Oregon 2016 GE Pres Results

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #32- Grant County--- Pop 7.4k--- MHI $35.1k/Yr



Grant County ever since the first European settlers moved in shortly after Oregon became a State, has always predominately been a County based upon Natural Resource production.



Starting with the Mining boom of 1862 when Gold was struck at Whiskey flats, to the 160 acre homesteads established by Ranchers over the subsequent three decades, and later the commercialization of Timber Production in the Mid 1900s with a large quantity of Ponderosa Pine within the County, have shaped the social, economic, and political landscape of the County.

As was the case in much of rural Eastern Oregon, historically the Democratic Populist/Progressive Movement tended to resonate quite well during election season, while the Republican Party tended to dominate the cities and farming regions of the Central and Northern Willamette Valley.

Still, even then it was a slightly Republican leaning County compared to others in the region, but Kennedy and and Carter only lost by 8% in '60 and '76 respectively. Even in '84 Mondale captured 33% of the vote here, which is actually pretty impressive, considering what Dem Pres candidates received these days.

Here is the historical graph of Grant County votes for Pres by Party:



So let's look at the County level numbers from 1980 to 2016 to see recent trends.



What really stands out here is 2000 was the peak of Republican Pres support in the County, and it appears to be incrementally slipping.... to be fair, it does appear that Democratic support has been slipping as well since '08, and although Obama was definitely not an ideal Democratic candidate out here, he did manage to keep Republican numbers down to barely over 70%.

What is interesting here, is that it is also one of the few counties in Oregon that has actually experienced a significant decline in population over the past 10-15 years, so how many of these changes are a result of natural death/birth numbers, net out-migration of younger folks and net in-migration of others....

So, what does the population data and demographics say about Grant County?

Age: 25% (65+ Yrs), 35% (60+ Yrs), 44% (55+ Years). Millennials (18-35) account for only 14% of the population.
Race/Ethnicity: 92.8% White, 3.1% Latino, 3.0% Mixed, 0.6% Other
Ancestry: 26% German, 23% "Unclassified", 17% "Other", 14% English, 14% Irish, 7% "American", 5% Scottish....

This is likely because of the Sheep Ranchers that moved to the area during the "Range Wars" of the 1870s-1890s where Irish, Scottish, and Basque Sheep Ranchers were in armed conflict against Cattle Ranchers for control of "Free Ranging" rights in the County/Region...

Scroll down to slightly halfway through the link, and you will read some pretty interesting history regarding the Range Wars....

http://www.izranch.com/the-pioneers-of-izee

Employment/Food Stamps--- Grant County has one of the highest unemployment rates in Oregon as of December '16, somewhere between 6-7% unemployed. 20% of the Population are receiving Food Stamps, which is actually a bit high considering the concentration of Seniors in the County.

Occupations: 4.0% Fire Fighting (!), 2.9% Science, 4.2% Farming, 6.6% Facilities, 1.1% Law Enforcement, 6.1% Construction, 13.7% Management

Industries: 1.9% Oil/Gas/Mining, 16.0% Agriculture, 2.9% Utilities, 7.7% Government, 9.5% Hospitality

So here you see the impact of farming and other resource-based industries.... When I see counties like this, "Management" tends to heavily be dominated by individuals that own their own farms/ranches, since for all intents and purposes we are talking about small business owners running their own joint.

Again, as mentioned elsewhere, Agriculture as an industry also includes forestry and fishing, although realistically these days it is much more likely to be tied to ranching, since the last Mill in the County was on the verge of shutting down in '09, and might well be gone today.

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

66% of the County is owned by the Federal Government, and various environmental restrictions related to harvesting Timber on Public land have shifted production to privately owned land (Of which there is much less in many parts of Eastern Oregon than Western Oregon). Meanwhile we have major issues in Grant County with both Forest Fires and Insect Infestations, and although generally both environmentalists and resource dependent communities agree that this is a major issue, we lost six Mills in the County in just the past 20 years, and the only ones that appear to understand the issue are Democratic Senators from Oregon, and Republican Greg Walden from CD-02.

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

Education: 10.5% < HS Degree, 59.2% HS Diploma, 30.3% (Greater than HS Degree).... Of the total population 21% has a Bachelors Degree or higher.

So---- let's pull a few graphs of historical results by County for US-SEN and OR-GOV, before I flip to the next page...

