Ohio Demographic Maps

[TJ in Oregon]

I’ve been making random Ohio maps by county for a while now and have been thinking of posting them. I briefly posted one in my signature but otherwise haven’t showed any on this site. Let me know if anyone finds them interesting or whether I should include the county names or not.

Also let me know if anyone has some ideas about other demographics that might be interesting.

I’ll start off with the 2008 Presidential Election since that’s one people know a lot about:

It’s mainly a battle of the northeast and the lakeshore versus everywhere else. The southeast, which is normally very swingy and often determines the outcome of state elections, swung heavily toward McCain. The northwest, which apart from Toledo is normally fairly Republican, had a very soft Republican margin. You’ll see in subsequent maps how different this was from normal.

Other places that stick out: Franklin County (Columbus) was solidly Obama while Hamilton (Cincinnati) and Montgomery (Dayton) were softer Obama Counties. Republicans win Montgomery and Hamilton more often than not. Athens County is very heavily Democratic and this will manifest itself on many maps. The Republican areas that stand out are the upper Miami Valley (the clump of 70%+ McCain counties in the northwest—this area will stand out often) and Holmes County (the Amish—this will also stand out on a lot of maps).

[TJ in Oregon]

Compare the first map to the 2010 gubernatorial election where John Kasich (R) narrowly defeated Ted Strickland (D):

The biggest thing to notice is that the southeast swung back toward the Democrat this time. Athens County really jumps out. Strickland was doomed, however, because he did terrible in northeast Ohio and Columbus, failing to win either of the swingy counties (Lake and Stark) and even lost Portage County. Geauga and  Medina Counties move even further to the Republicans and Lorain, Summit, and Ashtabula are too close for a Democrat to win statewide with this type of showing.  This election is more polarized by economic issues and less by social issues as the suburban counties are much more Republican. Mercer County is still heavily Republican but the rest of the upper Miami Valley doesn’t stand out. Holmes County is heavily GOP as always. Two suburban Cincinnati Counties (Clermont and Warren) also join the 70%+ GOP ranks.

[TJ in Oregon]

Now, for a random race no one has paid any attention to, the 2010 Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice race between Maureen O’Connor (R) and Eric Brown (D). This was between two sitting justices for the top spot. Ohio’s Supreme Court races are always heavily slanted toward the Republicans and at one point the Democrats controlled 4 of the 5 statewide executive offices and the Republicans simultaneously held all seven Supreme Court seats. Here’s the map:

O’Connor won all 88 counties so it was rather boring. The southeast actually sticks out as the most heavily Democratic area.

[TJ in Oregon]

Here’s the one I’ve already shown (and the only one with names on the counties): Percentage Catholic by county

Noticeable things:
Ohio’s Catholics are concentrated along the lake, in the upper Miami valley, and near Cincinnati and Youngstown. The Miami Valley has two counties (Mercer and Putnam) that are more than 50%. My home county of Erie has more than average. The southeastern and rural central parts of the state have virtually no Catholics and few live in Columbus.

[TJ in Oregon]

Here’s Ohio’s 2004 referendum to ban gay marriage and civil unions (constitutional amendment):

Note: the coloring scheme is centered around 60% not 50%.
The vote passed 87/88 counties, only failing in Athens County, which sticks out a ton compared to the counties around it. The county the ban passed by the lowest margin was actually Franklin (Columbus) rather than Cuyahoga (Cleveland). The areas that stand out for the ban are the Ohio River counties, especially west of Athens, the upper Miami Valley, and Holmes County. Compared to partisan results, the ban did poorly in the Cincinnati and Dayton areas, as well as in normally Republican Geauga County in the northeast and swingy Wood County in the northwest. The ban did much better than Republicans do in the Youngstown area, carrying heavily Democratic Mahoning and Trumbull Counties with over 60%. My home county of Erie also appears more conservative than usual.

