2010 State PVI County Maps and Bellwethers for States With Senate Elections

[cinyc]

North Dakota:



There's nothing particularly remarkable about the 5 ND PVI bellwether counties.  All but Richland have under 6,000 residents of voting age.  And even Richland County isn't all that big, with fewer than 13,000 voting-age residents.  

Richland County had one of the larger pro-Obama swings of the five.  Divide County swung even more violently the other way - from 3 points more Democratic than the North Dakota  two-party Kerry percentage in 2004 to 3 points more Republican than the North Dakota two-party Obama percentagein 2008.  Averages can mask variations in data.

Anyone want to guess which counties have large Indian Reservations?

[cinyc]

Ohio:



Ohio has 4 OH PVI bellwether counties, but they were subject to swings.  Hamilton (Cincinnati), Ottawa and Wood Counties (both, near Toledo) all swung more toward Obama than the rest of the state.  Jefferson County (Steubenville) on the West Virginia border swung the opposite way - and more violently than the other three.  Ottawa County appears to be the best of a bad bunch.

[cinyc]

Oklahoma:



I don't have a heck of a lot to say about Oklahoma.  Most of the 8 OK PVI bellwethers are rural and unremarkable.  The No Man's Land that is the Panhandle (a.k.a. the counties Texas gave up to become a slave state) is the bluest; the eastern part of the state reddest - but Oklahoma is a Republican state, so everything's relative.

Edited to add: Oklahoma is like a lot of southern states - some bellwethers are better than others due to non-uniform 2008 swing.  In addition to Pushmataha, there was about a 7 point non-uniform anti-Obama swing in LeFlore, Marshall and a 5-point one in Pawnee and Nowata Counties.  Kiowa, Delaware and Payne are better bellwethers.

Upon request, I've added a OK PGVI map, based on the two-party relative vote in the average of the 2002 and 2006 governor's election:


Even the 2002 and 2006 gubernatorial results were rather swingy, perhaps due to the presence of a third candidate in the 2002 election.  But one county appears on both lists:
Payne County in the north central part of the state.

[cinyc]

Oregon:



Oregon is yet another deeply divided state with no PVI bellwether counties.  Columbia and Washington Counties in the Portland area come close, with PVIs of just under R+2 and D+2, respectively.    

Once you get outside of the Portland area, Oregon turns deep blue,  with two major exceptions - Lane County, home of Eugene and the University of Oregon and Benton County, home of Corvallis and Oregon State University.  Lincoln County on the nearby coast is a lesser shade of red.

[cinyc]

Pennsylvania:



The four PA PVI bellwether counties are all in Eastern Pennsylvania, stretching from the Philadelphia suburbs to the Allentown area and NYC exurbs to the county that includes Wilkes-Barre.  Of the four counties, Monroe (NYC exurbs) swung more violently toward Obama than the rest and isn't a great bellwether.   Northampton (Bethlehem and Easton) had a less violent swing.  Bucks (suburban Philadelphia) and Luzerne (Wilkes-Barre) were fairly flat.

[cinyc]

South Carolina:
Since the SC governor's race is expected to be much closer than the Senate race, I've mad two maps for SC.  First, the traditional SC PVI map, based on the 2004 and 2008 Presidential vote:


Edgefield is the only true SC PVI bellwether county; the other two were very swingy.  

Next, a SC GPVI map, based on results from the governors' races in 2006 and 2002:


A different map with different bellwethers.  In fact, the three SC PVI bellwethers are uniformly about 9 points more Democratic compared to the rest of the state in the past two governors' races.

The point: Be very wary of using federal PVI information when trying to predict the outcome gubernatorial or state-level races.  Particularly in the south.

[cinyc]

South Dakota:



Like its neighbor to the north, most of South Dakota's 7 SD PVI bellwether counties are fairly rural and unremarkable.  The only two of note are Coddington (Watertown) and Union, across the state line from Sioux City, Iowa.  Sandborn and Union Counties swung violently against Obama compared to the rest of the state - and isn't a great bellwether.  The other counties were less swingy, particularly Mellette.