US SENATE: Grant County



So interestingly enough, Dem results have been upticking, and Wyden performed the best a Democrat has done in Grant County Oregon, since his election in 2004.

Now, why has Wyden been able to exceed any Democratic Presidential election results since 1996 in Grant County?

Merkley in 2014 captured 32.8% in '14, achieving a 27% swing here between '08 and '16.

It appears that Dems running for US Senate, are getting close to capable of achieving Dukakis level numbers in Grant, and that despite the County having become overwhelmingly 'Pub at the Pres level, that "Liberal Democrats" are actually improving, since they are addressing the immediate concerns of their constituents, in a County that has only recently become overhwelmingly Republican at a Presidential Level.

OR-GOV: GRANT County



OR-GOV results exhibit a remarkable consistency, that I have commented elsewhere on regarding "Upstate" and "Downstate" voting patterns....


Next Stop.... precinct data from Grant County.

[Keep cool-idge]

Oregon County Update #32- Grant County--- Pop 7.4k--- MHI $35.1k/Yr



Grant County ever since the first European settlers moved in shortly after Oregon became a State, has always predominately been a County based upon Natural Resource production.



Starting with the Mining boom of 1862 when Gold was struck at Whiskey flats, to the 160 acre homesteads established by Ranchers over the subsequent three decades, and later the commercialization of Timber Production in the Mid 1900s with a large quantity of Ponderosa Pine within the County, have shaped the social, economic, and political landscape of the County.

As was the case in much of rural Eastern Oregon, historically the Democratic Populist/Progressive Movement tended to resonate quite well during election season, while the Republican Party tended to dominate the cities and farming regions of the Central and Northern Willamette Valley.

Still, even then it was a slightly Republican leaning County compared to others in the region, but Kennedy and and Carter only lost by 8% in '60 and '76 respectively. Even in '84 Mondale captured 33% of the vote here, which is actually pretty impressive, considering what Dem Pres candidates received these days.

Here is the historical graph of Grant County votes for Pres by Party:



So let's look at the County level numbers from 1980 to 2016 to see recent trends.



What really stands out here is 2000 was the peak of Republican Pres support in the County, and it appears to be incrementally slipping.... to be fair, it does appear that Democratic support has been slipping as well since '08, and although Obama was definitely not an ideal Democratic candidate out here, he did manage to keep Republican numbers down to barely over 70%.

What is interesting here, is that it is also one of the few counties in Oregon that has actually experienced a significant decline in population over the past 10-15 years, so how many of these changes are a result of natural death/birth numbers, net out-migration of younger folks and net in-migration of others....

So, what does the population data and demographics say about Grant County?

Age: 25% (65+ Yrs), 35% (60+ Yrs), 44% (55+ Years). Millennials (18-35) account for only 14% of the population.
Race/Ethnicity: 92.8% White, 3.1% Latino, 3.0% Mixed, 0.6% Other
Ancestry: 26% German, 23% "Unclassified", 17% "Other", 14% English, 14% Irish, 7% "American", 5% Scottish....

This is likely because of the Sheep Ranchers that moved to the area during the "Range Wars" of the 1870s-1890s where Irish, Scottish, and Basque Sheep Ranchers were in armed conflict against Cattle Ranchers for control of "Free Ranging" rights in the County/Region...

Scroll down to slightly halfway through the link, and you will read some pretty interesting history regarding the Range Wars....

http://www.izranch.com/the-pioneers-of-izee

Employment/Food Stamps--- Grant County has one of the highest unemployment rates in Oregon as of December '16, somewhere between 6-7% unemployed. 20% of the Population are receiving Food Stamps, which is actually a bit high considering the concentration of Seniors in the County.

Occupations: 4.0% Fire Fighting (!), 2.9% Science, 4.2% Farming, 6.6% Facilities, 1.1% Law Enforcement, 6.1% Construction, 13.7% Management

Industries: 1.9% Oil/Gas/Mining, 16.0% Agriculture, 2.9% Utilities, 7.7% Government, 9.5% Hospitality

So here you see the impact of farming and other resource-based industries.... When I see counties like this, "Management" tends to heavily be dominated by individuals that own their own farms/ranches, since for all intents and purposes we are talking about small business owners running their own joint.

Again, as mentioned elsewhere, Agriculture as an industry also includes forestry and fishing, although realistically these days it is much more likely to be tied to ranching, since the last Mill in the County was on the verge of shutting down in '09, and might well be gone today.