[TJ in Oregon]

Now for some economic data, here's median household income (in thousands of dollars per year):

The poorest areas are in the southeast as expected. North-central Ohio is also rather poor, as are Lucas County (Toledo) and Cuyahoga County (Cleveland). Columbus, Cincinnati, and their suburbs are the wealthiest. Delaware County jumps out being the only county with a median household income over $80k a year. The exurban counties around Cleveland are fairly wealthy, Geauga and Medina in particular since those are the exurban counties without any large, poor, industrial cores.

[TJ in Oregon]

This is a more complicated economic map, April 2011 unemployment:

Again the Ohio River counties fair poorly, but this time the pain is also spread across much of the northwest as well. The high unemployment in the northwest is likely an important cause of Obama’s good performance there and whether or not northwest Ohio remains happy with Obama in 2012 will be an important determining factor in the presidential election. The areas that stand out with low unemployment are the metropolitan areas of Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. Mercer County also stands out on this map, though I’m not sure why. Individual counties that stand out in a bad way are Ottawa in the northwest and Pike and Clinton in the southwest. Clinton County is home to Wilmington, which lost a huge number of jobs when DHL left and was featured in special interest stories in the national news about people coping with economic despair as a community.

[TJ in Oregon]

This next map is the most difficult by far to read, average household size:

This map shows a strong urban/suburban divide with rural areas mostly in between. The Ohio River counties show lower household sizes and are older. Counties with large colleges also show small households. The only county that really jumps out on the large family side is Holmes, home of the Amish.

[TJ in Oregon]

My last map for today is a map of shame: abortions per 10,000 people (Note: This is based on 2007 abortion statistics and 2008 population estimates.):

The areas that jump out immediately are Cuyahoga County and all of northeast Ohio. The other counties with many abortions are Franklin (Columbus), Hamilton (Cincinnati), and Lucas (Toledo). The counties containing poor, urban cores do much worse on this map, including my home in Erie County (Sandusky). The southeastern part of the state has the fewest abortions of any region, particularly Jefferson County (Steubenville) and Lawrence County (Ironton). The upper Miami Valley and Holmes County, the respective Catholic and Amish areas, also show noticeably lower rates. Allen County (Lima) is in the upper Miami Valley but also contains an urban core and has an intermediate rate.

[TJ in Oregon]

The Northwest is primarily German, even among non-Catholics. There are a couple counties with very high Lutheran percentages as well, such as Henry County which is majority Lutheran. The German influence stretches over that entire corner of the state, even over to Erie County. The Miami valley was settled by mostly Germans. This accounts for the strip of higher Catholic counties: Shelby, Auglaize, Mercer, Allen, and Putnam. Mercer County was built around the man-made Grand Lake St. Mary's on the Miami. Shelby and Auglaize are less Catholic becuase both have towns further from the major German Catholic settlements and Allen County has a lower percentage because it contains the city of Lima, which has a noticeable black population and more industrialization (ie. people from anywhere).

Nrotheast Ohio has larger Eastern European immigrant populations from Poland, Croatia, Serbia, Lithuania, and a handful of other places, along with some Italians, Irish, and Germans. I sort of wish I had a way of looking at the distribution within Cuyahoga County because I suspect it is strongly skewed with a much higher Catholic percentage on the west side where all these groups except the Italians settled. I may try to write something about the East-West rivalry in the Cleveland area later, but there is a considerable social difference. There's an old saying in Cleveland that the Northeast ends and the Midwest begins at the Cuyahoga River.

The Ohio river likely has higher percentages because of industrialization in general, but Jefferson County specifically is a bit different because Steubenville has Franciscan University.