Again, can you guess where South Dakota's Indian Reservations are located?  Well, not Clay County - that's home to Vermillion and the University of South Dakota.

[cinyc]

Utah:


Weber County (Ogden), home to Weber State University, is the only UT PVI bellwether.  The two deep red counties are recreational gems - Summit, home to many a ski resort, and Grand County (Moab), home of Arches National Park.  Red San Juan County has more parks and an Indian Reservation.  Not surprisingly, Salt Lake County is one of the reddest, too.  I'm not as sure about Carbon County (Price) - it does have the College of Eastern Utah, but nothing else that seemingly would make it more Democratic than the state average.

[cinyc]

Vermont:
Again, with a close Gubernatorial race, and an expected Senate blowout, I'm going to post two maps.  First, the traditional federal PVI map:


Vermont reports results by town.  Like for New Hampshire, I've only turned on the labels for the VT PVI bellwethers, lest the map become unreadable.  Towns with no polling places are in gray.  There are 20 VT PVI bellwethers - none really stick out.  Note that St. Albans city is the bellwether, not St. Albans town.

As for general patterns, Burlington is deep red, as are some towns along the Connecticut River Valley and the mountainous Northern interior.

Now, for VT GPVI, based on results from the governors' race in 2006 and 2008:



Different, but not terribly so - save the greater redness in Southern Vermont.  Given where the gubernatorial candidtes are from, we'll likely see this pattern repeat in at least Windham County this cycle.

There were 19 VT GVPI bellwethers, two of which were also PVI bellwethers - Walden in northeastern Vermont and West Windsor in southeastern Vermont.

[cinyc]

Washington:



Not much surprise here - Eastern Washington is a deep shade of blue; Western Washington not so much; King County out-Dems them all.

The 4 WA PVI bellwethers are all west of the Cascades - Whatcom (Bellingham) on the Canadian border, Snohomish (Everett) in suburban Seattle and Pacific and Gray Harbor on the Pacific Coast.   Any of the 4 will do, really.  Pacific is the most neutral (R+0.29), but had a slight anti-Obama swing in 2008 relative to the rest of the state.

[cinyc]

West Virginia:



The 8 WV PVI counties are fairly varied, stretching from Ohio (Wheeling) and Marshall (Moundsville) counties in the north to Mason and Wayne Counties near Huntington to the resorty Greenbrier County (White Sulfur Springs) to Randolph County, home of Elkins and Davis & Elkins College  to Harrison (Clarksburg) and Calhoun counties in between.  Harrison County is likely the best of the bunch, with a PVI that's essentially even and a 2008 to 2004 swing that pretty much matched the rest of the state.

[cinyc]

Wisconsin:



Wisconsin has 7 potential WI PVI bellwether counties.  The WI PVI of Door County vacationland is the closest to zero, but that masks an Obama swing.  The other 6 counties swung pretty much with the rest of the state.  All but Door, Columbia (Portage), near Madison, and Pierce (a not-quite exurb of Minneapolis-St. Paul), are quite small, with fewer than 10,000 registered voters.

The deepest blues are in the Milwaukee suburbs and exurbs.  The deepest red county, Menominee County, is home to the Menominee Indian Reservation.  The next reddest county is Dane County, home of the state capital of Madison and the main campus of the University of Wisconsin.

[Meeker]

These are really interesting cinyc. Thanks for doing this.

[nclib]

Good work, cinyc. Are you calculating PVI by Presidential results, Senate results, or a combination?

[cinyc]

Good work, cinyc. Are you calculating PVI by Presidential results, Senate results, or a combination?

Just Presidential.  Not all states have Senate results for 2008, and I haven't tried to get 2006 data for all states - or even the 2008 Senate results in some cases.  

State PVI was calculated as the average of the two-party Obama county vote minus  two-party Obama statewide vote and the two-party Kerry county vote minus two-party Kerry statewide vote.

I should have the rest of the expected close states done tonight (except maybe NH).  I might leave the rest of the expected blowout states undone until after the election if I don't have time.  I have to start getting the election night and CD packages together, which will take time.

