(MAP) 2016 Presidential Primary Electorate by County - Done-ish!

[Adam Griffin]

I'll probably do KS & MN by CD in the next day or two. NV, IA & ME are impossible, though. Obviously states where both parties haven't had their elections yet are not colored, either, and some others may remain blank due to the fact that comparing a primary for one party to a caucus for the other party - held on separate days - will produce irrelevant comparisons.

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[Wiz in Wis]

Well, that explains why Bernie did as well as he did in OK. Lots of residual Dems there who aren't really dems. Also explains NC to a degree.

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I'm surprised how unsurprising this map is, actually. OK is interesting, but everything else seems to be weirdly exact.

[Boston Bread]

I'm surprised how unsurprising this map is, actually. OK is interesting, but everything else seems to be weirdly exact.

Miami Dade maybe? >60% Obama. Maybe the Cubans overwhelmingly vote in the GOP primary.

[ElectionsGuy]

Pretty much all the areas that Sanders won in the south are either liberal bastions or areas with lots of ancestral conservative Democrats.

Miami Dade was a combination of Rubio and traditional Republican strength among Cubans (likely to swing D with Trump in the general). I also love Foard County, TX, over 70% Romney in 2012 and yet almost all registered voters are Democrats there.

Great map Adam.

[Tender Branson]

Nice.

BTW, the total votes cast so far:

GOP contests: 20.4 million (57.5%)
DEM contests: 15.0 million (42.5%)

[/]

Nice.

BTW, the total votes cast so far:

GOP contests: 20.4 million (57.5%)
DEM contests: 15.0 million (42.5%)

EVERYONE BE PREPARED FOR A 58% GOP GENERAL ELECTION WIN

IT'S INEVITABLE

[Adam Griffin]

I'm surprised how unsurprising this map is, actually. OK is interesting, but everything else seems to be weirdly exact.

There's actually a lot of variance when it comes to percentages...I cringed at my home state; half of the Black Belt disappeared and most counties in the Deep South saw their D %s (compared to Obama 2012 share of the vote) underperform by 10-15 points.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Awesome! 

[Meclazine for Israel]

Can you explain what we are actually looking at and how it was calculated. I am a little electorally-challenged to understand this map without explanation.

[Adam Griffin]

Can you explain what we are actually looking at and how it was calculated. I am a little electorally-challenged to understand this map without explanation.

Random County:
# of D Primary Voters: 1,596
# of R Primary Voters: 1,194
Total Primary Voters: 2,790

D % of Primary Vote: 57.2% (1,596/2,790)
R % of Primary Vote: 42.8% (1,194/2,790)

County is shaded with "D >55%" color

[Crumpets]

I started a Clinton vs. Trump only map a while back but gave up on it. Maybe I'll try to finish it to compare.

[Lyin' Steve]

I will never understand Oklahoma.  What is wrong with that state?

[Joe Republic]

My best guess for the low turnout on the Dem side is that so many people figured Hillary was a shoo-in from the start, so why bother to vote in the primaries?  That's actually the case with [anecdote alert!] two people I know who didn't show up to caucus because they had assumed Hillary was essentially the presumptive nominee, despite polls showing NV to have become a toss-up, and the national race polling much closer than when candidacies were first announced.  Real voters don't pay attention to things like that.

That of course also explains why Bernie has done so relatively well.  His voters were never complacent.

[IceSpear]

My best guess for the low turnout on the Dem side is that so many people figured Hillary was a shoo-in from the start, so why bother to vote in the primaries?  That's actually the case with [anecdote alert!] two people I know who didn't show up to caucus because they had assumed Hillary was essentially the presumptive nominee, despite polls showing NV to have become a toss-up, and the national race polling much closer than when candidacies were first announced.  Real voters don't pay attention to things like that.

That of course also explains why Bernie has done so relatively well.  His voters were never complacent.

There's probably quite a few anti-Hillary people who sat out as well due to coming to the same conclusion. Also the fact that there are/were more choices on the GOP side, which raises turnout for obvious reasons.

[Adam Griffin]

I will never understand Oklahoma.  What is wrong with that state?

There's actually a pretty strong correlation (if you can call it such; not exactly quantifiable) between areas where time has stood most still and having higher numbers of registered Democrats/locally-elected Democrats. It's as if the Republican waves from the 1980s onward never reached their shores at the local/state level. You see it all over the Deep South in terms of otherwise heavily-Republican counties having nearly all or all of their local officeholders as Democrats...because Democrats have held those positions since dirt was made. Most Southern states don't have party registration, though, so you don't immediately see it. However, when you map out county-level offices in places like Mississippi, South Carolina and even Georgia (all maps in non-Atlas colors), and then compare them to national election results, it's insane.