[TJ in Oregon]

Here is the 2010 Congressional election by county and by district:
This map has the vote in counties containing multiple districts totaled:

And this one just has lines drawn in at the loss of the total county vote:

This election was a complete blood bath where the Republicans cleaned house in pretty much every area normally competitive, with the possible exception of the southeast. Northwest Ohio was very heavily Republican, quite the turn-around from the ’08 presidential election (I haven’t made an ’08 House map yet). Large parts of the upper Miami valley were over 80% for the GOP and several counties where McCain won somewhere in the mid-50s were over 70%. Marcy Kaptur, while still winning comfortably, did terrible for a Democrat everywhere in her district other than Lucas County, only winning Erie and her Lorain County areas by small margins despite containing some heavily Democratic towns. Steve LaTourette also cleaned up all his marginal areas to win comfortably. You can clearly see the east/west division within Cuyahoga County with Kucinich only taking 53% of the vote in OH-10. Overall, the Democrats only managed low-60s in Cuyahoga County. The southeast was a little more reluctant to vote for Republican Congressmen than presidential candidates, but the GOP managed to get a slim victory in both seats.

[TJ in Oregon]

Here is the 2008 Congressional election by county and by district:
This map has the vote in counties containing multiple districts totaled:

And this one just has lines drawn in at the loss of the total county vote:


Compare this election to the maps above. This is a bloodbath in the opposite direction as four ConservaDems are elected to seats they don't end up holding after 2010. There is a characteristic backwards-C shape of Democratic areas common to many Ohio elections: along Lake Erie, the eastern border, and along the Ohio River. The southeast is very heavily Democratic. In all of OH-6 and OH-18, Holmes and Knox are the only Republican counties. OH-16 was nearly swept by Boccieri despite containing several normally Republican counties. Kaptur and Sutton both won every county by comfortable margins. Ryan carried his part of Mahoning County with 87%.

Still, the western half of the state was heavily Republican, as was Steve LaTourette's district.

[TJ in Oregon]

Here’s a more complicated Ohio religion demographics map. I broke it into four groups: Catholic (green), Mainline Protestant (blue), Evangelical Protestant (red), and other (black). The data is from the ARDA Database and uses the ARDA’s designations for what falls under each group. The coloring is done so that the brighter each color is the more of that group is present.


There are a few drawbacks to this mapping technique, many religious groups do not keep detailed membership records so the map likely underestimates evangelicals and overestimates Catholics. I also disregarded the “unaffiliated” persons because it is nearly impossible to tell what their identity is. The percentage of “unaffiliated” persons tended to be highest in rural evangelical areas so I am disinclined to call them nonreligious or other.

The Amish are considered evangelical (apparently) so Holmes County is bright, bright red.

In general, the further south you go the more evangelical an area is, while mainline Protestants are concentrated in the northern part of the state. Near the lake, virtually all of the Protestants belong to mainline denominations.

The intensity of color in Catholic areas can be slightly misleading for a number of reasons. First, large urban areas tended not only to have more Catholics but also noticeably fewer Protestants than rural areas with a similar Catholic percentage would have. Second, green seems to mask red better than blue so the green appears a bit more intense when the Protestants are Evangelical.

It’s easy to tell why Southwest Ohio is so conservative from this map: there are very few mainline Protestants. The map has a whole lot of green, red, and brown in that area.

In the Northwest, I’d like to point out Henry County. It’s colored purple because it has roughly the same number of Mainline and Evangelical Protestants, but both are mostly Lutheran (ELCA=mainline and LCMS=evangelical).

[TJ in Oregon]

Here’s a more complicated Ohio religion demographics map. I broke it into four groups: Catholic (green), Mainline Protestant (blue), Evangelical Protestant (red), and other (black). The data is from the ARDA Database and uses the ARDA’s designations for what falls under each group. The coloring is done so that the brighter each color is the more of that group is present.

Are Pickaway and Champaign and Ashland distinct, or is it simply a case of relatively few Catholics, and balance between evangelical and mainline Protestants?

Why is Delaware so Catholic?  Would it have been so say 30 years ago when there would have been less suburban growth?  (eg is it like Putnam and Mercer with an addition of suburbanites, or is it like Franklin with fewer Blacks, who tend to be Protestant.

Totally unrelated: why are street blocks in Cleveland so long?

Pickaway, Coshocton, Harrison, and most of the other bright blue southeastern counties are mainly Methodist. Ashland is roughly evenly split between Methodists and Lutherans and has surprisingly few Evangelicals despite being the home of an Evangelical University. Champaign is a mix of lots of different mainline denominations.