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

66% of the County is owned by the Federal Government, and various environmental restrictions related to harvesting Timber on Public land have shifted production to privately owned land (Of which there is much less in many parts of Eastern Oregon than Western Oregon). Meanwhile we have major issues in Grant County with both Forest Fires and Insect Infestations, and although generally both environmentalists and resource dependent communities agree that this is a major issue, we lost six Mills in the County in just the past 20 years, and the only ones that appear to understand the issue are Democratic Senators from Oregon, and Republican Greg Walden from CD-02.

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

Education: 10.5% < HS Degree, 59.2% HS Diploma, 30.3% (Greater than HS Degree).... Of the total population 21% has a Bachelors Degree or higher.

So---- let's pull a few graphs of historical results by County for US-SEN and OR-GOV, before I flip to the next page...

US SENATE: Grant County



So interestingly enough, Dem results have been upticking, and Wyden performed the best a Democrat has done in Grant County Oregon, since his election in 2004.

Now, why has Wyden been able to exceed any Democratic Presidential election results since 1996 in Grant County?

Merkley in 2014 captured 32.8% in '14, achieving a 27% swing here between '08 and '16.

It appears that Dems running for US Senate, are getting close to capable of achieving Dukakis level numbers in Grant, and that despite the County having become overwhelmingly 'Pub at the Pres level, that "Liberal Democrats" are actually improving, since they are addressing the immediate concerns of their constituents, in a County that has only recently become overhwelmingly Republican at a Presidential Level.

OR-GOV: GRANT County



OR-GOV results exhibit a remarkable consistency, that I have commented elsewhere on regarding "Upstate" and "Downstate" voting patterns....


Next Stop.... precinct data from Grant County.

Can't wait also my project I'm still wanting to do it just need to finish 😉 And work on lewis

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update #32- Grant County--- Part II

Time to break down the County level numbers by precinct/region within the County.

It's gets a bit tricky because there are no precinct maps publicly available from '00-16, nor precinct maps from 88/02/94. Fortunately, I was able to locate in my collection precinct maps from 1940+ for Grants County, and was able to code precincts accordingly so that we have a fairly reasonable approximation of comparative voting habits between '88 and '16. We have an additional wild card in that Grant County was one of the few Oregon Counties that did not report results by precinct with Absentee voters in '88, but considering that the 15% of the pop the voted absentee were more Democratic than the County average, one should be able to add 1-2% to the Dem % in '88 and subtract the same for the Pub %, and the overall numbers should be about right.

Here is the breakdown of vote by all five precincts as a % of Total in 2016:



Here are results from the five precincts of Grant County...



1.) John Day Valley that accounts for almost 2/3 of the County Vote, and includes all of the "cities" of the County....



As the major population belt of a fairly remote region of the State the areas around here are the closest you have to regional shopping and commercial centers, since most of the County is so far removed from a real Highway...

The largest City within the precinct is John Day, with a Pop of 1.8k.... Jobs here are heavily dominated by Government Jobs, especially Law Enforcement & Fire Fighting (8.5% of Workers in the City!!!)....

Mount Vernon a City of 800 is much more "Non Public Sector Blue Collar", with Food Service, Transportation, Construction, and Production jumping to the top of the list.... Although this wasn't a Precinct that Dukakis won in Grant County in '88, it was his best within the "cities", where he only lost to Bush Sr by 4.1% (Dukakis did better in a few rural precincts)

I could go through a few other areas covered with the John Day Valley, including Canyon City and some various rural areas within the precinct, but because of the precinct consolidation, it will make it harder to break down election numbers Post Precinct shifts.



It is one of the few places in the County that Ross Perot did not win in 1992....

As I noted earlier, it appears to account for the peak of support for George W. in '00, and although Democratic support has not increased since '08, 'Pub support has been static at the Pres level, so it's a bit questionable to what extent to which this key part of the County will move in 2020/2024, although it certainly appears to be roughly a 2:1 Rep precinct in the modern era, if we view '00 as a deviance from the Norm.

So I noted elsewhere that Mount Vernon was the most Democratic precinct in '88 within this region, and if we troll through the precincts we see Canyon City being the most 'Pub area, with Bush Sr grabbing 63.5% of the Vote and hitting 65% in the rural "John Day Valley" precinct.

If we look at '92 we see Clinton's best precinct being John Day # 3 (South- 42.7% D), the Pubs best precincts being John Day # 2 & 7 (North and West 44-45% Pub), and Perot's best precinct being both rural parts of the modern precinct, as well as Canyon City and Mount Vernon.

