city)


Precincts # 2 & 3 are a bit younger, but lower middle-class, and also have the highest % of Latinos within the City....

Precinct 2:

2004: (52-47 D)                                                                                                            +5 D
2008: (56-42 D)                                                                                                           +14 D
2012: (50-46 D)                                                                                                            +4 D
2016: (45-42 D)   (5% WI-Bernie?); (7% Lib)  (2% Green)                                            +3 D

Precinct 3:

2004: (49-50 R)                                                                                                            +1 R
2008: (56-42 D)                                                                                                            +14D
2012: (54-43 D)                                                                                                            +11 D
2016: (44*-44 D)                                                                                                          + 0 D

Am thinking that the mix of this precinct having both the highest % of Latinos and Anglo college students (Based on Census housing tracts) likely played a role here.... Millennial voters weren't big Trump fans, and although this is a town where most of the voters are Anglo, there is still the Community College for the region right down the street, and they didn't really care for Clinton either....)

Precinct #4

So this is the "wealthiest" precinct in the City (Avg Median Household income $53k/Yr), fairly heavily White, and also more Middle-Aged as opposed to older and younger with median household age....

Traditionally the most Republican Precinct of The Dalles...

2004: (44-55 R)                                                                                        +11 R
2008: (50-48 D)                                                                                         +2 D
2012: (44-54 R)                                                                                        +10 R
2016: (39-49 R)    (5% WI-Bernie?); (6% Lib); (2% Green)                        +10 R

So it actually kind of looks like Dems lost 5% of their base vote, and possibly a fewer other points as well, so like many parts of Oregon 3rd Party votes hit both candidates...

Ok--- will follow up on the next segment on rural Wasco, since I want to ensure I haven't exceeded my character post limit...

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #15- Wasco County- Part II

So what about Rural Wasco County?

If we go back, we see that Democrats have actually done well, in what is predominately an agricultural region....

2000: (41-53 R)      (5% Nader)                                                   +12 R
2004: (46-53 R)                                                                          +12 R
2008: (50-47 D)                                                                          +3 D
2012: (46-51 R)                                                                           +5 R
2016: (37-53 R)     (3% Write-Ins, 5% Lib, 2% Green)                 +16 R

Trump was able to pull back the W. '00/'04 voters in '16 after a 5% defection to Obama in '08, and Democrats were wiped out even from Al Gore percentages, even if one were to add the write-ins (Bernie?) and Green vote to Clinton's '16 numbers, there is still a 4% drop-off from the combined Gore/Nader numbers in 2000....

This is obviously a problem for Democrats if they are getting trounced by such margins in areas where they can typically be quite competitive....

One of the questions posed earlier by Nym here, and also  by Timothy87 on the RI national  turnout thread by Timothy87 was the drop in total Oregonians voting between '04/'08 and also '08/'12 and what the increase of voting numbers in '16 meant.

So, look at the total voters in rural Wasco between 2000 and 2016:

2000: 5351 Votes (50.3% of the County Total Votes)
2004: 6026 Votes (50.4% of the County Total Votes)
2008: 5554 Votes (49.2% of the County Total Votes)
2012: 4798 Votes (44.5% of the County Total Votes)
2016: 5311 Votes (44.4% of the County Total Votes)

So looking at this data it is possible to make an argument that relatively lower voter turnout impacted the 2012 Presidential numbers from the 2008 numbers, but it doesn't appear possible to be able to make an argument that the swing between '12 and '16 in the rural part of the county was as impacted, unless somehow there were a ton of Obama '08 voters that sat out the '12 election, and then came back to vote for Trump.... Since overall the Republican nominee only gained 2% between '12 and '16, it looks to be more the case that there were a number of Obama '08 voters that dropped off the rolls by the 2012 election, and weren't enthused to vote, and with automatic DMV registration and/or the contested Democratic and Republican primaries popped back on the rolls and ended up voting 3rd Party candidates....

So what do the rural precincts in Wasco County look like?

1.) Mosier--- It is actually the most Democratic Precinct in the county, even more so than any of the four precincts in the Dalles....

Think of it more as an extension of Hood River County, with the main population center being the town, but also with a significant chunk of land within a US National Forest, and some small settlements stretching down the Gorge moving East towards The Dalles.

So, a bit touristy, eco-alternative, socially liberal types, some with money that have either retired or opened up small business here, combined with a younger "post-materialistic" type that are willing to trade not having a lot of money in exchange for a more relaxed lifestyle and the amenities of the great outdoors and beauty of the region.

ok--- can't do a direct comparison using 2000, because of precinct changes and not sure what was the precinct added between '00 and '04, but should give a good idea (Or the pop/RV #s increased dramatically between those years)...

2000: (47-40 D)      (10% Nader)                                                       +7 D
2004: (60-39 D)                                                                               +21 D
2008: (59-38 D)                                                                               +21 D
2012: (57-39 D)                                                                               +18 D
2016: (49-40 D)    (3% Write-In; 4% Lib, 3% Green)                        +9 D

Interesting..... so a precinct that accounts for 12% of the total county vote, and 28% of the rural vote, basically kept consistent Republican numbers of 39-40% between 2000 and 2016, and you have Democrats running consistently 57-60% numbers from '04-'12, but with what appears to be major defections of 10% to 3rd party candidates in 2000 and 2016....

2.) Warm Springs/ South Wasco

This one's a bit trickier since it includes a mix of both some heavily Republican parts of the County as well as some moderately Democratic Parts of the County... and essentially it split off a heavily Republican Precinct in the SE part of the county in '12/'16, so I'll go back to the '04/'08 numbers and combine the new precinct from '12/'16 that includes both the Wasco County of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation with the precinct including Antelope that is overwhelmingly Republican....

2004: (47-52 R)                                        +5 R
2008: (50-47 D)                                        +3 D
2012: (47-51 R)                                        +4 R
2016: (35-52 R)                                        +17 R

So here we have a precinct where approximately 70% of the voters are on the Reservation (That includes approximately 30% non-Natives) combined with essentially heavily Republican Cattle Country in the SE, where there is now a major Christian children retreat camp on the ranch where the Rajneesh Cult, infamous from the 1980s....

The biggest drop-off of Democratic support between '12 and '16 occurred within the section of the precinct based on the Warm Springs reservation....

Democratic support dropped there from 54% in '12 to 41% in '16....  Meanwhile the Republican share of the vote went from 44% Romney to 48% Trump.....

So regardless of 3rd Party support levels it looks like there were a large number of Obama '12 voters that voted Trump '16 on Native Land, although as I mentioned before there are a considerable number of non-natives living on this part of Warm Springs land, many of whom likely live and work on the Reservation as part of the Forest Products sector (Logging outfits subcontracted to the Nation) that still have semi-permanent residency with one of the largest employers within the region (See my Jefferson County notes regarding the impact of Warm Springs in the local economy).

Let's take a look at precinct voting levels between 2004 and 2016:

2004: 725 Voters (6.1% of County Votes---- 12% of Rural County Votes)
2008: 765 Votes  (6.8% of County Votes--- 13.8% of Rural County Votes)
2012: 719 Votes (6.7% of County Votes--- 15.0% of Rural County Votes)
2016: 790 Votes (6.6% of County Votes--- 14.9% of Rural County Votes)

So, how much of the shift towards Trump was driven by increased Republican support on the Reservation versus Anglo Ranchers in the rest of the precinct?

We have seen elsewhere in the US, as well as some Oregon precinct results that I pulled previously for Jefferson County, as well as a precinct in Yamhill County with a large Native population, that Clinton was not especially popular with Native Americans, in both the GE and Primaries....

Unfortunately we can't break down the date for '04 and '08 by Reservation/Ranching Country, but we can look at the overall turnout numbers between '12 and '16 for these two parts of the precinct:

Reservation: (2012: 578 votes);  (2016: 618 votes)   +7% increase in total votes '12-'16
Ranching:    (2012: 141 Votes);  (2016: 172 votes)   +22 % increase in total votes '12-'16

If we look at the ranching precinct breakdown '12-'16:

2012: (18-77 R)                                                                             +49 R
2016: (13-72 R)   (5% Write-Ins, 9% Lib, 2% Green)                      +49 R

So it's actually looking like there was an equal drop-off of both Democratic and Republican numbers.... what is extremely interesting is the 9% Libertarian vote, which is actually one of the highest numbers that I have seen so far looking at Oregon precinct level results....

Overall within this odd precinct, perhaps the writing on the wall should have been on the wall when looking at '12 vs '16 primary votes in the Dem/Rep Primaries:

2008: (370 Total D/R Primary Votes)  (59% Dem- 41% R)  (60-40 Obama) (82% McCain- 18% Paul)
2016: (369 Total D/R Primary Votes)  (51% Dem- 49% R)  (55-41 Sanders) (71% Trump-29% Other)

So, Clinton was never popular on Native land out in Wasco County and she was stuck at 40% both the '08 and '16 primaries, Trump dominated on the Republican side, and 4% of Democrats likely wrote-in Trump....

3.) SW The Dalles- Unincorporated

Technically should be associated with The Dalles, but unincorporated areas on the edge of smaller cities are interesting, since they are really a mix of urban/rural where you have an "ownership" society that combines both city residents able to buy some land a bit later on in life, combined with rural residents that migrate towards the outskirts of the "big city" for greater economic opportunities and access to shopping and public/social services and amenities...

2004: (48-51 R)          +3 R
2008: (53-45 D)          +8 D
2012: (52-45 D)          +7 D
2016: (39-49 R)          +10 R

So data might be slightly corrupted since precinct boundaries appeared to have shifted slightly between '08 and '12, and roughly 50% of the population was annexed into the City of the Dalles. but still looking at the '12-'16 numbers this is obviously a major collapse of voters regardless....

If we drop into slightly lower population centers that are more agricultural in nature we see numbers coming off of the Tygh Valley and Fifeteeen Mile Creek areas, where there was a 15-19% swing towards the Republicans between '12 and '16....

Tygh Valley was (45-55) R in 2012, and Threemile/Fifteen Mile was (47-52 R) in 2012.

In 2016: Tygh Valley (34-60 R)  and Threemile/Fifteen Mile was (35-59 R).

Clinton appears to have at least temporarily at the Presidential level destroyed the ability of Democrats  to be able to rack up somewhat decent numbers, even in traditionally swing Democratic/Republican rural precincts and parts of Oregon....

Why would farmers heavily dependent upon guestworker labor in their labor-intensive agricultural sectors swing so hard towards Trump after providing Obama with some pretty decent numbers in '12, and I believe '08 as well?

Honestly I have no idea what's going on here, but wonder if in certain labor-intensive agricultural regions of the state where there might be a scenario of Latino Trump voters that these days are more likely to be Mexican-American with the labor-force much more Central American / Indigenous Mexicans from the South of the Country....

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #16- Douglas County- Population 108k (2015)

The largest county in Oregon West of the Cascades and #5 in the state, is arguably the most Republican County consistently West of the Cascades in recent decades in terms of population as well (We could potentially put Linn County as a contender).

Located squarely at the Northern part of Southern Oregon proper, where the Mountain Range splits from the Cascades on the East to the Coast Range to the West, with the Calapooya Mountains creating a natural geographical barrier, this was an historically remote part of the state.

Originally, the earliest European settlers were Gold Miners that went North from California looking for an "Oregon Gold Rush" that triggered a conflict with the local Rogue Indians that lasted for about ten years, and resulted in the "involuntary relocation" of Natives to reservations located on the foothills of the Central Oregon Coast Range.

Like many historical mining areas in Oregon originally settled by Southerners the county tended to be heavily Democratic for a century, as opposed to "Yankee" areas settled in the Willamette Valley, where much of the original settler population came from New England backgrounds (Look at the names of the cities)....