As for Delaware County, I’m not completely sure which the answer is but I have a decent way of guessing. There are two main population centers in Delaware County, the Columbus suburbs in the south and the city of Delaware. Of the four Catholic Churches in the county (20,003 Catholics and only four churches), only one is in the city of Delaware. The church in the city of Delaware appears to be the largest one, however. So my guess is that before suburban sprawl Delaware County was probably more Catholic than all the counties around it but not extraordinarily Catholic, more like Wyandot or Wood Counties rather than like Putnam or Mercer. As far as the sprawl is concerned, it alone wouldn’t explain why Delaware County is much more Catholic than the other exurban Columbus counties, Licking and Fairfield, but I do think it contributed.

I would guess the reason why Cleveland blocks are so long is that most our major streets radiate east or west outward from downtown and there is little reason to build many major cross-streets between them. For example, on the east side, Carnegie, Cedar, Chester, and Euclid are all major east-west streets between downtown and University Circle. There’s really not much in between and not much reason to travel perpendicular to those streets.

[TJ in Oregon]

Good maps, TJ.

Why are Mercer and Putnam so Catholic and still so Republican?

Mercer and Putnam were settled by Germans rather than the later waves of immigrants that were targeted more for discrimination and account for most US Catholics. This area also never experienced the extent of industrialization and unionization of many heavily Catholic areas, making many of them ancestrally Democratic.

As a whole Ohio Catholics are slightly more Republican than Ohio voters in general despite living in more Democratic areas on average. According to the 2008 Gallup exit poll, McCain actually received 51% of Ohio Catholic vote.

Basically, these areas show how rural Catholics would vote without unions, industry, or immigration as issues. On the DRA, you can actually find a whole bunch of precincts in the rural part of Mercer Countywhere McCain won ~85% of the vote. In Putnam, it isn't quite as extreme but Putnam also doesn't have a city the size of Celina with precinct that McCain only got... gasp...58% o the vote in.

[TJ in Oregon]

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I think that has more to do with the fact that there are far more blacks (usu. Protestant) than Hispanics (usu. Catholic) in Ohio. IIRC, white Catholics were still quite a bit more Democratic than white Protestants in Ohio.

You are correct.

I tend to suspect this is mostly due to other factors beside religion considering a huge percentage of Ohio's Catholics live in pretty solidly Democratic counties.

I wonder if there is an effect on voting to live in a religiously homogenous area? That might contribute the voting patterns of Mercer and Putnam Counties (which vote very similarly to Holmes, the Amish/Mennonite stronghold).

Otherwise the best answer I can give is that Mercer and Putnam didn't experience as much industrialization and unionization. Neither county has a really large urban core, though Celina isn't negligible.

[TJ in Oregon]

Here's an example of what the rural ~85% McCain part of Mercer County is like.

Putnam is a litle more difficult to get information on but it also doesn't have any areas quite as extreme as this.

[TJ in Oregon]

Here’s a look at each party’s “high water mark”, ie. what a map would look like in a total blowout in each direction.

The first map is the Republican blow-out. In 2004, the Ohio Democrats scrambled to find a candidate after failing to draft Jerry Springer in a quixotic bid to take down the popular Republican incumbent George Voinovich. The eventually settled on Eric Fingerhut for what would be one of the most forgettable statewide elections in recent memory as Voinoich cruised to a 28-point victory, winning every county.

Voinovich, the three term Republican mayor of Cleveland, has an opportunity to do something no other Republican can: actually win Cuyahoga County. With that, the map looks like a map of the locations in Ohio that have an ancestral Democratic presence. The most marginal areas are along the Democratic “backwards C” from the river to Toledo. There appears to be very little difference in Republican intensity between the counties that are always very strongly Republican and normally more marginal.