Although, generally Perot performed remarkably well within the County, he didn't actually win most precincts within this current precinct, although he placed 2nd in most.... 44.7% Perot in Mount Vernon is huge, especially considering that this precinct gave Dukakis 46.1% of the vote in '88.... There was an ancestral WWC Democratic rebellion in Oregon that happened decades before DJT, of which Perot was the initial beneficiary.

US SENATE:



So here, you see why Republicans have an issue in US Senate races in Oregon.... These are precisely the types of places where they need to run up the score, unless they can get a Liberal/Moderate 'Pub that can compete in the Portland 'burbs and similar places in downstate Oregon...

However, in fact it appears that these places in downstate Oregon and moving against Republicans at the US Senate level, even as they are swing 'Pub at the Presidential level.



OR GOV:

Ok--- this is fairly typical and boring.... no real change over 20 years. The only thing of interest might be how poorly HRC performed compared to a Democrat running for Governor of Oregon, in a part of the State where Dem Gov candidates always perform much worse than US-PRES/ US-SEN candidates, and even sometimes than CD-02 candidates in a safe Pub CD.....

2.) "Union"---- basically this precinct is overwhelmingly people that live in Prairie City and the surrounding rural areas.



Perhaps more so than many other precincts, there are a higher concentration of individuals connected to "agriculture" in the former of the Timber Industry than elsewhere in the County....

Perot won the precinct, as he did in many other places in Eastern Oregon in '92.



US SEN:

Similar trend, increasing Dem support, and decreasing Rep support....



OR GOV:

Nothing dramatic at all here, pretty static.



3.) North Fork---- Northwest Grant County



One of the oldest and Whitest Parts of the County (51% 55+), 94% White, is also one of the most Democratic Precincts in the County....

Much of this likely is connected to a larger than average concentration of scientists and individuals with higher level degrees that are employed around the John Day Fossil Beds and Monument Oregon area....

Still, it is a myth to assume that simply because individuals have higher levels of academic background, that it automatically turns scientists into Democrats. Reality is that many "knowledge sector workers" tend to vote Republican, and tend to be older, Whiter, and more Male than the national average....

Additionally, the types of scientists most likely to relocate to remote parts of the Mountain West, tend to come from more traditionally Conservative Academic disciplines and frequently "self-gravitate" towards regional areas where they have a greater cultural affinity.

US PRES:

So one of the few precincts that Dukakis almost won in '88, and Clinton '92 and Obama '08 did a bit better than elsewhere in the County....Perot won here, as he did in most precincts in the County in '92.



US SEN:

Meanwhile Dem candidates for US Senate are hitting close to 40% consistently, and Pub numbers dropped to 51% in '16....



OR GOV:

Meanwhile there is a huge swing towards the 'Pub GOV in '16, that can't be solely explained by a Democratic defection to the Left... Even though Trump lost votes compared to Romney '12 here, it looks like many of these voters rejected Kate Brown as Gov for various reasons...



4.) South Fork



This has historically been one of the most Republican precincts in the County, and is a bit more "ranching" country than "timber". The days of the range wars between the German and English Cattle Ranchers versus the Irish/Scottish/Basque Sheep ranchers that involved mass murder of rival livestock herds in the County where barbed wire wasn't common, and the "right to roam" and graze livestock on public lands was considered common law.


US PRES:



US SEN:

So even in ranching Country, Dems can pull out almost 40% of the vote in '16 in an overwhelmingly Trump precinct?



OR GOV:

Once again, no surprise how well 'Pubs perform in heavily agriculture regions in OR-GOV elections.... static numbers



5.) Long Creek Valley



Basically the most Republican precinct in the County, heavily ranching country...

US PRES:



US SEN:



OR GOV:

[The Govanah Jake]

Glad you finally covered such a remote county like Grant is.

[NOVA Green]

Glad you finally covered such a remote county like Grant is.

There are quite a few remote counties such as Grant in Oregon, but yes it is true that Grant is perhaps one of most off the beaten path (Unless there is a "Totality" event of the solar eclipse, although that being said John Day is not an obscure reference to many Oregonians, including some of my work buddies that like to hunt and fish, not to mention a ton of other outdoor stuff....

I was actually surprised at how complicated Grant County was, even after I had converted the various election results into a spreadsheet format, and then having to go back and manually recode, set up my autosum formulas on the various columns of all of these worksheets....