Douglas County is not only an extremely large county in land area, but also an extremely beautiful county where over 50% consists of publicly managed forest lands (USFS & BLM) combined with a significant amount of privately owned timber lands....

It is an overwhelmingly rural county in any sense of the meaning.

It is still an economy based overwhelmingly on the Timber industry, and an estimated 25-30% of the total labor force is directly tied to the timber industry.

There are still some mills left in Douglas County, but as the old saying went "Douglas County is where the logs are harvested and Lane County is where the logs are milled".

In many ways Douglas County is a relatively new convert to the Republican Party.... A Liberal Democratic from Massachusetts managed to bag 47% of the two-party vote back in '88 when running for President....

It is an overwhelmingly White County (92%- 2010) with an extremely small minority population (5% Latino, 2% Native American.

It is also a relatively old county with a much higher percentage of Seniors than just about anywhere else in Western Oregon, a much higher percentage of Veterans than just about any County in Western Oregon (Coos/Curry excepted with Columbia a close runner-up).

It is a relatively low income county, with a Median Household Income of only $ 39.7k/Yr (2010).

As a forest products dependent county it is heavily dependent and responsive to national economic trends, since as anyone who knows anything about the timber industry (Particularly in logging counties and regions of Oregon) there are HUGE ups and downs with employment....

Here's a link that shows the unemployment rate in Douglas County from 1992-2016....

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ORDOUG5URN

So if we look at the "Mountains and Valleys" on the unemployment rate in the county we see some interesting data:

1/92----- 15.2% Unemployment
2/09----  18.1% Unemployment
9/09----    7.5% Unemployment
4/15----   7.5% Unemployment
5/16---    5.7% Unemployment
11/16---  6.1% Unemployment

So anyways you look at it, and we can slice and dice more detailed numbers between every General Election (Including Midterms) this is an area where almost 1/5 workers were "on the dole" right when Obama came into office....

The unemployment rate was at almost 14% right before the 2010 GE.... 11% right before the 2012 GE, and dipped down to only 8.2% right before the 2014 GE.

IDK if there is a direct correlation, but regardless it doesn't appear that Clinton benefited from the lowest unemployment rates in the county since before 1992....

So let's look at the Federal Races in the County from '08 onwards to see what the numbers look like:

2004: Pres: (37-66 R)     +29R
2008: Pres: (38-58 R )     +20R       Sen:   (34-59 R)    +25 R
2010:                                              Sen:   (40-56 R)     +16 R    House: (40-57R)  +17R
2012: Pres: (34-62 R)     +28 R                                                  House: (47-51R)   +4R
2014:                                             Sen: (40-52 R)      +12 R      House: (47-50R)    +3R
2016: Pres (26-65 R)      +39 R      Sen: (38-53 R)       +15 R     House:  (43-53R)   +10R

So interestingly enough, it doesn't appear that Trump actually expanded the Republican base from Bush '04 numbers, although Clinton is likely the worst Democratic Party nominee in terms of total Democratic Party % numbers virtually in the history of the county.....

Now if we look at US Senate numbers,  we see that Gordon Smith (Moderate incumbent Rep Senator from "downstate" Oregon) actually performed quite well against home style spun Southern Oregon Democrat Populist Jeff Merkley....

If we look at Merkley's reelection numbers in Douglas, we see a +6% D improvement between '08 and '14 and a corresponding -7% dropoff in Republican support...

Seems that Merkley's Democratic populist brand is actually doing quite well in even one of the most Republican parts of Western Oregon....

If we look at the US Senate numbers between Wyden 2010/2016, we see a drop-off in both Republican and Democratic Party support, with a huge surge towards 3rd Party candidates on both sides...

So it doesn't really appear that there was a "Trump Effect" when it came to the '16 Oregon Senate race in Douglas County...

Now, if we look at the US House races, Peter Defazio (OR-CD-04) Ok--- we could explain the '10 CD Dem performance possibly on a Republican "surge" year, but it doesn't explain the '14 and '16 results...

I think there might have been a direct correlation between Defazio's under-performance in '16 and a Trump "surge" that might possibly have swung 3% of US-House voters from Defazio to the Republican, but still not completely convinced considering how well the Republican candidate in CD-04 performed in 2010.

So, now let's look at turnout numbers for various Federal Elections between '04 and '16 to see if there were dramatic fluctuations and voters either new to the voting rolls or had dropped off and re-registered over these years:

2004: Pres (54.4k Voters)
2008: Pres (52.9k Voters)    Sen (51.1k Voters)
2010:                                  Sen (43.0k Voters)    House: (43.3k Voters)
2012: Pres (49.8k Voters)                                    House: (49.1k Voters)
2014:                                  Sen (40.9k Voters)    House: (41.7k Voters)
2016: Pres (53.5k Voters)    Sen (52.4k Voters)    house: (52.7k Voters)

So interestingly enough although the population of the county has increased 10% since '10 and '16, there is actually a lower amount of total Presidential voters compared to '04....

Additionally, we can't explain the '08/'16 Democratic variance based upon turnout levels...

What perhaps is most interesting is that the US House races, with an incumbent Liberal Populist Democrat running against Republican insurgents, actually had higher voter turnout rates than for US Senate races....

Will follow up with much more detail on precincts... but even in Douglas County certain types of Democrats can actually perform quite well....

Edit: To show '92-'16 unemployment stats link that I spaced on including....

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #16: Douglas County- Part II

So in order to understand voting trends in Douglas County we need to take a look at both "urban" and "rural" parts of the county. Overall only 42% of the county vote comes from "urban" or incorporated areas, and even if we adjust for the people that live on the outskirts of Roseburg, Sutherlin, and Winston, this is still one of the most rural counties in Western Oregon....

Much of the employment in the cities of Douglas County is still connected to the timber industry, and Roseburg Forest Products is the largest private sector employer in the County, with 1,900 employees and mills in Roseburg, Dillard, and Riddle, as well as elsewhere in the region.

Unlike many other mill towns in other parts of Oregon, these communities started to swing Republican much earlier and stronger, in fact right at the onset of the Timber Wars in the late '80s/early '90s.

Part of that was likely because of the extreme dependency on logs from public lands for sawmills and plywood mills, with 50% of the County publicly owned forest lands, and another was likely the overlap with Roseburg Forest Products that both owned mills, and also bought a significant amount of private lands throughout the region as a future investment back in the '70s.

Roseburg was also a "ground zero" of the Social Movement backlash against environmental regulations and lawsuits impacting harvesting on public lands, with a major protest that achieved extensive statewide, but also national attention.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/25/us/loggers-protest-owl-decision.html

Although Douglas County recovered to some extent from, it was hit hard again by the Great Recession, and more recently the plywood industry in particular has been facing increased foreign competition, with China in particular being identified as responsible for unfair trade practices and product dumping on the US market.

1.) Roseburg---- Pop 21.2k (2010)

Although it is the largest city, it only accounts for 18% of the total County Vote....

So let's look at how the city voted....

1992:(34% D- 43 % R- 23 % Perot).   +9 R
1996: ?
2000: (34% D- 60% R- 4% Nader)      +26 R
2004:(37% D- 62% R)                        +25 R
2008 Pres: (45%D-52% R)               + 7 R   US SEN: (38-56 R)   US HOUSE: DEM UNOPPOSED
2010:                                                           US SEN: (46-50 R)   US HOUSE: (48-50 R)
2012 Pres: (41-55 R)                 +14 R                                         US HOUSE: (55-43 D)
2014:                                                          US SEN: (47-46 D)   US HOUSE: (55-42 D)
2016 Pres: (34-55 R)                 +21 R        US SEN: (44-45 R)    US HOUSE: (51-46 D)

So it looks like 1992 was a definitive point in retrospect where Perot's support indicated significant discontent with many here, and prior to a major break towards the Republican Party evidenced in the 2000 and 2004 General Elections.....

Interestingly enough, Obama actually appears to have significantly reversed that decline in Roseburg, at least temporarily. Democrats appear to perform moderately well as incumbents, and it is noteworthy that Merkley actually narrowly won here in 2014.

Defazio appears to be relatively popular here, although looking at the '16 House race, it does appear that there was a 4% "Trump effect" in the US House race, although it is possible that there was an impact as a result of Defazio not being able to cut a deal to reclass O&C public lands, that would have allowed increased logging, in exchange for some environmental adjustments....

2.) Riddle- Pop 1.2k

Riddle is predominately a mill town located South of Roseburg, and just in 2015 became the first mill certified to use a new type of technology CLT, which many are hoping with help depressed timber areas in Southern Oregon recover, after decades of economic woes.

1992 Pres:   (28%D- 44% R- 29% Perot)    +16 R
2000 Pres:  (32%D- 64% R-  3% Nader)     +32 R
2004 Pres:  (26%D- 73% R)                        +47 R
2008 Pres:  (38%D- 60%R)                         +22 R  US SEN: (31-61 R)
2010:                                                                     US SEN: (34-61 R)    US HOUSE: (33-64 R)
2012 Pres: (34%D- 61% R)                        +27 R                                   US HOUSE (55-43 D)
2014:                                                                     US SEN: (37-51 R)    US HOUSE: (49-45 D)
2016 Pres: (22D-69R)                                +47 R   US SEN: (38-51 R)    US HOUSE: (41-53 R)

3.) Reedsport Oregon- Pop 4.2k

Until fairly recently Reedsport was a fairly prosperous company town, with many of the residents directly or indirectly tied to the International Paper (IP) Mill that was shut down and imploded in 1999, that once employeed 800 workers.

Although there has been some growth in tourist related employment, because of the cities proximity to the Oregon Coast, the town hasn't really fully recovered.

Unlike many other former Timber towns, it still tended to have a fairly strong Democratic presence, likely because of the International Woodworkers of America (IWA) union tied to the mill, and IP adopting an adversarial labor model in order to drive down wages that resulted in a strike back in the '90s, and eventually IP shuttering the mill.

1992 Pres:  (44D- 30R- 27 Perot)        +14D
2000 Pres:  (44D- 50R- 4 Nader)         +6 R
2004 Pres:  (49D- 50R)                       +1 R
2008 Pres: (49D- 47 R)                       +3 D     US SEN: (46D-47R)
2010:                                                              US SEN: (53-42D)       US HOUSE: (54-44D)
2012 Pres: (45-52 R)                          +7 R                                        US HOUSE: (54-43D)
2014:                                                             US SEN: (49-43D)        US HOUSE: (55-42D)
2016 Pres: (35-56R)                           +21R    US SEN: (45-44D)       US HOUSE: (50-46D)

So a pretty dramatic Democratic collapse at the Presidential level, there was both an 8% swing between '08/'12 followed by an 11% swing between '12/'16. It also looks like Trump had a downballot impact in the US Senate and US House race as well, although much of the Senate numbers were caused by a loss of Democratic voters to the Left.

If we look at some of the other small towns with a significant population of people working in mill/timber related jobs, we see some pretty abysmal numbers for the Democratic pres nominee....

Drain, home to a mill (22-72 R), Yoncalla nearby (22-67 R).... Myrtle Creek Oregon, home to a number of logging companies on the edge of BLM land (23-69 R)....

Sutherlin Oregon the largest employer is Orenco systems that makes wastewater treatment solutions (266 employees) fared slightly better for the Democrats (26-65 R).

Basically Democrats were wiped out in most cities in Douglas County, even though Obama managed to capture close to 40% of the vote in the smaller communities listed above in '08, and did quite well in Roseburg and Reedsport.

Defazio managed to capture 41-43% in the smaller communities, and Wyden performed close to Obama '08 levels there.