In 2006, the nation was on fire against George Bush and Ohio was even more on fire against Governor Bob Taft, who managed to get his approval rating into the single digits. No Republican would even pretend Taft was a competent governor. Incumbent GOP Senator Mike DeWine was a sitting duck against the very liberal populist Congressman Sherrod Brown.

Brown cleaned up in the Southeast and the north, ensuring himself an easy victory. Unlike in the Republican blowout, this map still shows some strong pockets of GOP support, though it also wasn’t nearly as large of a blowout because the Republicans did have a decent candidate and Brown isn’t in the same league as Voinovich in terms of political clout. Holmes County, suburban Cincinnati, and the upper Miami Valley remained strongly GOP. These areas only swung about ten points while most of the state swung more than twenty. Another oddity of this map is that even though it was a Democratic blowout, DeWine still won Hamilton County, which is normally swingy.

[TJ in Oregon]

2006 Governor: Strickland (D) vs. Blackwell (R)


Yes, you are correct Padfoot, this is a much better map for a Democratiuc high water mark. It allows us to see which counties will vote Republican no matter what the circumstances are. Of course, Blackwell actually did decently in Cincinnati because he was the mayor. The only counties that voted strongly for Blackwell were Mercer (but without its sibling Putnam this time), Hancock, Holmes, Warren, and Clermont. Warren and Clermont are the suburban Cincinnati Counties, Mercer and Holmes we’ve talked about quite a bit already, but we haven’t pointed out Hancock yet. Hancock is primarily city of Findlay, Ohio. Findlay has a unique history as the longtime home of Marathon Oil Company. Perhaps a connection to oil is the reason why Hancock was more Republican in 2006. After all, much of the national anger was directed at George W. Bush.

[TJ in Oregon]

Voting trend between 2000 and 2008 presidential elections (Note: the trend is adjusted for the difference in the national totals between elections)


The first thing to notice is that the northwest swung strongly toward Obama. This area experienced a steep decline in manufacturing and a lot of people, either out of work or experiencing pay cuts, heard then Senator Obama express in heartfelt terms how he could be the man to change the course of the nation. Many northwest Ohioans heard him and wanted to give him a chance. However, this is likely a transitory trend; Northwest Ohio swung heavily toward Republicans in 2010 and in a recent Quinnipiac survey gave the President the lowest approval rating of any part of the state.

The next point is the trend of areas with large black populations toward the Democrats, primarily in Franklin and Hamilton Counties. Cuyahoga County, despite containing far more blacks than any other county, experienced only a small Democratic trend, probably because of a Republican trend on the blue-collar white west side.

Athens County and some of the surrounding counties experienced a huge Democratic trend. Athens trended more in the Democratic direction than any other county. This is unsurprising given Athens is in many ways Ohio’s most liberal county and home to a large college town.

Delaware County, Ohio’s fastest growing county, remained strongly Republican but much less so than in 2000. The suburban growth has transformed the area into a still Republican but less lopsided county. This may be the single worst piece of information for the GOP on the map.

The collection of counties with significant Amish populations (Holmes, Wayne, Ashland, Coshocton, Tuscarawas, and Geauga) also trended toward the Democrats though not that strongly. Perhaps McCain’s candidacy caused some enthusiasm problems compared with George W. Bush?

The four main areas that trended in the Republican direction are the upper Miami Valley, the southern tip of the state, the Steubenville/St. Clairsville area near the river, and the Mahoning Valley. The southern tip of the state is made up of rural, white, ancestrally Democratic evangelicals, so a Republican trend isn’t surprising. Jefferson and Belmont Counties are blue-collar declining industrial areas full of working class whites. The Mahoning Valley (Youngstown and Warren) trending Republican may become an important headline in the future if it continues because it is a populous area that has historically voted for Democrats by lopsided margins.

The oddball county I can’t explain the Republican trend in is Clark County (Springfield). Springfield is in part a college town for a liberal arts institution and also contains a sizeable black population. Clark County is historically moderate because of some very Republican rural areas and heavily Democratic Springfield. All in all, it seems like a county that should have trended toward President Obama but it trended significantly in the other direction.