[cinyc]

Added: Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia

Next Up: New Hampshire, New York, Iowa

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Hamilton and Jefferson are going to be poor bellwethers for OH Gov, I think.

[cinyc]

Hamilton and Jefferson are going to be poor bellwethers for OH Gov, I think.

Remember - this is Presidential PVI, not Gubernatorial.  I'd be a bit more comfortable using Gubernatorial GVI for state races - but I probably won't have the time to compute them.  I might run a couple of them in expected close states to see if there are any significant differences.

[cinyc]

This is now complete. 

I added maps for the rest of the states:  Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah and Vermont.  I also added text for Kentucky.

South Carolina and Vermont have two maps - one based on the Presidential State PVI, the other Gubernatorial.  Those maps aren't close to identical.

[Verily]

I'm not as sure about Carbon County (Price) - it does have the College of Eastern Utah, but nothing else that seemingly would make it more Democratic than the state average.

Carbon County is an old railroad and mining community filled with non-Mormons. The political divides in Utah are almost all explained by religious Mormons v. non-Mormons and non-religious Mormons.

Also, you meant Palm Coast, not Palm Beach, in Flagler County, Florida. Palm Beach is, appropriately, in Palm Beach County.

[RI]

I would recommend you rerun Oklahoma. Your map is heavily biased by Obama's performance in the state, a performance was quite markedly different from almost any other Democratic performance in the state's recent history. For example, Pushmataha County, which you have as a bellweather, is typically one of the more Democratic counties in the state in local elections. It is only because of Obama's presence that the state, and a number of counties, swung wildly to the Republicans in 2008.

[cinyc]

I would recommend you rerun Oklahoma. Your map is heavily biased by Obama's performance in the state, a performance was quite markedly different from almost any other Democratic performance in the state's recent history. For example, Pushmataha County, which you have as a bellweather, is typically one of the more Democratic counties in the state in local elections. It is only because of Obama's presence that the state, and a number of counties, swung wildly to the Republicans in 2008.

Rerun it with what?  The math is correct.  The OK PVI numbers are what they are.  I haven't adjusted ANY of the maps because of a non-uniform Obama swing.

I didn't focus on it in the text because, let's face it, the Senate election isn't going to be close, but Oklahoma is like a lot of southern states - some bellwethers are better than others due to non-uniform 2008 swing.  In addition to Pushmataha, there was about a 7 point non-uniform anti-Obama swing in LeFlore, Marshall and a 5-point one in Pawnee and Nowata Counties.  Kiowa, Delaware and Payne are better bellwethers.

[nclib]

I doubt Jackson, MO (includes Kansas City) is a bellwether. It is one of Kerry's and Obama's strongest counties in Missouri.

[cinyc]

I doubt Jackson, MO (includes Kansas City) is a bellwether. It is one of Kerry's and Obama's strongest counties in Missouri.

Good catch.  It's an issue with my data source (Missouri SoS), which separately broke out Kansas City from the rest of Jackson County.  SUBURBAN Jackson County is a good bellwether.   Kansas City moves it redder.

I'll update the map when I have time.

[RI]

I would recommend you rerun Oklahoma. Your map is heavily biased by Obama's performance in the state, a performance was quite markedly different from almost any other Democratic performance in the state's recent history. For example, Pushmataha County, which you have as a bellweather, is typically one of the more Democratic counties in the state in local elections. It is only because of Obama's presence that the state, and a number of counties, swung wildly to the Republicans in 2008.

Rerun it with what?  The math is correct.  The OK PVI numbers are what they are.  I haven't adjusted ANY of the maps because of a non-uniform Obama swing.

I meant with gubernatorial numbers like SC and VT. The 2008 numbers are rather out of line with Oklahoma's usual voting record (I suppose it is in a number of southern and Appalachian states). I would think that if you are basing your projections on a model that is comprised with half (what I would consider) abnormal results, that it would not serve as useful when it comes to comparing to results we will get back on Tuesday. Not that it will probably matter, I suppose.

I only pointed out Oklahoma because it presented an especially egregious case of this: the 2008 OK Democratic strength map looks literally like none other in Oklahoma's history.