In states with party registration (and especially if the primaries are closed), the overall trend is reinforced even more so. Some of it is laziness when it comes to updating affiliation, but there's something else to it as well. More registered Democrats means more of those candidates for office continue to run for election/re-election as Democrats; everybody knows that the real election for local (and sometimes state) offices is in the Democratic primary; Bubbas remain registered as Democrats so they can select their local officials; candidates for office continue to run for election/re-election as Democrats...I explained this phenomenon in great detail a few months ago:

If the Democratic Party brand is so irrevocably broken in the rural South, then why do Democrats still do well at the county level in states like Mississippi?  I think Griff is largely right with his analysis to some extent concerning blind hatred for the Dems, but I do find it odd that many of those folks still vote Democratic at some level, leading me to think that Democrats could revive in those parts at some point.

The power of incumbency is a terribly mighty thing to behold. A lot of these office-holders have been in office for decades (keep in mind that for a variety of reasons, a lot of Deep South Dems in decades past would get elected to office at shockingly young ages); they're "good people" and everybody knows them. At the local level with regard to state parties, you're dealing with a "every man for himself" sort of situation with respect to political party organization and operation in the Deep South, which is seeded with far too many counties. These areas were never competitive, and the "breakthrough" or dominance at the state level for the Republican Party in many cases has only occurred in the past 10 years or so. Resources haven't flowed in here, and because time largely stands still, a compounding series of events prevents Republicans from doing well.

Think about it this way (putting it in quotes so it's condensed in size):

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What do you think is going to happen in that situation by default? The same thing that has always happened.

Though I will say (and there are literally hundreds of examples around the South), there have been and will come times where a series of factors line up perfectly: a GOP county party gets organized, outside assistance begins to come in to some degree, a slate of good candidates are recruited to run as Republicans, and the collective voter hive-mind suddenly snaps and realizes that the Dem primary doesn't have to be the general election. In almost every case where that series of factors has occurred, the Dems are almost or universally purged from local elected office within a matter of 2-4 years (excluding the ones who negotiate with the GOP to defect to save their hides).

[Meclazine for Israel]

Thanks President Griffin.

[Mr. Morden]

My best guess for the low turnout on the Dem side is that so many people figured Hillary was a shoo-in from the start, so why bother to vote in the primaries?  That's actually the case with [anecdote alert!] two people I know who didn't show up to caucus because they had assumed Hillary was essentially the presumptive nominee, despite polls showing NV to have become a toss-up, and the national race polling much closer than when candidacies were first announced.  Real voters don't pay attention to things like that.

That of course also explains why Bernie has done so relatively well.  His voters were never complacent.

It's not just that.  There's also the fact that a larger fraction of Democratic primary voters say they'd be OK if either candidate was nominated.  Whereas on the GOP side, there are more people who like their own candidate, but dislike the others.  With Trump being especially polarizing of course.

[Adam Griffin]

My best guess for the low turnout on the Dem side is that so many people figured Hillary was a shoo-in from the start, so why bother to vote in the primaries?  That's actually the case with [anecdote alert!] two people I know who didn't show up to caucus because they had assumed Hillary was essentially the presumptive nominee, despite polls showing NV to have become a toss-up, and the national race polling much closer than when candidacies were first announced.  Real voters don't pay attention to things like that.

That of course also explains why Bernie has done so relatively well.  His voters were never complacent.

It's not just that.  There's also the fact that a larger fraction of Democratic primary voters say they'd be OK if either candidate was nominated.  Whereas on the GOP side, there are more people who like their own candidate, but dislike the others.  With Trump being especially polarizing of course.

It, like many questions asked in polling, depends on context. As the exit polls from Tuesday showed, half of Sanders supporters and half of Clinton supporters would be "dissatisfied" if the other won the nomination.

[catographer]

Oddly the map looks a bit like 2000 Bush v Gore. Eastern Oklahoma is more Democratic, Gore was weak in the black belt but did better in white Louisiana and Arkansas.

[Mr. Morden]

My best guess for the low turnout on the Dem side is that so many people figured Hillary was a shoo-in from the start, so why bother to vote in the primaries?  That's actually the case with [anecdote alert!] two people I know who didn't show up to caucus because they had assumed Hillary was essentially the presumptive nominee, despite polls showing NV to have become a toss-up, and the national race polling much closer than when candidacies were first announced.  Real voters don't pay attention to things like that.

That of course also explains why Bernie has done so relatively well.  His voters were never complacent.

It's not just that.  There's also the fact that a larger fraction of Democratic primary voters say they'd be OK if either candidate was nominated.  Whereas on the GOP side, there are more people who like their own candidate, but dislike the others.  With Trump being especially polarizing of course.

It, like many questions asked in polling, depends on context. As the exit polls from Tuesday showed, half of Sanders supporters and half of Clinton supporters would be "dissatisfied" if the other won the nomination.