[TJ in Oregon]

The collection of counties with significant Amish populations (Holmes, Wayne, Ashland, Coshocton, Tuscarawas, and Geauga) also trended toward the Democrats though not that strongly. Perhaps McCain’s candidacy caused some enthusiasm problems compared with George W. Bush?

Remember that the Amish, though otherwise socially ultra-conservative (like, off the charts), are pacifists. This certainly isn't enough to get the Old Order Amish to vote Democrat (indeed, many don't vote at all), but there is a certain constituency of people who are more integrated into modern life but have an Anabaptist cultural background who are basically conservative but would sympathize with the D's on Iraq. Notice also that Lancaster PA and Elkhart IN have a very large Obama swing.

That doesn't explain why they voted so strongly for George W. Bush in 2004. If anything I would guess that a conservative pacifist would have voted for Kerry and McCain rather than the other way around.

[TJ in Oregon]

I decided to try and create an ideological index for each county, separating economic and social interests. I included the 2000 and 2008 presidential election and the 2010 gubernatorial race in both scores, the vote total on Issue 2 and the current unemployment rate on the economic index, and the 2004 gay marriage referendum, the number of abortions (in 2007) per 10000 people (using 2008 population estimates), and the percentage of people in each county that are religiously unaffiliated for the social index. I hoped to catch a wide array of factors in doing this though it’s difficult to measure vague concepts like ideology. Lower scores indicate a more conservative county and higher ones indicate a liberal county. The average economic score was 50 and the average social score was 46 (the average without weighting for the population of each county).

Here’s the economic map:


The most conservative county was Holmes, followed by Mercer and the most liberal county was Athens, followed by Mahoning. The fiscally progressive areas form the characteristic backwards ‘C’ over the Eastern part of the state (which we see pretty consistently).

And here’s the social map:


The most conservative county was Mercer, followed by Putnam, with Holmes and Auglaize not far behind. The most liberal county was Athens, followed by Cuyahoga.

I was hoping the maps would show some sort of contrast: ie. counties that came out differently by each measure. Much of the state appears fairly similar on both maps, but a few areas stand out. The counties along the Ohio River are more conservative socially than fiscally. The same with the extreme northwest corner of the state. Mahoning County (Youngstown) also is much more socially moderate despite being the second most fiscally liberal county in the state. The Columbus and Cincinnati suburbs are more conservative fiscally than socially, as are Greene, Portage, and Summit Counties. I don’t think this technique is a great way of comparing Holmes County to Mercer and Putnam in some sort of running for which is more conservative since it’s really comparing apples to oranges, although it is evident that Putnam County is more fiscally moderate than Mercer and Holmes.

[TJ in Oregon]

In honor of the Wisconsin thread, here’s a Cuyahoga County map of Ohio’s gay marriage ban vote in 2004:


And the race map from the DRA before someone asks:


Basically, the black areas voted for the ban, most of the eastern suburbs voted against it, and most of the western suburbs voted for it except Lakewood.

[TJ in Oregon]

Most of the black areas were about 50-60% for the ban (not sure how that compares to expected). But, yes the white areas in OH-11 are very, very liberal. OH-11 includes both the really large red clump of precincts and the other liberal area near downtown. Considering how Columbus is chopped up, I'd be rather surprised if OH-11 wasn't the most liberal congressional district on the issue. However, I would bet the ban did worse the new Columbus pack district.

[TJ in Oregon]

TJ, I had mentioned in a thread months ago that OH-11 was the best CD against the gay marriage ban. Are the white areas of OH-11 especially liberal or are the black areas less anti-gay than expected?

I would guess that the whites in Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, etc. are the most socially liberal people in Ohio, save maybe the college-related people in Athens or government workers living in downtown Columbus. Case Western is a pretty big college, too.

Agree with everything except Case Western being a pretty big college. It only has about 4,000 undergrads. Also, the Case precincts were more (not that it's saying much) in favor of the ban than most of the white parts of Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights.