Alaska Results Map by House District

[minionofmidas]

Frigging bacon strings from the Yupik Coast into the Athabascan Bush make it difficult to judge what *exactly* happened here without looking at precincts. And I've lost my list of what precincts go into what Borough/CA. Who drew this crap? A personal enemy of Woodie Salmon? (No, actually, he went down to defeat by a White Republican in 2010 in the Interior HD.) Someone entirely unaware that these are completely distinct peoples and his "Native majority" districts are Coalition districts in practice?
Still, this is a huge swing among Natives - they used to go more 50/50 in presidential elections.

Oh, and please don't call Yup'ik and Inupiaq "Inuit". They aren't. If you're looking for a catch-all term that is still "Eskimo". Even though it's originally a mildly offensive name by one Algonquin people of Quebec for another Algonquin people of Quebec. (But don't use it for Pacific Yup'ik, the biggest group among whom are the Kodiak Islanders, and who are in pre-contact material culture and post-contact experience very unlike all the other Eskimo peoples ... more like Aleutians or the northernmost Pacific Northwest Native Americans ... and prefer you think of them as "Aleutians" even though they are not that to the linguist.)

[minionofmidas]

Have a look at the shading on that. But yes, there was a biggish R swing here in 2000. Not quite sure why.

[minionofmidas]

Have a look at the shading on that. But yes, there was a biggish R swing here in 2000. Not quite sure why.

Does that take into account Nader's particularly strong result in Alaska, which almost certainly ate a lot of Gore support? And, while I was a bit too young to remember the 2000 campaign closely, I wonder if Gore's environmentalism also brought his support down.

Oil drilling certainly was an issue there.

District 37   
Gore   36.2%   1,821   
Bush   54.2%   2,725   
Nader   5.1%   255   
Other   4.5%   227   
 
District 38   
Gore   40.5%   2,015   
Bush   49.6%   2,467   
Nader   5.4%   267   
Other   4.6%   227   
 
District 39   
Gore   44.0%   2,282   
Bush   44.7%   2,321   
Nader   7.4%   383   
Other   3.9%   202   
 
District 40   
Gore   31.7%   1,024   
Bush   56.8%   1,831   
Nader   7.8%   252   
Other   3.7%   119   

District 37   
Clinton   46.6%   2,134   
Dole   40.1%   1,835   
Perot   10.0%   456   
Other   3.3%   150   
 
District 38   
Clinton   51.5%   2,436   
Dole   36.3%   1,716   
Perot   8.3%   393   
Other   3.9%   183   
 
District 39   
Clinton   54.5%   2,692   
Dole   32.8%   1,618   
Perot   8.2%   404   
Other   4.5%   224   
 
District 40   
Clinton   41.9%   1,260   
Dole   42.6%   1,280   
Perot   12.2%   368   
Other   3.2%   97

1996 and 2000 on the west and north coast.

[minionofmidas]

Obama won the Yupik country in 2008. Just not by nearly as much as this year, but he still got a swing there, above the state average I think. Correction for the 2000 R swing if anything.

Yupik Country stretches from directly north of Naknek to a little southeast of Nome and inland exactly as far as the House Districts in the area used to in the Nowties.

[minionofmidas]

Results in Barrow
2012: Obama 242, Romney 112
2008: McCain 219, Obama 169
2004: Bush 535, Kerry 355

What happened here between '04 and '08? Did they split the precinct, or some change regarding oil workers' contracts or similar?

[minionofmidas]

Did Bush do better amongst Native Americans or did they just not show up in large numbers in 2000 and 2004?

Reservation Native turnout in 2000 hit absolute rock bottom, which works wonders on Republicans' anemic percentages in the relevant counties. In many of these places, there were more votes cast in the 2002 midterms. Despite spectacular increases, turnout in these places is still clearly below the American average.
But Alaska is different for all sorts of historical and geopolitical reasons. Republicans before Romney really got a very large minority share of the Native vote here, probably very near the 50 mark in 2000.

[minionofmidas]

It should be noted that with final results, the difference in swing gets slightly smaller than it was on election day. There is a reason for this. As a general rule in urban Alaska, absentee votes tilt Republican and early and provisional (Alaska calls them "question") votes lean Democratic. By contrast in rural Alaska, absentee votes lean Republican, provisional votes tilt Democratic and early votes don't exist. (Alaska has only a handful of early voting locations, located in populated parts, but which stock ballots for all districts. So the bush districts have just a couple of early votes each, presumably cast mostly by people now residing in the cities but still registered back home.)

Here is a table with results by Borough / Census Area. Precincts cutting across a boundary (about half a dozen of them) have been assigned to the Borough / Census Area including the precinct's main settlement. Absentee, question and early votes from House Districts including part of more than one Borough or CA (6, 11, and 32 through 40. 1 to 5 are in Fairbanks, 7 to 10 are in MatSu, 12 through 27 are in Anchorage, 28 to 30 are in the Kenai Pen and 31 is in Juneau) have been assigned on the principle that Obama, Romney, and Johnson/Stein/write-ins combined received the same share of the district's a/q/e vote in each Borough or part of Borough as they received of the day vote. This works very well in most areas but obviously misleads in a few cases where a HD includes areas with differing day vs absentee vs early (vs overall) turnout patterns - though not by enough to make me adopt a different scheme. Especially as correcting for that without hard data on how many people from each precinct got an a/q/e ballot would require fuzzy maths / pulling numbers out of my ass.

Ketchikan Gateway Romney 55.3, Obama 38.3
Prince of Wales - Hyder CA Obama 50.2, Romney 43.7
Wrangell Romney 64.7, Obama 31.8
Petersburg Obama 48.2, Romney 47.2
Sitka Obama 53.0, Romney 41.5
Juneau Obama 57.4, Romney 37.9
Hoonah - Angoon CA Obama 59.3, Romney 36.1
Skagway Obama 58.1, Romney 30.7
Haines Romney 47.8, Obama 45.4
Yakutat Obama 56.0, Romney 40.1
Valdez - Cordova CA Romney 58.0, Obama 36.4
Kenai Peninsula Romney 66.0 Obama 29.7
Anchorage Romney 53.0 Obama 43.2
Matanuska-Susitna Romney 71.2 Obama 24.5
Denali Romney 51.6 Obama 43.8
Southeast Fairbanks CA Romney 72.9 Obama 21.9
Fairbanks North Star Romney 58.6 Obama 36.3
Yukon - Koyukuk CA Obama 61.6 Romney 34.0
Kodiak Island Romney 57.0 Obama 38.8
Lake and Peninsula Obama 56.6 Romney 38.8
Aleutians East Romney 53.4 Obama 42.5
Aleutians West CA Obama 62.7 Romney 34.4
Bristol Bay Romney 59.8 Obama 34.2
Dillingham CA Obama 58.7 Romney 36.4
Bethel CA Obama 71.6 Romney 23.5
Wade Hampton CA Obama 77.5 Romney 16.9
Nome CA Obama 63.8 Romney 30.6
Northwest Arctic Obama 64.0 Romney 31.8
North Slope Obama 64.3 Romney 31.9

And a quick lazy map



One further note: Not only were two new Boroughs created in 2008 (Wrangell and Skagway), the next one is being voted on (which will be just a formality) in December - Petersburg. And after that, annexation of the uninhabited (but touristically used) sliver of unincorporated borough between it and Juneau to Juneau will be just a formality (Juneau wanted to annex even more territory, that is now going to Petersburg instead.) I couldn't find information on what the Census Bureau is intending to do with Kake and Port Alexander, the last remaining populated bits of the former Wrangell-Petersburg Census Area in the Unincorporated Borough. Kake (a Native settlement) is the reason Petersburg is shown in pale red rather than light blue here, though.

[minionofmidas]

I couldn't find information on what the Census Bureau is intending to do with Kake and Port Alexander, the last remaining populated bits of the former Wrangell-Petersburg Census Area in the Unincorporated Borough

if the logic behind the Prince of Wales-Hyder area holds up, then maybe those areas will join the POW-H and become the Prince of Wales-Kake-Port Alexander-Hyder CA.

The logic behind POW-H? There isn't any. There certainly isn't any to including Hyder (or Port Alexander...) but not Metlakatla in the name, unless you think a White man is worth at least ten Indians.
They'll probably just find a new name for the remnant. Probably Kake - Port Alexander.

[minionofmidas]

would there be much lost if they just put all of the SE Alaska Census Areas into one census area?

No (since anyone interested in the details can just look at Census Tracts instead), but these are the 1970-defined Census Areas minus the areas since incorporated.

Alaska does consider it a bit of a longterm goal to incorporate everywhere or at least everywhere with people in it. Not being a Borough does tend to save the local residents money because the state pays for the school system in the unincorporated borough. But the state also doesn't want to create any Borough that might go bankrupt due to lack of a tax base as that might end up costing more than continuing to fund the public schools (the state would have to pick up the debts if the Borough dissolves.)
Hence why you have the two boroughs in the far north - oil money. And Denali and Lake & Peninsula - tourism money, plus a threat of annexation by MatSu and Kodiak respectively.

In the 90s, the state drew a map of "model boroughs" aimed at incorporating all the state, but that map was very unpopular, and the boroughs created since have not followed it. (Ketchikan Gateway has annexed all the areas it was to annex under that plan, except for the town of Hyder. Wrangell-Petersburg CA was to incorporate as one Borough under the plan, with all the southerly mainland bit of Skagway-Hoonah-Angoon going to Juneau. Haines was to annex Skagway and Klukwan, which is a Native Village and an enclave within Haines, and change its name, I forgot to what. One piece of the Model Borough Plan I can see becoming reality would be Metlakatla and Prince of Wales incorporating as two Boroughs.)

[minionofmidas]

Can anyone compare House District or county results with racial make-up?

Ketchikan 66% nhw, 14% Native, 8% nh mixed, 7% Asian
POW 50% nhw, 40% Native, 8% nh mixed
Wrangell 72% nhw, 16% Native, 9% nh mixed
Petersburg 69% nhw, 16% Native, 8% nh mixed
Sitka 64% nhw, 17% Native, 9% nh mixed, 5% Hispanic
Juneau 67% nhw, 12% Native, 9% nh mixed, 6% Asian, 5% Hispanic
Hoonah-Angoon 46% nhw, 41% Native, 10% nh mixed
Haines 83% nhw, 9% Native, 5% nh mixed
Skagway 91% nhw (very hippie / touristy kind of place. Notice that 11% Other vote? Mostly Jill Stein.)
Yakutat 40% nhw, 36% Native, 15% nh mixed
Valdez-Cordova 72% nhw, 14% Native, 6% nh mixed
Kenai 83% nhw, 7% Native, 5% nh mixed
Anchorage 63% nhw, 8% Asian, 8% Native, 8% Hispanic, 7% nh mixed
Mat-Su 85% nhw, 6% nh mixed, 6% Native
Denali 91% nhw (tourism industry country, hence so marginal)
SE Fairbanks 79% nhw, 12% Native
Fairbanks North Star 74% nhw, 7% Native, 6% Hispanic, 6% nh mixed
Yukon-Koyukuk 71% Native, 22% nhw, 6% nh mixed
Kodiak 53% nhw, 20% Asian, 13% Native, 7% Hispanic, 7% nh mixed
Lake & Peninsula 66% Native, 23% White, 8% Mixed
Bristol Bay 48% White, 34% Native, 13% Mixed
Aleutians East 36% Asian, 28% Native, 14% nhw, 12% Hispanic, 7% Black
Aleutians West 31% White, 29% Asian, 15% Native, 13% Hispanic, 6% Black
Dillingham 72% Native, 18% White, 7% Mixed
Bethel 83% Native, 11% White
Wade Hampton 95% Native (no urban place of any size here)
Nome 76% Native, 16% White, 6% Mixed
NW Arctic 81% Native, 11% White
North Slope 54% Native, 32% White, 5% Mixed

Mixed race populations in rural areas are almost entirely mixed Native/White (and the few exceptions are usually Native/Black or Native/Asian rather than White/Asian or other combos). In the cities, Native/White tends to be a narrowish majority of the mixed race population.

Census results for Kodiak and the Aleutians should be treated with the utmost caution. They include a transient, mostly Filipino population present only for salmon canning season. Similarly, all those North Slope extra Whites are highly paid seasonal oil field workers who for some reason showed up on the Census this year but not ten years ago. North Slope has 2000 more census inhabitants than NW Arctic but nearly identical numbers of registered voters and votes cast.

[minionofmidas]

All I know how to do is to take screenshots, and to use clean (or in this case cleanish but a quick search didn't turn up anywhere better, most maps still lacking Skagway and Wrangell) basemaps and color in the fields with the underrated Microsoft Paint, with the colors from the Atlas Master Key.

realisticidealist is doing stuff with ArcGIS that I've no idea how to do.

[minionofmidas]

Skagway has been commented, the others are really mixed rather than White areas.

I'll really need to take a closer look at these Aleutian East places by precinct some time.

Unalaska is a navy and fisheries place and accounts for three quarters of the census population of Aleutians West, but IIRC closer one half or so of the vote. Obama won it, but his margin came from the Pribilof Islands, where people voted in person on election day and are Natives.

[minionofmidas]

Alaska has only a handful of early voting locations, located in populated parts, but which stock ballots for all districts. So the bush districts have just a couple of early votes each, presumably cast mostly by people now residing in the cities but still registered back home.

I'd imagine that fair number of those bush district votes are done by people who are in town for other reasons and decide to take care of voting rather than having to make a trip to their polling place on election day.

That too - although most of those that actually have to take a trip to their polling place - and they exist, oh yes they do. For an extreme example, Aleutians 1 precinct officially consists of all the island chain west of Unalaska. Several of these islands are populated, and they're far apart. Most bush settlements of any size whatsoever have a precinct of their own, however, especially in the Native part - vote by mail anyways.

[minionofmidas]

That's awesome Lewis! Do you have the borough results for 2008 as well?

Not using the same formula, but

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=88046.0

[minionofmidas]

Salmon canners. Africans, not Afro-Americans.