Ah, but since it's a 2-person race and Clinton is leading, half of Sanders supporters being dissatisfied with Clinton as nominee (with ~0% of her own supporters being dissatisfied with her as the nominee) means that less than 25% of the party would be dissatisfied with her.  On the other side, more than a third of Republican primary voters on Tuesday said that they'd not only be dissatisfied with Trump as nominee, but would consider voting third party.

Not just Trump, but this year's GOP field in general is historically unpopular among members of their own party.  Nate Silver gives a table in this story:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republican-voters-kind-of-hate-all-their-choices/

showing "satisfaction" numbers for Republicans in the exit polls taken through Super Tuesday.

[Hydera]

Pretty much all the areas that Sanders won in the south are either liberal bastions or areas with lots of ancestral conservative Democrats.

Miami Dade was a combination of Rubio and traditional Republican strength among Cubans (likely to swing D with Trump in the general). I also love Foard County, TX, over 70% Romney in 2012 and yet almost all registered voters are Democrats there.

Great map Adam.

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/710191116839161858

Lots of protest votes in areas with a lot of conservative democrats.



Also in Oklahoma, trump's greatest base of support was in the same area where democrat votes outnumbered GOP primary votes in the city.



Had Oklahoma and those other primary states been an Open Primary on the GOP side then those counties where dem votes outnumbered GOP votes would of been far lesser had conservadems been able to vent by voting for trump.

[jimrtex]

I also love Foard County, TX, over 70% Romney in 2012 and yet almost all registered voters are Democrats there.

In Texas, primaries are administered by county parties. If a county does not have a party chair it doesn't have a primary. Since party candidates for county office file with the county chair, they can't file if there is no party chair, and since there is no primary in the county, they can't be nominated.

As a result, in many counties all candidates file as members of one party. At one time, this party was the Democratic Party. Over time, as the Republicans elected presidents, senators, and governors statewide, there was no reason to switch. The Republican primaries were not contested in the way that the Democratic primaries were. You could vote for Eisenhower, Reagan, Tower, Gramm, Clements, Bush, or Perry in November, and still vote for your county sheriff in the spring.

Rick Perry who hails from Haskell County, two counties south of Foard claims he had never met a Republican until he went away to college. He was elected as a Democrat to the legislature, switching to the Republican Party to run for Ag Commissioner.

As congressional and legislative seats flipped, a Democrat would find themselves excluded from voting on more and more races. Sometimes all the office holders would switch parties, and the Republicans would start holding primaries. As there have been more interesting primaries for the Republicans voters would vote Republican.

In 2014, 132 counties were 90% or more Republican, and 23 had no Democratic primary.

Starting in 2014 a state party chair could request the county clerk to conduct a primary for statewide offices if there was no county chair. In 2014, it was permissive, so the Democratic chair would make a request, and the county clerk who was probably a Republican, could say "no". This year it was mandatory, so there were Democratic primaries for statewide contests in all 254 counties (in Armstrong County, there were 775 Republicans and 5 Democrats).

In 2014, there were 42 counties with Democratic majority participation in the primary, 27 of these were along the border and 15 were not. 11 counties away from the border flipped to the GOP: Caldwell, Calhoun, Crosby, Fisher, Kent, Loving, Morris, Newton, Robertson, Stonewall, and Upton. These were quite scattered, so it was mainly local reasons that they were still voting Democratic. In some of these counties, the GOP vote was up by a factor of 3 or 4 driven by the presidential primary (Texas doesn't have a senate race, so the only other statewide races are for the Railroad Commission and the two statewide courts. The four holdouts were Crockett, Foard, Karnes, and Travis. Jefferson switched from Republican to Democratic.

In Foard County, there were (at least) 310 Democratic voters. Only 233 voted for president, and 41 if those voted for someone other than Clinton or Sanders (and O'Malley finished tied for 5th with Star Locke, far behind Willie Wilson and Keith Judd.

Based on 310 voters it was:

Sanders 36%
Clinton 26%
Other 13%
Undervote 25%

So, many Republicans simply skipped the presidential race, or may have voted in an ironic way, or perhaps even to sabotage the Democrats. It is possible some voted in "the" primary and then found that they could not vote for Cruz or Trump (once you are handed a ballot, you are stuck).

I don't know how many voted in the county races, but in Texas, the primaries have ballot propositions. They supposedly would be placed in party platforms. In theory, there is an initiative, but I don't think anyone ever has done one. The typical proposition gets more than 90% of the vote. In Foard County, they typically got about 20-30% fewer Yes votes.

Rural Foard County is a part of Texas the boom bypassed

[Adam Griffin]

Updated in time for tomorrow!

[MT Treasurer]

Tennessee might very well be Clinton's worst state in the South this year.