The key question is how many of these Democratic votes are lost for good, or does the Trump phenomenon just another blip, and these voters will come back for the right Democratic Pres nominee, as they have at the US House and US Senate races in Oregon?

Next part, I'll take a look at some of the rural areas/precincts.

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #16- Douglas County- Part III

Time to shift to the rural parts of the county, which accounted for 58% of the total county vote in '16....

So how did rural Douglas County vote over the past 10 years and is there anything that we can read from the bird entrails?

2004 Pres: (31-69 R)          +38 R
2008 Pres: (36-61 R)          +25 R         US SENATE: (32-61 R)
2010:                                                    US SENATE: (37-59 R)        US HOUSE: (37-61 R)
2012 Pres: (32-64 R)          +32 R                                                   US HOUSE: (44-54 R)
2014:                                                    US SENATE (37-55 R)         US HOUSE (43-53 R)
2016 Pres: (20-70 R)          +50 R         US SENATE (35-56 R)         US HOUSE: (40-57 R)

So how to explain all this?

There was a net 18% swing between '12/'16 presidential margins, following only a 7% swing between '08/'12.

Meanwhile Democratic Senate numbers held fairly constant between '10 and '16, AND Peter Defazio is capturing twice the vote that Clinton did in the most Conservative parts of the county!

So why do we have 4-4.5 out of every ten voters in one of the most Republican regions in Western Oregon consistently vote for arguably one of the most Liberal Democratic Representatives in the US House?

It'a all about the economy stupid....

CD-04 is still heavily dependent upon Timber production, and there are still a ton of ancestral Democrats and leaners that feel like both major political parties have abandoned them.

The politics of the Spotted Owl have long since faded, and although in the Deep Timber counties of Southern Oregon there are still residual effects, the current discussion is now much less about the harvesting of timber of Federal Land.

It is increasingly about unfair trade practices committed by China that is causing raw Oregon logs to be sent overseas, paper/pulp mills to be shut down, and now even the softwood plywood industry is concerned about how China has made massive inroads into the American market using unfair subsidies, and cheap labor for the lower end plywood mill products.

We can go way back into the days of the George W Bush administration when this issue came up...

http://www.pprc.info/china/wyden_calls_for_investigation_of_chinese_logging_practices.htm

So if we go back to 2012, there was a major initiative to take China to the International Trade Commission regarding illegal dumping of product in violation of trade rules....

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/11/oregon_delegation_unites_over.html

Fast forward to 2013, and Peter DeFazio calls his own district in Southern Oregon the "New Appalachia"....

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/peter-defazio-chinese-plywood-oregon-097084

In Southern Oregon, this is not a Democratic nor Republican issue.... although there are still some legacy jobs/environment tensions that simmer up occasionally, the reality is that most people in the region recognize that there aren't simply enough resources going around to sustain the logging levels of the '50s-'70s.... However, there are still a hell of a lotta forest land, that if managed correctly can sustain jobs for many many years.

And as a young man in the late '80s/early -90s growing up in a small Oregon town with six mills only a 10-15 minute drive, the log trucks would roll down the main street all-day and every day.

Although I came from an environmentalist family background, we all knew the importance of the Timber industry to the Oregon economy, and how the local schools, county, and state revenue was heavily dependent upon the tax receipts that were shared with state/county/local governments...

The last thing any environmentalist/timber industry worker in Oregon wants to see is raw product shipped overseas instead of being milled in Oregon regardless if it was Japan in the '80s or China in the 2010s....

Ok--- personal rant aside, but it comes from the heart, and the vast majority of Douglas County doesn't really give that much of s**t when it comes to items like God, Gays, and Guns, since religion is a personal affair, who cares who sleeps with who, and yeah I like to hunt and/or own an AR-15 (Like one of my son-in-laws) but still common sense gun owners.

So what do unemployed loggers and rural residents do in places like Douglas County do when the economy goes South?  Grow Marijuana....

Now, you also have people like my wife's father that after his first wife died moved to the Mountains around the Happy Valley/Wolfe Creek/ Glendale area and bought 80 acres, of which 50% was timbered, had about 40 cows in the cleared pastured areas, was a USMC proud veteran, who had a few guns, shotguns in particular to keep the Bears and Cougars from getting too close to the house or livestock.....

So let's pull a few precinct numbers from rural Douglas and see what's going on there...

Basically a total collapse overall from Obama '12 numbers to Clinton '16 numbers.

It's not a pretty picture for Democrats anywhere you look....

Pct #1---Includes pretty much all of Coastal Douglas (Outside of Reedsport) as well as former precincts located squarely in the Oregon Coast Range (Redneck/Hippie hybrid).

All of the rural precincts were rearranged between '08 and '12, so can't quite do the "apples to apples" comparison that I can with the cities in the county.

2012 Pres: (38-57 R)    +19 R                                                          US HOUSE: (50-48 D)
2014:                                             US SENATE: (47-45 D)               US HOUSE: (50-47 D)
2016 Pres: (28-64 R)     +36R        US SENATE: (39-50 R)                US HOUSE: (44-52 R)

So wow--- just wow..... one of the biggest swings in rural Douglas, but still a place where Merkley won in '14 and DeFazio won in '12/'14....

Democratic collapse at the Presidential level is mind-boggling and appears to have clearly dragged down both the US Senate and US House candidate in one of the few remaining rural Democratic areas in the County....

2.) Pct # 16----  SW Douglas County.... anyone who has ever driven State Hwy 42 to drop into Coos County and to the town of Coquille know the country that I am talking about....

One of the biggest swings in rural Douglas happened in a heavily logging area directly abutting the County forests of Coos County, where there is a large population of Gyppos.... essentially independent subcontractors who provide a range of services to the company that won the bid, from actually logging to transportation of logs from the site to the mills, as well as many other services....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyppo_logger

2012 Pres: (33-62 R)                                                US HOUSE: (43-54 R)
2014:                                 US SENATE: (36-53 R)    US HOUSE: (41-55 R)
2016 Pres: (21-69 R)          US SENATE: (33-57 R)    US HOUSE: (38-58 R)

3.) Precinct #21- Rural Glendale/Wolfe Creek

I could tell a few stories about this part of the county.... there are a ton of outlaws out here, including 1% er Biker renegades, although as my Father in Law told me some seven years back in this very same precinct, "the scum live in the flatlands, and everyone else lives in the hills".... he was retired with 80 acres, of which over half was timbered, and had some 20-30 head of Cattle on the pastured part of the property and had firearms to protect his property and livestock from bear and cougars, and also just in case some miscreants would take the twenty minute drive up six or seven miles of gravel road to cause harm to himself or wife in a place where it would take forever for the law to show up even with a 911 call.

2012 Pres: (31-66 R)                                                  US HOUSE: (41-56 R)
2014:                                     US SENATE: (36-53 R)  US HOUSE: (39-56 R)
2016 Pres: (21-69 R)              US SENATE: (31-60 R)  US HOUSE: (34-62 R)

I could pull up more similar examples, although these are three rural precincts that swung hardest towards Trump in '16 based on margins, but most other rural precincts saw a 10%+ shift, with a few exceptions of areas just outside of Roseburg.

It looks pretty clear that in much of rural Douglas County, Trump did help improve the fortunes of Republicans seeking to overturn incumbent Democratic US Senator and Reps, somewhere on the order of 3-5%.....

[muon2]

Oregon County Update #16- Douglas County- Part III

Time to shift to the rural parts of the county, which accounted for 58% of the total county vote in '16....

Although I came from an environmentalist family background, we all knew the importance of the Timber industry to the Oregon economy, and how the local schools, county, and state revenue was heavily dependent upon the tax receipts that were shared with state/county/local governments...

The last thing any environmentalist/timber industry worker in Oregon wants to see is raw product shipped overseas instead of being milled in Oregon regardless if it was Japan in the '80s or China in the 2010s....

Ok--- personal rant aside, but it comes from the heart, and the vast majority of Douglas County doesn't really give that much of s**t when it comes to items like God, Gays, and Guns, since religion is a personal affair, who cares who sleeps with who, and yeah I like to hunt and/or own an AR-15 (Like one of my son-in-laws) but still common sense gun owners.

So what do unemployed loggers and rural residents do in places like Douglas County do when the economy goes South?  Grow Marijuana....

Now, you also have people like my wife's father that after his first wife died moved to the Mountains around the Happy Valley/Wolfe Creek/ Glendale area and bought 80 acres, of which 50% was timbered, had about 40 cows in the cleared pastured areas, was a USMC proud veteran, who had a few guns, shotguns in particular to keep the Bears and Cougars from getting too close to the house or livestock.....

If not weed, perhaps vines. Roseburg and the Umpqua valley is a good region for wine. One of my favorite pinot noirs is from Elkton.

[Nym90]

Yes, this could absolutely become a good wine producing area just like the Willamette valley did some 10-20 years ago (NOVA probably knows better the history of that).

Also, marijuana could grow quite well in that area also. That would be the real ticket to bringing jobs to the area now that legalization is spreading. Are you listening, Jeff Sessions?

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #16- Douglas County- Part III

Time to shift to the rural parts of the county, which accounted for 58% of the total county vote in '16....

Although I came from an environmentalist family background, we all knew the importance of the Timber industry to the Oregon economy, and how the local schools, county, and state revenue was heavily dependent upon the tax receipts that were shared with state/county/local governments...

The last thing any environmentalist/timber industry worker in Oregon wants to see is raw product shipped overseas instead of being milled in Oregon regardless if it was Japan in the '80s or China in the 2010s....

Ok--- personal rant aside, but it comes from the heart, and the vast majority of Douglas County doesn't really give that much of s**t when it comes to items like God, Gays, and Guns, since religion is a personal affair, who cares who sleeps with who, and yeah I like to hunt and/or own an AR-15 (Like one of my son-in-laws) but still common sense gun owners.

So what do unemployed loggers and rural residents do in places like Douglas County do when the economy goes South?  Grow Marijuana....

Now, you also have people like my wife's father that after his first wife died moved to the Mountains around the Happy Valley/Wolfe Creek/ Glendale area and bought 80 acres, of which 50% was timbered, had about 40 cows in the cleared pastured areas, was a USMC proud veteran, who had a few guns, shotguns in particular to keep the Bears and Cougars from getting too close to the house or livestock.....

If not weed, perhaps vines. Roseburg and the Umpqua valley is a good region for wine. One of my favorite pinot noirs is from Elkton.

Thanks Muon2!

Firstly, I just want to clarify, since that string of quotes from my post might appear to imply that my Father-in-Law (Now decreased) that he grew marijuana, but that was absolutely not the case.... Many of his "neighbors" might well have, in what was rated in the top ten marijuana producing counties in the United States back in the late '80s... he was retired and owned property where he supplemented his Social Security check by occasionally butchering a few of his cows or selling off some of the timber on his property to local outfits.

Now, you did raise an important point regarding the agricultural sector in Douglas County indirectly, which I did not address in my post, as well as the regions suitability for grape/vineyard production...

Now, I need to guess your favorite Pinot Noir from the Elkton area?   

http://www.winesnw.com/umpqua.html

Is it the River's Edge Winery by chance?   

Douglas County is actually the 5th largest grape producing county in Oregon, and 46th in the US, and pretty much entirely wine grapes, and the climate in the Umpqua Valley makes it ideal for certain types of wine grape production.

Obviously vineyards won't solve the economic conditions in the County with "boom-bust" cycles in the Timber Industry, but it is definitely a key component to the agricultural sector in Douglas County, where much of the terrain does not favor "traditional" style agricultural commodities because of the geographic and geological conditions.... the distance from larger population centers makes it harder to do a "value-add" deal where a vineyard can not only make money off of wine, but also sell directly to the consumers and do the whole "wine tasting tour" deal like you see in other vineyard counties in Oregon (Polk and Yamhill spring to mind, and maybe even to some extent Hood River--- proximity to Metro Portland).

I'll follow up a bit more with the agricultural sector in Douglas County in my response to Nym's post, since I did neglect a key element of the counties economy, although not necessarily a major driver of private-sector employment.

Now here are numbers from the small city of Elkton in case anyone is interested.....

Elkton---- Pop 195 (2010)

1992 Pres: (25D- 37R- 37 Perot)    +12 R
2000 Pres: (31D- 66 R)                  +25 R
2004 Pres: (33D-65 R)                    +32R
2008 Pres: (45-54 R)                      +9 R      US SENATE: (42-49 R)
2010:                                                           US SENATE: (51-42 D)    US HOUSE: (49-49 TIE)
2012 Pres: (52-41 D)                     +11 D                                           US HOUSE:  (66-34 D)
2014:                                                           US SENATE: (66-26 D)    US HOUSE: (68-30 D)
2016 Pres: (44-45 R)                      +1 R      US SENATE: (62-34 D)    US HOUSE: (63-32 D)

Small precinct, but wow some crazy swings between '04/'08 and '08/'12 and '12/'16 at the Presidential level... Still looks like the City is actually trending Democrat in the post George W. era, but with a slight dent in US Senate/House numbers between '14/'16 and a ton of Dem defections from Obama '12 voters towards 3rd parties between '12/'16 Pres GEs....

[NOVA Green]

Yes, this could absolutely become a good wine producing area just like the Willamette valley did some 10-20 years ago (NOVA probably knows better the history of that).

Also, marijuana could grow quite well in that area also. That would be the real ticket to bringing jobs to the area now that legalization is spreading. Are you listening, Jeff Sessions?

So both you and Muon raised some points regarding agricultural production in Douglas County, and potential for expansion of certain agricultural products to help offset much of the cyclical and chronic unemployment caused by being a resource dependent county.... FWIW this is part of the reason that I have been extremely sympathetic towards the plight of much of Coal Country in West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, SE Ohio, and elsewhere, although frequently it wasn't popular on Atlas, when bashing WV became a virtual hobby/sport back when I joined in '08, and there were still residuals even in 2016 with a few members of the Forum that appeared to have an extreme fetish regarding WV in the primaries, and even rolling towards the GE.... (Not naming names).

So I want to start with a summary of the agricultural sector in Douglas County, and then will close out with the potential of Marijuana cultivation in the County in a Post-Legalization environment....

1.) There are approximately 1.9k farmers/ farm operators in Douglas County that collectively likely account for 5-8% of voters in the County.

This likely excludes Marijuana Farmers, but hopefully in the '17 US Census we will have a better idea now that Weed if legal in Oregon.

If we look at the latest USDA stats (2012), we see that about 49% of the agricultural land is pasture, 34% woodland, 13% cropland, and 4% other.

2.) Breaking that data into further detail, we see that over 50% of the farms range from only 1-49 acres....  (16% 1-9 acres and 37% 10-49 acres).... Meanwhile we have an additional 26% of "farms" running from 50-179 acres.

3.) This is the key item-----  84% of the "Farms" in the County reported less than $20k/Yr in Sales.

So we have 1.6k/1.9k farm operators with less than $20k/Yr in Revenue?

Meanwhile we have 90 farms (5% of the total farm operators) with Sales/Revenue of > $100k/Yr

4.) Looking at this data it appears that many "farm operators" are actually people supplementing their income by doing what my Father-in-Law did, have some livestock/cattle on the side or have some timber land that you harvest for some extra cash, or grow some Christmas Trees, to help pay off your mortages/taxes to cover some bills.

5.) Slightly OT, there is a significant Basque population in both Oregon & Idaho, and Douglas County has an estimated (500) people of Basque background.... Needless to say, Douglas County is #1 in the state in terms of Goat livestock, #3 in Sheep livestock, and also #8 in Cattle livestock.

6.) Legal Marijuana production as a potential commercial agricultural product in Douglas County.

Although Douglas County has historically ranked as one of the top 10 Marijuana producing counties in the US for many decades, it is not necessarily well positioned for a dramatic expansion of this economic agricultural sector when it comes to the changing dynamics of a "Post Legalization" environment....

It might be difficult to "Grok" (Yes Heinlein "Stranger in a Strange Land" reference for any of you Old Skool Sci-Fi geeks out there, and definitely a better book than "Starship Troopers") but legalization of marijuana in many ways has actually had a negative impact on small growers, who look to supplement their household income during peak unemployment times, and now find greater difficulty competing in the marketplace....

The price of Marijuana in Oregon has fallen roughly 30-40% post legalization.... You can now buy a Gram in Portland Oregon at the "Weed Store"  for $7, which is roughly half the price of what it was 5-6 years ago....

Meanwhile the consumer base has not increased dramatically at all (Although arguably there is now a trend of adults 55+ purchasing and consuming Marijuana related products for both medical and recreational needs).

In the old days, before Marijuana was legalized and the new "Green Rush", growers used to be able to make somewhat decent margins and potentially be able to support their families during hard times, although granted always at the risk of going to Prison, seeing their property and bank accounts seized, not to mention the social sanction of being a convicted Felon.

Here is an article that I read about six months ago about Trinity County a community in the "Emerald Triangle" of North Coast Cali, that it many ways has some overlaps with Douglas County Oregon (And other parts of Southern Oregon as well)

http://narrative.ly/is-californias-cottage-cannabis-industry-about-to-go-up-in-smoke/

Growing Marijuana is no longer a means where unemployed loggers and mill workers can pay their bills....  I've had a few conversations with people in the industry in Oregon, and now the major worry is that small family farmers in Oregon won't be able to compete with what is yet to come from much larger farms in California, potentially with corporate backing (Philip Morris???).

When Weed was illegal there was always a risk/reward ratio.... when Weed became legal, it added a significant number of jobs to the state economy (3,000 directly tied not including growers), but for many of the family farmers, the drop in price has had direct negative consequences on household incomes....

Meanwhile, there has been a huge transfer to the Oregon General Funds (As well as additional local taxes in counties/municipalities) to help pay for Schools, Substance Abuse prevention, and all sorts of programs that have been suffering for many years....

Personally, I think all of the Weed taxes in Oregon should go to fight and provide treatment for Meth addiction, since we haven't seen any action from the Federal Government (Democrat/Republican alike) to deal with what is a very real and major issue in Oregon...

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #17- Washington County-  Pop ~574k

The second largest county in Oregon in terms of population, as well as one of the fastest growing in the state in terms of % increase of population.

For all of the Republican avatars posting on the Forum about the hypothetical scenario of Oregon voting for a Republican Presidential candidate, citing the close elections of 2000 and 2004, Washington County is the major roadblock that makes the state virtually impossible for Republicans to capture either the electoral votes of the state, let alone making a run for the money on US Senate elections.

Although I have made extensive posts on this very thread about the collapse of support for Clinton as the figurehead of the Democratic Party in much of "downstate" Oregon, especially depressed and blue collar timber/mill towns and rural areas, I haven't talked much about the upside when it comes to a key suburban Portland County.

13.5% of voters in Oregon reside in Washington County.

This used to be a county where Republicans would win overwhelmingly.... my memory might be cheating, but I recall it being one of the most Republican Counties in the state in the '88 General Election (60-40 Republican). Feel free to look it up, since my current economic status does not allow me to afford the awesome historic county election returns from Dave's database....   

To put it simply, Mike Dukakis actually did much better in much of Eastern and Southern Oregon than he did in the suburbs of Portland.

Things stated to change around the time of Al Gore, and the shift of the ~10% of Americans that are "Knowledge sector workers", and with Obama hit critical mass at a time where places like Hillsboro and Beaverton were booming out on the West Slopes of Portland Metro, with major employers like Nike and Intel essentially creating an independent economic model in "Silicon Forest", while at the same time these same suburban communities became some of the most multi-ethnic parts of Oregon.

Although Washington County still retained some of the highest median household income (MHI) in the state, the diversity of the county continued to expand....

Increasingly the suburbs became their own cities, and what used to be exurban cities got swallowed up within the dramatic growth of Metro Portland.

Between 2000 and 2010 the proportion of the Asian-American population jumped from 6.7% to 8.6%. Latino population jumped from 11.2% to 15.7%. Meanwhile the proportion of the population that self-identified as "other" or "two or more races" increased in exponential numbers.

The stereotype of Oregon is all about "ultra liberals" and "hippies" in places like Portland, Eugene, and Ashland.

The reality is about the fast growing suburbs of Portland, much of downstate Oregon with ancestral Democratic roots facing economic stagnation and decline, and much of Central/Eastern Oregon that is much more dependent upon farming and ranching, combined with some crazy gentrification issues within places like Deschuttes, Crook, and Jefferson Counties.

Presidential Election Results 2000-2016:

2000: (49-46 D)    +3 D
2004: (52-46 D)    +6 D
2008: (60-38 D)    +22 D
2012: (57-40 D)    +17 D
2016: (57-31 D)    +26 D

So..... even though we have seen some dramatic swings in much of small-town and rural Oregon over the past few decades, in the 2nd largest county in the state, (Did I mention one of the fastest growing in terms of total population?) we see Democrats expand from extremely low single digit margins to not only double-digit margins starting with Obama, to a complete collapse of Republican levels of support....

There is no way that Republicans can make up enough votes in rural and timber county Oregon to overcome the massive deficit in what used to be not only a strongly Republican County, but also a key "swing county" when George W. was able to bring Oregon to with a few % margins....

Will follow up on my next post with the largest cities in the county....

[Nym90]

Bush actually only won Washington by 52-46 in 1988, but it had been 63-37 for Reagan in 1984. This goes a long way in explaining why Dukakis was able to win Oregon despite "only" winning 62-37 in Multnomah, which obviously would be atrocious for a Democrat nowadays.

[NOVA Green]

Bush actually only won Washington by 52-46 in 1988, but it had been 63-37 for Reagan in 1984. This goes a long way in explaining why Dukakis was able to win Oregon despite "only" winning 62-37 in Multnomah, which obviously would be atrocious for a Democrat nowadays.

Thanks Nym!

Wish I was able in my current economic condition, being unemployed to pull up the numbers by county for what I believe is the only website out there (Dave's forum / Atlas) to get detailed level results....

Now my recollection is that part of the reason that Dukakis was able to win Oregon by 6% was also because he was able to bag something like 46/47% in places like Douglas/Linn County, not to mention capturing something like 45-48% in much of Central/Eastern Oregon (Baker/Union/Crook, etc).

If you could PM me some the county level results would be much appreciated, since I dumped all of my handwritten precinct level data covering '82-'92 that I meticulously recorded at election offices/archives in Salem Oregon, when I went through a major post-college move back in the late '90s...

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #17- Washington County- Part II

So in order to look at the dramatic political changes within the County it is necessary to start with the cities....

Approximately 57% of the voters in the County reside in cities, predominately in the "inner" suburbs of the Western slope (Places like Tigard, Hillsboro, and Beaverton) and then to a lesser extent more traditional "Exurban" areas like Forest Grove and Sherwood, that actually have some extremely high population growth rates, despite the not ideal commute, since they qualify  as "rural" communities and enjoy effectively a subsidized mortage interest rate. 37% of the voters reside in "Unincorporated" areas located well within the sprawling part of the Metro area on the Westside, and only about 6% of the voters in the County can be classified as rural by even a liberal definition of the term.

http://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2014/02/booming_exurbs_will_keep_eligi.html

The story of the Republican collapse in Washington County is heavily defined by the collapse of Republican support in the largest cities in the county (Some of the largest in the state).

I'll start with Beaverton Oregon, since it is the closest thing to a former "bedroom" suburban city in the County historically, with a population of barely over 30k in the early '80s, when my Dad was renting an apartment out there, to almost 95k inhabitants today, and its population growth rate still one of the highest in the state, even tying with Portland for annual % growth rate.

http://www.oregonlive.com/beaverton/index.ssf/2014/01/census_beavertons_population_i.html

Beaverton is now the Sixth largest County in the State of Oregon, and the Second largest in Washington County, and has rapidly transformed from being a bedroom community of Portland to a city in its own right, where the vast majority of the population both lives and works within the county.

Although Beaverton ranks behind Washington County/ Metro Portland overall in terms of Median Household Income (MHI) of $56.1k/ Year, it is still best defined as a Middle-Class city that just recently popped up on Money Magazines "Top 100" list.

As is the case of much of Oregon, Beaverton is rapidly diversifying in terms of a rapidly growing ethnic population of various backgrounds, but most significantly representing a rapid growth of Asian-Americans, and Latino-Americans in particular.

2010: 66.7% Non-Latino "White", 15.4% Latinos, 11.9% Asian-Americans, 2.4% African-Americans, as well as a significant population of Mixed/Other, since increasingly these archaic definitions no longer define the identity nor reality of so many Americans in our great Nation.

If we roll back to 2000, we see a significantly lower Asian-American/ Latino American population compared to 2010.

So.... what does a Middle-Class suburban and Multi-Ethnic community in the Portland suburbs look like when it comes to partisan affiliation, if we look at support for Presidential Candidates over the past 25 years?

I'll start with the City writ large and then try to break it down to a neighborhood/precinct/Census Tract level.

Beaverton Oregon----

1992: (43D-34R-24 Perot)      +9 D
2000: (52D- 43R- 4 Nader)    + 9 D
2004: (57D- 42R)                  +15 D
2008: (65D-33 R)                  +32 D
2012: (62D-34 R)                  +28 D
2016: (63D-25 R)                  +38 D

So looking at Beaverton, it appears that not only was Clinton able to improve on Obama '08 numbers, but additionally, the Republican brand is currently completely shot. In many parts of Oregon, Trump was actually able to improve on McCain/Romney numbers, but here you see what used to be a typical low 40% vote drop down to only 1/3 voters, and then crater to only 1/4 voters with President Elect Trump...

It's pretty clear that Obama was extremely popular here,  and unlike many other areas in the state there wasn't really a swing towards the Republicans in '12 at all.

If we look at the '16 results, it appears that Clinton benefited significantly from a number of Romney '12/ Clinton '16 cross-over voters, despite a defection from significant segments of the Democratic base to the Left...

So what's going on in various neighborhoods within Beaverton, and can it tell us anything about the shifting Demographics among various populations in Metro PDX/Oregon/USA?

Difficulties involved in Washington County include shifting precinct boundaries between '08/'12 and '12/'16 that made it a bit harder than average to properly code and sort the data.

1.) Five Oaks/ Triple Creek----

Roughly 10% of the cities voters in '16, and has one of the highest Asian-American populations in the City.... Only about 57-58% of the population is Non-Latino White, and roughly 18% Asian and 16% Latino.    MHI is roughly $69k/Yr, a bit higher than the County average.

The Asian-American population in this neighborhood is heavily Indian-American (~13% of the Population)

2000: (51D- 44% R- 4% Nader)           +7 D
2004: (58D- 42 R)                               +16 D
2008: (67D- 30 R)                               +37 D
2012: (64D- 32 R)                               +32 D
2016: (66D- 22 R)                               +44 D

So... make of that what you will, but a 50% collapse of the Republican vote from 2000/2004 definitely appears to be a major problem for the future of the Party in similar communities.

2.) Central Beaverton

Without question the most working-class neighborhood within the city, as well as virtually a minority-majority neighborhood.... (MHI $34.4k/Yr). 51.3% Non-Latino White, 9.8% Asian, 34% Latino. (8% of the '16 City vote).

It's actually the closest thing to an historical "Democratic Stronghold" within a City that actually used to be competitive.

2000: (55-40 D)                              +15 D
2004: (57-40 D)                              +17 D
2008: (63-35 D)                              +28 D
2012: (68-26 D)                              +42 D
2016: (66-22 D)                              +44 D


So even regardless of precinct changes it doesn't appear that there was a dramatic swing against the Republican candidate in '16, like there was in one of the most heavily Asian-American precincts in the City....

It certainly doesn't appear to indicate a Trump "Latino surge" vs Romney....

3.) West Beverton  MHI $67.6k/Yr.... 69% "White", 9% "Asian", 13% Latino (8% City Vote '16)

2000: (52-44 D)    +8 D
2004: (54-44 D)    +10 D
2008: (63-35D)     +28 D
2012: (60-36D)      +24 D
2016: (60-29D)     +31 D

So heavily Anglo-American Middle-Class hood and somehow it goes from being a neighborhood where Republicans could bag 44% only 12 years ago to now....

4.) Highland-  MHI- $66.7k/Yr- 77% White- 8% Asian- 11% Latino

2000: (52-44 D)   +8 D
2004: (56-42 D)   +14 D
2008: (65-33 D)    +32 D
2012: (61-35 D)    +26 D
2016: (61-28 D)    +33 D

Republican numbers get suckier and suckier and the Obama Coalition holds on...

5.) Neighbors SW-   MHI-  $74.2k MHI ... 73% White, 17% Asian, 4% Latino

2000: (49-47 D)   +2 D
2004: (51-47 D)   +4 D
2008: (63-34 D)   +27 D
2012: (58-39 D)    +19 D
2016: (61-27 D)    +34 D

So second largest Asian-American precinct in Beaverton swung hard towards Obama, dropped back quite a bit in '12, and then swung hard towards Clinton in '16.....

5.) Vose-Gateway   (14% of the City Population '16)

MHI: ~ $47k / Yr....

Arguably next to Central Beaverton includes the most Latino precincts within Beaverton, with part of the precinct 37% Latino and the other 17% Latino... the Asian-American population is a bit lower than in much of the City...

2000: (54-40 D)      +14 D
2004: (60-38 D)      +22 D
2008: (67-31 D)       +36 D
2012: (64-31 D)      +33 D
2016: (64-23 D)       +41 D

So not really seeing a ton of Latino Obama/Trump voters out here.... looks like Democratic numbers have stayed constant from '08-'16 and Republican votes have collapsed.

6.) Sexton Mountain   (4% of City Votes)

The wealthiest parts of the city (MHI $94.7k), but only 71% "White" and 18% "Asian":

2000: (46-50 R)     +4 R
2004: (51-48 D)     +3 D
2008: (62-37 D)     +25 D
2012: (59-38 D)     +21 D
2016: (59-30 D)     +29 D

7.) West Slope---- (4% of County Votes)

Physically separated from the City is not only the "Whitest" 'hood in the city, but also the 2nd wealthiest.... (85% White--- MHI $78k/Yr)

2000: (59-37 D)       +22 D
2004: (67-32 D)       +35 D
2008: (73-26 D)       +47 D
2012: (72-26 D)       +46 D
2016: (73-17 D)       +56 D

So real problem for Republicans in an upper-middle class White Precinct where Clinton actually managed to expand off of Obama '12 margins.

8.) South Beaverton-    (12.1% of City Vote- '16)

One of the Whitest parts of town (81%) and about 7% (Asian/Latino) respectively. MHI- $62.7k/Yr

2000: (51-46 D)    +5 D
2004: (54-45 D)    +9 D
2008: (60-39 D)     +21 D
2012: (58-39 D)     +19 D
2016: (61-28 D)      + 33 D


So looking at where the Republican % collapsed between '12 and '16, we see dramatic numbers across the board:

Five Oaks-            -9.8%
Neighbors SW-     -12.2%
South Beav-         - 10.1%
Sexton Mtn-         -8.9%

3/4 of these have the highest % of Asian-American voters in the City.as

All four of these saw a net increase in Dem % vs 2012.

Contrast with some of the most heavily Latino precinct in the City (Central Beaverton and Vose/Greenway), we do not see as dramatic a shift.

It does appear that many Middle-Class Anglos abandoned the Republican Party after the Great Recession, and although there was a slight bump towards Romney in '12, looking at '16 results appear to have abandoned the Republican Party altogether.

Will these types of voters ever come back?

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #17- Washington County Part III

So to shift gears slightly, let's roll down the road to Tigard to see what is going on in the suburbs of Washington County.

Tigard is currently the 13th largest city in the state, with a population ~51k.

It places second in terms of MHI within one of the wealthier counties in Oregon.... $61.8k/Yr only behind Hillsboro and some unincorporated places within the county.

It's also a bit "Whiter" than the county at large, and much more so than the two largest cities in the County (Hillsboro & Beaverton)

In many ways, Tigard is actually a major barometer of how Washington County votes over the past few decades, with the exception of a significant swing towards Clinton in '16, where it voted to the Left of the County as a whole:

1992:   (40D-36R-24 Perot:     (+4D)
2000:   (50D-46R- 3 Nader)     (+4 D)
2004:   (52D-46R)                  (+6 D)
2008:   (60D-38R)                  (+22 D)
2012:    (56D-40R)                 (+16 D)
2016:   (58D-30R)                  (+28 D)

Trying to match precinct results between '12 and '16 is an extremely frustrating and difficult exercise, let alone trying to compare data all the way back to 2000...

There are currently only five precincts in Tigard, which makes it extremely difficult to compare to historical voting patterns and precints.

Regardless--- Let's make a stab at it using 2016 precinct boundaries....

Precint 400:

The most Working-Class precinct in the City, with several Census tracts with the highest population of Latinos (27%). North Tigard and basically all parts of the city East of the 217.

Although census tracts with the lowest MHI in the City (~<$25k/yr)

2016: (61-27 D)     (12% of City Vote)                     +34 D
2012: (62-33 D)                                                      +29 D
2008: (65-32 D)                                                     +33 D
2004: (59-39 D)                                                     +20 D
2000: (54-40 D)     ( 5% Nader)                               +14 D

Precinct 402: West Tigard

The wealthiest precinct in the city... on average Median home sales are ~ $600k/yr....

The highest Proportion of Asian-Americans in the City (~ 18%) with Korean and Vietnamese-Americans being the largest demographic within the Community.

2016: (54-33 D)      (25.7% of City Vote)             +21 D

The old Precinct is actually a combination of # 402 & 403...

2012: (49-48 D)                                                       +1 D
2008: (55-43D)                                                         +12 D
2004: (45-54 R)                                                        + 9 R
2000: (44-52 R)                                                        +8 R

Regardless of however one chooses to slice and dice it, even adjusting for precinct level boundaries, it appears that upper-middle income Anglos and Asian-Americans swung hard from being a George W Bush country, to Obama Country, then flipped hard towards Romney in '12, and then dumped Trump hardcore in '16....

Will these voters ever come back to the "Modern Trump Republican Party"?

We could roll through the remaining '16 precincts in the City, but the "Tale of Two Cities", from the most working-class and most Latino parts of town, to the "rich mansions on the hill" that are heavily Anglo with a decent Asian-American minority, really does tell the story on its own....

Let's put it this way, the City has gone from a situation where Republicans used to be competitive at the GE level under George W (46%), and Dems were barely able to get above 50% of the vote, to now becoming an overwhelmingly Democratic stronghold...

This trend has occurred in both the most working-class parts of the city, as well as the wealthiest suburbs, regardless of ethnicity.

To put it more simply, Republicans are extremely unlikely to ever win any statewide election in Oregon if they can't perform extremely well in Tigard, since it is the key barometer of arguably the county to watch in any close election in Oregon, where Republicans might actually be able to give the Democrats a run for the money.

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #17- Washington County- Part IV- Hillsboro

So previously I pulled up precinct level results for two of the largest cities in the County to show how extensive the collapse of Republican support has been among virtually all demographic populations.

Time to move to the largest City in the County, Hillsboro Oregon, which is either the 4th or 5th largest City in the State, basically virtually tied with Gresham, depending upon how one interprets 2015 Census numbers....

Hillsboro (Pop 102k- 2015) is the county seat, and the eighth fastest growing city in Oregon.   (15.2% of County Vote)


Just like Beaverton, Oregon has a Fortune 500 Company (Nike) as a flagship representative of the City, Hillsboro virtually helped coin the term "Silicon Forest" as a result of the Intel Corp HQ located within the City....

Although the number of direct Intel employees and subcontractors tied to the site are shrouded in mystery, as was also the case when I worked for Hewlett-Packard contractors at various facilities throughout the United States, there are likely at least 7,000 direct employees working at their Ronier Acres facility alone.

As a result, Hillsboro has one of the highest percentage of employees directly tied to the PC/Electronics sector of almost any other city in the country with a population of >100k...

Of course, there is also a significant "down-stream" impact when you look in occupation sectors not directly tied to Intel that work in the food/hospitality sectors, as well as construction related occupations.

Demographically, Hillsboro is the most diverse city in Oregon, with only 60% of the population Non-Latino White (Excepting a few smaller towns like Woodburn & Cornelius, and some unincorporated areas in Washington County).

(60.4% White, 24.2% Latino, 8.9% Asian). Of the Asian-American population, Indian-Americans are the largest population (2.1k residents) and Vietnamese-Americans are only the 2nd largest (1.6k), which is actually relatively unusual for most cities in Oregon, although there are also significant populations of Chinese/Filipino/ and Korean-Americans....

Median Household Income (MHI) is $65.2k/Yr versus the County avg of $64.2k/Yr, which places it #8 in the State of Oregon, and ahead of all other cities in the state other than Lake Oswego, West Linn, and Sherwood....

In theory Hillsboro should be the type of City where the Republican economic message should play quite well....

Hillsboro--- Pres Election Results 1992-2016:

1992: (40D-37R-23 Perot)      +3 D
2000: (47D-48R- 4 Nader)      +1 R
2004: (50-48 D)                     +2 D
2008: (59-38 D)                     +21 D
2012: (56-39 D)                     +17 D
2016: (55-32 D)                     +23 D


So.... make of that what you will, but Clinton actually managed to exceed Obama '08 margins, in a city where Republicans could regularly bag 48% of the vote!!!

Ok--- this is a City rapidly trending majority-minority, so possibly that could explain some of the dramatic swings?

In a city that is 24% Latino, we might expect to see some major swings towards Clinton and against Trump....

So let's pull up the most heavily Latino precincts in Hillsboro....

Precinct 336: "Central Hillsboro"---- 25% White- 72% Latino..... (MHI $22.3k/Yr)--- (6% City Vote)

2004: (46-52 R)     +6 R
2008: (53-44 D)     +9 D
2012: (52- 44D)     +8 D
2016: (49-37 D)     +12 D

So, the most heavily Latino Precinct in Hillsboro, not to mention the most working-class precinct has consistently been one of the most Republican precincts in the City.

We did see a significant shift towards Obama between '04/'08 and the highest level of margins for a Democrat, but not a surge in new voter turnout/registration, despite Rep numbers dropping...

A few other heavily Latino precincts....

Precinct 344: (49% White, 41% Latino, 2% Asian).     (27.6k MHI) (8.9% City Vote)

So, still a relatively poor/ working-class precinct, but with a much larger Anglo component...

2004: (55-42 D)     +13 D
2008: (60-35 D)      +25 D
2012: (61-33 D)      +28 D
2016: (56-30 D)      +26 D

Precinct 337: (48% White- 45 % Latino- 4 % Asian)  (MHI $54.1k/yr)    (8.4% of City Vote)

2004: (50-48 D)     +2 D
2008: (55-41 D)     +14 D
2012: (55-39 D)      +16 D
2016: (52-35 D)      +17 D

So here we see a consistently declining trajectory of support for Republican Pres candidates since '04 in what is a relatively lower Middle-Class but still a heavily Latino community. Interestingly enough, we see a much bigger drop in Republican support than in more predominately working-class precincts in the city.

So what's going on in the wealthiest precincts in the City, that has one of the highest household income rates in the entire state?

Precincts 335/343 NW Hillsboro---(60/69% White, 20/36% Latino, 5/11% Asian) (19.3% City Vote)  (MHI- $80-88k/Yr).   (Asian-Americans are heavily Indian and Chinese-Americans).

2004: (45-53 R)      +8R
2008: (54-44 D)      +10 D
2012: (50-45 D)      +5 D
2016: (49-36 D)      +13 D   

Roll down to Precinct # 329 ( Orenco Nieghborhood)--- (MHI ~ $80k/Yr).... (76% White, 17% Asian-American--- roughly 50% Indian American, 25% Chinese-American, 12% Korean-American). (16% of City Vote).


Used to be more Republican than city at large...

2004: (46-52 R)   +6 R
2008: (55-42 D)   +13 D
2012: (53-43 D)   +10 D
2016: (59-28 D)   +31 D

So here we see an example of   what *should* be a natural moderate Republican constituency....

We can roll over to the far NE Hillsboro Precincts (#332/333) that have some of the highest Asian-American populations in the County over the highway towards Amberglen.... with a large Indian-American population (11.5%) and Korean-American (5%) to see some of the impacts of Trump's "nuclear comments:....

Trump only got 21-22% here, vs 32% Romney, 30% McCain...

To summarize, it appears that a Latino surge does not appear to have materialized, in one of the only large cities in Oregon with a Latino population of ~25%....

It does appear that in heavily upper-middle-class precincts with a significant mix of Anglos and Asian-Americans that there was some major swings towards Clinton, and not just against Trump.....

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #17- Washington County- Part V- Tualatin/Sherwood/Forest Grove

1.) Tualatin---- Pop 26.4k.... (4.3% of County Vote)--- 71% White---- 19% Latino- 3 % Asian.... MHI- $61.3k/ Yr)

Lower than average household income for Washington County, but still higher than the Metro-Portland average..... Much lower proportion of Asian-Americans than the cities covered thus far, although a relatively large and growing Latino population.

Occupationally, higher concentration of workers in jobs like administrative, management, sales accounting for almost 43% of the workforce.

The largest employer in the City is a major medical center (800 direct employees), but also a significant jobs connected to a major outdoor regional shopping center, as well as a decent amount of employment connected to manufacturing related work in the South side of the City, including Tech jobs tied to LAM Research and Oregon Scientific.

Presidential GE Results 2000-2016:

2000: (47D-48R- 4 Nader)       +1 R
2004: (49-50 R)                      +1 R
2008: (58-40 D)                     +18 D
2012: (52-45 D)                     + 7 D
2016: (54- 33 D)                    +21 D

So---- another community where Clinton actually gained on Obama '12 numbers, and the Republican nominee lost almost 30% of the Romney Republican vote, and almost 20% of the McCain vote.

The most Latino precinct in the city (#423) roughly 50% Latino/Anglo with an MHI of only $40.2k/Yr....

2004: (53-45 D)     +8 D
2008: (64-33 D)     +31 D
2012: (58-37 D)      +21 D
2016: (58-29 D)      +29 D

Roll to the next most Latino Precinct in the city (#420---- no joke/ no smoke)

Contains one of the most heavily Latino Census tracts in the city, and also two of the least Latino Census tracts.... MHI is relatively lower-middle class compared to the county at large (55k/Yr)

2004: (49-49* R)    + 0 R
2008: (58-40 D)      +18 D
2012: (52-45 D)      + 7 D
2016: (54- 33D)       +21 D

Again, it's a bit difficult to separate Anglo/ Latino voters, even in heavily Latino precincts, but if we look at the two precincts above with the highest % of Latinos in the City, it appears that there was a huge swing towards Obama in heavily working class 50-50 Anglo/Latino precincts in '08, and a counterswing in '12. and then a bounce back towards the Dem nominee in '16, with a ton of Latino/Anglo working-class Millennials going heavily 3rd Party.

2.) Sherwood--- Pop 19.4k--- (3.6% of County Vote)--- (86% White, 6% Latino, 5% Asian)- MHI- $78.4k/Yr.

1992: (39D-31R- 30 Perot)          +8 R
2000: (43D-54R- 3 Nader)           +11 R
2004: (41-57 R)                          +16 R
2008: (51-47 D)                          +4 D
2012: (47-50 R)                          + 3 R
2016: (47-39 D)                          +8 D

So here we have some interesting results from a heavily Upper-Middle income White Exurban community in Metro Portland.... Will these voters that abandoned their Party swing back towards Trump in 2020???

3.) Forest Grove--- Pop 21.6k--- (3.7% of County Vote)--- (72% White- 22% Latino) MHI- $47.4k/Yr

Frequently described as a "bedroom community" of Portland, Forest Grove is anything but.... Although it is true that there are many local residents that commute to work in Hillsboro at the Intel plant, this is the exception and not the norm.... It is so far removed from the city of Portland, and even most of the largest cities and employers in Washington County, that "Exurban" doesn't even fully fit the bill.

Anyone that has ever driven down the "Sunset Corridor" from Forest Grove to drop into West Portland knows exactly what I am talking about....

The economy of Forest Grove is actually more closely associated with agricultural and food processing and related fields, than people that work in the modern day "cube farms" of Silicon Forest, although arguably there is a significant element of both out here....

Maybe I have it totally wrong, but one of my daughters-husbands-fathers lives out here, so think I have an angle on the joint....

1992: (43D-33R-24 Perot)     +10 D
2000: (48 D-46R- 5 Nader)     +2 D
2004: (50-47 D)                    +3 D
2008: (56-41 D)                   +15 D
2012: (53-41 D)                   +12 D
2016: (47-39 D)                   +8 D

So Dems lose 6% and Reps only lose 2%? Looking at '08 numbers it appears that Dems lost 9% and Reps lost 2%..... So where is  the Latino surge in Forest Grove? But yet, the Republican support also collapsed from low level Rep numbers in '08/'12....  Who are all these voters that went hard Indie in '16?

Are these a mixture of Latino/Anglo Millennials running 3rd Party? Is it a mix of WWC Anglos shifting Rep or Lib, with Latinos "surging' towards Clinton?

My suspicion is that it is all of the above....

Still need to take a peek at unincorp areas in the county, and a brief peak at the handful of rural areas in the county....

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #17- Washington County- Part VI- Uninc WashCo

So fully 37% of voters in the county reside in unincorporated areas, with around 98k voters in '16, which  not only accounts for a larger amount of voters than most counties in the state, but additionally is a key reason why Republicans are no longer competitive in most statewide races in the county.

Although going through precinct by precinct is practically impossible, it is perhaps best to pull up two of the largest Unincorporated Communities, Cedar Mill and Aloha, that account for close to 50% of these votes, that best illustrate the "Tale of Two Counties"....

1.) Cedar Mill--- Pop 15.4k---- 77% White, 13% Asian, 4% Latino--- MHI- $99.7k/Yr

This is one of the wealthiest communities in Oregon, and in theory should be a natural Republican stronghold if we look at national demographics and voting patterns.

Almost 45% of the workforce is concentrated in heavily Upper-Middle Class occupational sectors
(17% Management, 7% Health Care, 7% Engineering, 7% Computers & Math).... There is also a significantly higher concentration of occupations like lawyers (4%)....

2004: (56-43 D)     +13 D
2008: (64-35 D)     +29 D
2012: (60-37 D)      +23 D
2016: (66-24 D)      +32 D

Now, I can't easily pull comparisons for the 2000 GE results, but Al Gore was the first Democratic nominee to win the "knowledge Sector" vote, which had been expanding significantly for decades as an occupational demographic, but looking here, it appears that not only did Obama manage to significantly expand on Kerry '04 numbers, and Clinton actually exceeded Obama '08 % among these voters, and Trump managed to lose 13% from Romney '12 numbers and 19% from George W. '04 numbers....


2.) Aloha--- Pop 51.5k---- 61% White, 22% Latino, 9% Asian---  MHI $61.5k/Yr

If Aloha was its own City, it would actually place in the top 15 cities in the state by Population....

So here we have a community that is much more diverse than the state at large, relatively Middle-Class by any standards compared to (Metro PDX, Washington County, Oregon).

2004: (54-44 D)    +10 D
2008: (62-35 D)    +27 D
2012: (60-36 D)    +24 D
2016: (58-30 D)    +28 D

So interesting numbers here.... Clinton created a record for Democratic-Republican GE margins, but unlike some of the other communities/cities in WashCo actually saw a drop off from '12>'16 Dem votes....

Let's take a peak at the most heavily Latino precincts (30%+) accounting for ~30% of the vote to see what the data shows....

2004: (56-44 D)    +12 D
2008: (63-34 D)    +29 D
2012: (62-34 D)    +28 D
2016: (59-28 D)     +29 D

We see both Dem and Rep support drop off, although there were 1k more voters from '12>'16

Meanwhile total votes in Aloha only increased by (300) between '08 and '16.

What about heavily White Precincts in Aloha?

Precinct # 434 is ~80% White, with an MHI of $80-90k/Yr....

2004: (50-48 D)   +2 D
2008: (59-38 D)   +21 D
2012: (57-39 D)   +18 D
2016: (56-32 D)   +24 D

Precinct # 302 is ~ 87% White, that is more solidly Middle-Class...

2004: (54-44 D)    +10 D
2008: (60-37 D)    +23 D
2012: (57-38 D)     +19 D
2016: (50-36 D)     +14 D

So no bump for the Trump, with Republican numbers holding steady from '08/'12/'16....

The visible shift here is more about the dramatic drop of Democratic numbers from '08 to '16, without any corresponding change in Republican numbers.... Even looking at '04 numbers it appears that many of these White Middle-Class voters swung towards the Democratic Party in '08/'12 and then went 3rd Party in '16, combined with many Kerry '04 voters....

Edited: One item that I neglected to mention is the unincorporated area of Bethany....

It has the highest proportion of Asian-Americans of any community in Oregon (33%)....

If we look at the precinct with the highest proportion of Asian-Americans, (#367) ~45% of the population we see the following (Heavily Chinese & Indian-American, as well as a decent Korean-American population):

2004: (49-51 R)    +2   R
2008: (61-37 D)    +24 D
2012: (58-40 D)     +18 D
2016: (66-27 D)      +39 D

Make of that what you will...

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #17- Washington County- Part VII- Rural WashCo- 16.5k Voters

So for sake of completeness, it's time to take a peak at the rural parts of the County to see if there are similar trends to what has been observed in other rural parts of the NW Coastal Mountain range, and foothills.

Only ~6% of the voters in WashCo can be defined as rural, although one could possibly stretch it slightly further by tagging on a few small areas on the outskirts of Forest Grove & Hillsboro.

Now, my definition of rural deliberately excludes unincorporated areas to screen out essentially "Metro" voters and populations concentrated within the "Urban Growth Boundaries" of cities within Oregon, so there is very minimal impact from "hobby farmers", essentially retirees living on some acreage outside of the cities, although there might be a marginal impact if one looks at a few precincts that I have coded as rural outside of Hillsboro & West of Beaverton, but fundamentally I think my precinct coding of these areas is accurate, and if anything tended on the "conservative" side when it came to definitions of Uninc/Rural in these situations....

So Rural WashCo GE Pres Results.....

2012: (42-54 R)    +12 R
2016: (39-51 R)    +12 R

Ok---- so let's fact-check some of these rural numbers, by looking at the largest rural precincts by voters to see what the swings look like from '04 to '08:

Precinct 301: "Rural Banks"----- NW Washington County- 1.5k Voters

It covers a huge amount of territory and directly abuts parts of Columbia and Tillamook County where we saw significant '12>"16 swings:

2000: (40-53 R)   (6% Nader)      +13 R
2004: (42-55 R)                          +13 R
2008: (44-52 R)                           +8 R
2012: (41-55 R)                           +14 R
2016: (36-53 R)                           +17 R

So lowest level of support for a Democratic candidate since before 2000, but yet Trump only managed to pull into the Median range of Republican support between '00 and '16.

Precinct 310: Stimpson Mill Dilley--- 1.5k Voters

2004: (46-52 R)                 +6 R
2008: (48-48* R)               +0 R
2012: (46-50 R)                 +4 R
2016: (38-53 R)                 +15 R

Wow--- Dem numbers look consistent and then collapse in '16 "Big League", Republican numbers basically reset to Bush '04 numbers.... so where will the missing voters go in 2020?

Precinct 326: Rural Banks- NE County--- 1.6k Voters

2004: (37-60 R)      +23 R
2008: (42-55 R)      +13 R
2012: (40-55 R)       +15 R
2016: (33-58 R)       +25 R

So similar pattern, Trump manages to place in the Median Rep numbers from '04-'16 and exceed McCain/Romney support levels..... Meanwhile the Democratic numbers crater from '04 Kerry numbers.

Precinct 328: Farmington---- South County--- 1.7k Voters (2016)

2004: (45-53 R)    +8 R
2008: (45-52 R)    +7 R
2012: (44-53 R)    +9 R
2016: (39-48 R)    +9 R

So interestingly enough, there was a massive defection from both the Democratic and Republican candidates, although '04-'12 numbers were remarkably consistent...

ok--- so looking at 45% of the rural vote in WashCo, in only one precinct do we see a Trump improvement over George W. '04 numbers, in two cases we see a "reset" to the Median Republican numbers between '04 and '16, and in another case we see a significant decline of Republican support.

On the Democratic side, we see roughly between 5-10% of the total voters abandoning the Democratic candidate for President, albeit without these same voters moving towards the Republican Party under the leadership of Donald J. Trump.

So the major question is less did about Trump recapturing the Republican base from '04/'08/'12 in rural parts of Washington County, but rather about is the drop-off in Democratic numbers from that same period permanent, or was it just a rejection of one individual Democratic Presidential nominee, with much of the dramatic collapse caused by 3rd Party voting habits among traditionally Democratic rural voters?

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #18- Polk County- 40.3k Voters (2016)

Before I move forward, here is a map of Oregon Counties covered to date.... grey shading.

There are a few earlier counties that I need to reexamine greater detail (Marion County in particular stands out) as well as some others where I was able to obtain older precinct level results....



Polk County is in many ways a classic barometer of the Willamette Valley in terms of the urban/rural mixtures, combined with a medium sized college town(s) Monmouth-Independence, and relatively Middle/Upper Middle-Class precincts in West Salem...

Traditionally it has been a Lean-Republican County that has been tinting purple in recent years....

I confess this was on my potential Oregon County flip list six weeks before the '16 GE because of what I thought would be a significant increase of Dem swing voters in West Salem + the University Towns, combined with a "Latino Surge" in more rural parts of the County....

Polk County is a bit Whiter than Oregon at large (80.2%), but also has a rapidly growing Latino Population (12.4%), and is generally a bit younger than the state in general.

1988: (47-51 R)     +4 R
2000: (42-53 R)     +11 R
2004: (44-55 R)     +11 R
2008: (48-49 R)     +1 R
2012: (46-51 R)      +5 R
2016: (41-47 R)      +6 R

So interestingly enough there was a significant swing towards Obama in '08, a 2% switch in '12, and then a significant drop-off for both major Party candidates in '16....

What happened where and why? Time to pull up some precinct/city results to see the shifts in the major party coalitions....

1.) West Salem--- (34.1% of County Votes '16, 33.1% '12, 33.1% '08)

So in general, West Salem is quite a bit "Whiter" than the City of Salem at large, and also has a higher than average Median Household Income (MHI)....

In recent years, it has also been quite a bit more Republican than the City of Salem at large....

2008: (51-47 D)     +4 D
2012: (48*-48)      +0 D
2016: (46-42)        +4 D

So Dem/Rep dropoff numbers are equal between '08 and '16, and the Dem dropoff between '12 and '16 is significantly lower than Rep dropoff between '12 and '16.

Because of precinct boundary changes, I can't to a direct apples-to-apples between '08 and '16...

Still, if we pull the data from '12 to '16 looking at precincts we see the following:

Precinct 140: The most working class and Latino precinct in West Salem.... (20-25% Latino, MHI $30k/Yr)

2012: (55-38 D)    1.5k Votes       +17 D
2016: (46-38 D)    1.8k Votes       +8 D

So, let's take a look at the wealthiest precinct in Salem (Polk County)....

Precinct 146: .... Overwhelmingly Anglo (Non-Latino White) 90%. MHI--- $75k/Yr

2012: (49-47 D)     1.5k Votes      +2 D
2016: (47-40 D)     4.0k Votes     +7 D

Numbers don't totally make sense unless there was a major precinct change, but stil...

Precinct # 134:

2012:  (47-50 R)    1.5k Votes     +3 R
2016: (45-44 D)     4.8k Votes     +1 D

Precinct # 136:

2012: (45-51 R)    2.8k Votes    +6 R
2016: (45-43 D)    3.2k Votes    +2 D

Ok---- so despite the weird precinct changes in this part of the county, the most Latino and working-class precinct actually swung towards Trump, and the mostly Anglo Middle-Class precincts swung towards Clinton & the Democrats....

Regardless, it doesn't appear that there is a major Latino surge in working-class precincts of West Salem, but rather a shift towards the Democratic candidate, and decline in Republican support among relatively affluent and educated voters in West Salem....

So, in theory this should be great numbers for the Democrats, matching Obama '08 margins in the most populated community in the state...

Let's pull up the college town and sister city to see what this looks like in the traditional Democratic bastions of the County... :

2.) Monmouth---- 9.5k Pop  (83% White, 13% Latino)---- MHI $29.8k/Yr---- 10% of County Vote

One of the biggest college towns in Oregon in terms of total college student % of population. The home of Western Oregon University (Predominately a teaching college), where there are 6k enrolled students out of a city population of 10k...

2008: (55-42 D)    3.7k Votes     +13 D
2012: (53-42 D)    3.6k Votes     +11 D
2016: (52-34 D)    4.0k Votes     +18 D

So bottom falls out of the Republican nominee, and meanwhile 7% votes Libertarian, 5% Write-Ins, and 3% Green.....

3.) Independence- 9.5k Pop--- (73% Anglo, 35% Latino)---- MHI- $39.6k/yr---- (8.6% of County Vote).

Sister city of Monmouth that is more affordable for working families that commute to work in Salem and other regional cities....

2008: (55-42 D)   2.8k Votes    +13 D
2012: (54-40 D)   2.8k Votes    +14 D
2016: (48-39 D)   3.5k Votes     +9 D

Hmmm.... looks like the Latino surge was real here, but 3rd Party candidates were the beneficiaries...


4.) Dallas--- 14.7k Pop (91% White, 4% Latino)--- MHI $53.3k/Yr.... (19.6% of County Vote)

This was the former home of one of the largest Forest Product companies in the United States, Willamette Industries (WI).... It survived the Timber Wars of the 1990s relatively intact, compared to other heavily mill based towns in Oregon.

WI closed down their Plywood Mill in June 2000, permanently firing (170) employees, as a result of decreased demand for their product, and not environmental restrictions regarding timber harvesting off of publicly owned lands.... There was an extremely controversial hostile buyout from Weyerhaeuser in '08, and then one year later the sawmill is shut down and another (120) employees lose their jobs....

In 9/12 the assets of the mill were literally auctioned off to the lowest bidder, and what was once a proud mill town and home of one of the largest Forest Product companies in the World, got thrown into the dustbin of history....

Now, there is a diversified economy, and the unemployment rate is now only 5.8%, but jobs are increasingly lower paying White Collar jobs in sectors like administration, sales, and healthcare. There is a higher % than county average in the Construction sector, and interestingly enough has one of the highest percentages in the state for employment in law enforcement (3.5%), but increasingly you have a significant number of workers in the city commute to low paying service jobs in the Grand Ronde casino (143?) as well as elsewhere within the county/region.

Personal anecdote--- I had a friend who commuted 40+ minutes each way from Dallas to work as a Security Manager in one of my previous jobs....

2008:  (46-51 R)    7.1k Voters     +5 R
2012:  (43-53 R)    7.0k Voters     +10 R
2016:  (34-55 R)    7.9k Voters     +21 R


Needless to say, these numbers exemplify the collapse of Democratic support in a part of the County that had been trending Democratic over the past 15-20 years....

5.) Rural Monmouth---- (27.6% of County Vote)

This is obviously a decent chunk of the county vote, and unlike many other parts of the country, Democrats have actually tended to fare relatively well, even in recent years.

In Polk County, this includes a mixture of various agricultural sectors, with vineyards being a traditional new addition to the local economy, combined with more traditional products like grass-seed, Christmas Tree farms, logging and Marijuana cultivation in the Western parts of the County.

2008: (43-54 R)   10.6k Votes    +11 R
2012: (40-56 R)   10.4k Votes    +16 R
2016: (34-55 R)   11.1k Votes     +21 R

So Dem numbers have collapsed from '08 and Republican numbers been constant....

So look for one of most Dem rural  precincts in '08 (#110 Grand Rhonde) for one of the most dramatic swings between '08 and '16....

On the edge of a Casino.... large Mill down the road in Willamina, significant Native American population....

2008: (51-45 D)   +6 D
2012: (49-46 D)    +3 D
2016: (34-56 R)    +22 R

The numbers in the Willamina precinct are almost as bad....

2008: (42-55 R)    +13 R
2012: (38-57 R)    +19 R
2016: (29-61 R)     +32 R

These are not typical Democratic precinct numbers for these parts of rural Polk County

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #19- Jackson County--- (Pop 213k)--- The sixth largest County in the state in population, and one of the largest population centers located within the 2nd US Congressional district.

Long an historically Republican stronghold within the State, Jackson County has increasingly started to become closer to a "Purple County" than an "Atlas Blue" county.

In many ways it has become more increasingly politically polarized county, that combines what for several decades has been the most Democratic City in Oregon (Ashland), combined with a Lean Republican larger City (Medford), and some extremely Republican small towns and rural areas...

Jackson County:

1988: (45-52 R)   +7 R
2000: (39-54 R)   +15 R
2004: (43-55 R)   +12 R
2008:(49*49 D) +0 D Major data issue between Dave Leip's numbers vs County results?
2012: (46-51 R)    +5 R
2016: (41-49 R)    +8 R


The 2008 GE provided a template for a Democratic win in Jackson County....

1.) Ashland----   (12.6k Votes)---- (84-14 D)    +8.9k Obama Margin
2.) Medford----   (33.1k Votes)---- (46-52 R)    +1.9k McCain Margin
3.) Rural----       (31.3k Votes)---- (42-56 R)    +4.3k McCain Margin
4.) Small Towns- (23.2k Votes)--- (43-55 R)    +2.6k McCain Margin

In order to understand what has been happening within the County, we obviously need to start with the largest city Medford....

1.) Medford---- (Pop 78.6k)---- (80% White, 14% Latino)---- MHI ($41.5k/Year)

Medford has long since transited from being a timber dependent community economically and has increasingly become a mixture of a retirement community, regional medical center, and shopping area for an entire region of Southern Oregon.

Almost 20% of the workforce is employed in the in the Health Care sector, 15% Retail sector, 10% Hospitality sector....

Medford is now virtually a tale of two cities.... the Westside is heavily working and lower Middle-Class with an extremely large Latino population, and the Eastside (East of I-5) is overwhelmingly Anglo and much more Middle and Upper-Middle Class...

Medford Election Results (1992-2016)

1992: (35D- 42R- 23 Perot)     +7 R  (The 19th most Republican City Oregon, small towns in front)
2008: 33.1k Voters (46-52 R)   +6 R
2012: 32.0k Voters (43-54 R)   +11 R
2016: 36.5k Voters (39-51 R)   +12 R

Devils are always in the details, and actually the details are very interesting....

1.) The most heavily Latino precincts are located in West Medford (3/14 Precincts in the City) that are approximately 30% Latino, with MHIs ranging from $24-38k/Yr... as well as two other precincts 15-20% Latino, with MHIs of slightly less than $35k/Yr....

2.) So where did the biggest swing happen against Clinton in '16? It was in the most heavily Latino and Working-Class/ Lower Middle-Class precincts within the City....

Precincts #56, 58, 60, & 62 all saw 13-18% swings against the Democratic Pres between '08 and '16....

Obama won 3/4 of these precincts in '08....

In fact Precinct # 58, the most heavily Democratic Precinct in the City (Downtown Medford) went from being a (57-39 D) in '08 to a (43-41 D) in '16!!!

Pretty clear here, there was a major defection to the Left with 5% voting Green, 5% Bernie Write-Ins, and Johnson bagging 6% as a Pro-Legalization and Anti-War Libertarian....

We see a similar pattern in the other major working-class precincts (And heavily Latino precincts) of West Medford, with the Greens grabbing 5% of the vote, and Write-Ins (Bernie?) capturing roughly 4% of the vote...

Roll East of I-5 and we see a different pattern....

Of the ( precincts in East Medford, that are roughly 90% Non-Latino White, of which 6/8 are definitely Upper Middle-Class in terms of MHI by Medford standards, we see between '12 and '16, significant swings towards the Democratic candidate, in the traditionally heavily Republican precincts in the City!!!

Although there was not a net swing towards the Democratic Pres candidate between '08 and '16, in half of these precincts there was a total swing between 0 and 3% between these three elections....

Meanwhile Greens + Write-Ins are capturing 8% in Pct # 46, 6% in Pct #47, 7% in Pct #48....

So, it does appear clear, that if the Latino "surge" happened in West Medford, Clinton was not the beneficiary, considering that these precincts swung towards Trump, despite a major 3rd Party vote..... The biggest swings towards Clinton happened in the most Anglo and wealthiest parts of Medford, again with a significant 3rd Party defection towards the Left....

I'll pull up Ashland and some other cities on my subsequent post.

Edit: Dave's numbers 100% match the certified county results.... I pulled some initial data from a 3rd Party site, and thought I had identified an error, and should have known better than to question Dave's numbers.....

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #19- Jackson County--- Part II

Okay---- so in my previous post, I described how Jackson County is trending purple, with an initial focus on the largest City in the County, Medford, that accounted for 33.4% of the County Votes in '16....

Now--- the major reason why Jackson County has become competitive is not just that Medford is less reliably Republican than it used to be, but rather that a relatively small City has become so overwhelmingly Democratic in Presidential Elections, that it creates a giant "Firewall", where even in a Republican County, it becomes a game of subtraction for Republicans to build an electoral majority within the County.

Welcome to Ashland Oregon----   (Pop 20.4k).... An overwhelmingly White City, in an overwhelmingly White State....    (88% White, 4% Latino, 2% Black, 2% Asian).... MHI $45.6k/Yr

Maybe my intro was a bit dramatic, but nobody expects anything less at the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), which is consistently ranked as one of the best repertory theaters in the United States, and certainly by any standard in the West Coast....

Throw in Southern Oregon University, which is one of the premier Arts Universities in Oregon, located in an extremely beautiful part of the state, with the ski resorts of Mount Ashland a few miles South and West of Town, Lithia Park, which is an amazing experience all of its own, and the view of the Butte's 10-15 miles East across I-5, and arguably you have one of the most awesome cities in Oregon (If you can afford to live there these days)....

I confess, even though I was a small town Oregon boy from the Mid Willamette Valley, I spent plenty of time down in Ashland as a child an teenager. My wife, who spent most of her teenage years in a small Mill Town 30 minutes away, went there as part of school field trips every year..... In my early '20s, I was friends with people that grew up in the mill towns of the Rogue River Valley, and Ashland was always a "Safe Space"....

The extremist backlash against LGBTs was initially concentrated in Southern Oregon Mill towns, and spread wide when the Oregon Citizen's Alliance (OCA) tried to hijack the Oregon Republican Party to purge the moderates....

Ashland was always a safe space for my Gay, Lesbian, & Bisexual friends, at a time here intolerance and Anti- LGBT bigotry appeared to be on the march in Oregon....

Ok--- so historical and personal anecdotes aside....

Election Results:

1992: (62 D- 22 R- 17 Perot)      +40 D     (The #1 most Democratic City in Oregon in '92)
2008: 12.6k Votes (84-14 D)      +70 D       +8.9k Dem Vote Margins
2012: 12.0k Votes (81-14 D)      +67 D       +7.9k Dem Vote Margins
2016: 13.4k Votes (79-12 D)      +67 D    (5% Green, 3 % Write-In, 3% Lib)   +8.8k Dem Margins

So, back in the days Republicans managed to garner almost twice the voter percentage than they now enjoy.... Dem margins are virtually the same, despite dramatic increase in voter turnout.... Meanwhile a major defection to the Left....

All right, it might sound a bit obscure chasing around looking at Democratic votes in Ashland, but an increase of total turnout of 800 voters, combined with a 5% drop of Democratic support obviously raises a serious question when it comes to the "enthusiasm gap" and defection to 3rd Party candidates in biggest Democratic stronghold in the state when it comes to % of the total vote...

The most Democratic Precinct in the City (Precinct #2) actually saw a net decrease in total votes cast between '08 and '16, as well as the Greens capturing 5% of the vote (Like elsewhere in Ashland)....

We see relatively similar patterns in Precinct #4 & 7...

The dorms at Southern Oregon University, that represented a minute (300) voters in '08 (82-15 D), and the only (178) voters in '12 (83-13 D) jumped to (355) voters in '16 (72-14 D)....

In terms of margins, this was the most Republican precinct in the City....

South Ashland, which has been the most Republican precinct in the city, with the highest MHIs ($60k+/Yr), likely as a result of proximity to the University, Administrators/Professors,etc is the only precinct where Obama/McCain vs Clinton/Trump margins actually improved, despite 3rd Party defection....

2008: (79-20 D)   +59 D
2012: (76-19 D)   +57 D
2016: (74-14 D)   +60 D

Still, the Greens captured 6% of the vote, with 4% Write-Ins (Bernie?), and only 3% Libertarian....

So in Ashland, it looks like much of the vote defected to the Left, combined with Trump managing to lose 2% of the Republican % from McCain/ Romney /'08/'12 times.....

[Nym90]

Interesting....I always knew Ashland was liberal, but I'm surprised it is that overwhelmingly Democratic, especially being in an otherwise very Republican part of the state. As you say, it would seem to be the most liberal city in Oregon, even moreso than Portland.

What do you mean by "major data issue" for the 2008 numbers?