Was definitely not a walk in the park....

There are a few reasons why many counties in SE Oregon were left for last, but one of the main inhibitors was that it took longer to obtain certain precinct level data, as well as the. problematic issue of trying to translate precinct data over 10 year redistricting cycles.

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0



So as part of my exercise in going back and updating some of the earliest posts on the thread, and those needing the most rework, as well as including additional data sets in the collection, we will now revisit Columbia County.

Here are the links to my two previous posts regarding Columbia County, so for the sake of redundancy, I will avoid repeating myself here, but strongly suggest going back and giving a brief read-through, since there are tons of interesting information and context, in a County that flipped to the Republican Party having voted Democratic for every election since 1932.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252085.msg5417454#msg5417454

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252085.msg5421432#msg5421432

For anyone interested in the subject, I would also strongly recommend checking out the works of James Allen, who has published some pretty cool work on the Political Geography of Oregon.

Here's a link to his excellent Columbia County post on another Forum....

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/26/1550192/-Oregon-Political-Geography-Columbia-County

Ok--- brief synopsis of Columbia County.... a rare example of WWC County heavily rural and small town in nature that has long been a Democratic stronghold at the Presidential level, and until somewhat recently out-performed Democratic Party support compared to Oregon as a whole in both US-SEN and OR-GOV election.



US Census Data:

Pop: 49.3k
Age: 15% 65+, 30% 55+, 18% 18-34, 23% <18 (!!!),
MHI: $55.0k/Yr (20% Households > $100k/Yr,  29% < $30k/Yr, 40% < $40k/Yr)
Race/Ethnicity: 89.9% White, 4.2% Latino, 3.0% Mixed, 1.5% Other (Native), 1.0% Asian, 0.2% Black.
Employment: 52.2% 25-64 Yrs Employed
Food Stamps: 18.1%
Relative Occupations: 5.6% Repair, 5.9% Transportation, 1.6% Fire Fighting, 6.7% Construction, 1.0% Law Enforcement, 8.4% Production
Relative Industries: 0.3% Oil/Gas/Mining, 1.8% Utilities, 6.3% Transportation, 18.3% Manufacturing, 7.9% Construction.
Education: 27.9% > HS Degree (18% College Degree +), 61.7% HS Degree, 10.4% No HS Diploma

So, y'all get the picture.... the collar is very blue in Columbia County with almost 1/5 jobs directly tied to manufacturing, not to mention various other associated areas like trucking and repair gigs supporting the various manufacturing plants and ports within the county and surrounding area.

What is extremely interesting is the % of the population that is under the age of 18, since obviously this will be the next generation of voters in the County, and these numbers are much higher than I would have expected....

Ok--- so how has Columbia County voted over the past 100 years???



So, when I refer to Columbia County as a classic New Deal Democratic County, the chart above shows that to be the case, where Dems would barely hit 30% prior to FDR, and then suddenly they are clocking 60-70% for FDR, Truman even almost hits 60%, General Eisenhower even narrowly loses in '52, as does Nixon in '72 and Reagan in '84....

Here's another graph from a more recent historical period....



Very interesting.... so starting in 1980 Dems are struggling to get 50% of the Pres Vote, with John Anderson performing very well in Oregon, including Columbia County. Anderson voters roughly split 50-50 in '84 and Mondale wins. In '88 and the aftermath of the Reagan Recession still being felt in Mill towns throughout Oregon, Dukakis achieves the highest level of support for a Democratic Pres candidate in the past 36 years. Look at '92 and Perot does well in the County, as he did in much of Oregon, but Dem numbers still remain at about 50% through '04. Still it's pretty clear that the surge of support for 'Pub Pres nominees was between '92 and '04, likely heavily a result of the politics of Timber in Oregon. Still Obama in '08 achieves the 2nd highest level of support for a Dem Pres nominee since '80, and manages to mitigate dramatic swings in '12.

What happened in '16???  There was a relatively marginal increase in the 'Pub Pres vote, but still less than 50% of the Total Vote (TV), and support for 3rd Party Candidates surges to their highest level since Perot.

At this point, I am still extremely skeptical about Columbia County going through a complete realignment at the Presidential level, considering the unique circumstances of the '16 Pres race.

US SENATE:



So several interesting takeaways here.... Dem US SEN numbers have remained relatively flat since '92, with the exception of the spike in '04. Meanwhile look at the 'Pub trends since '08, and the decrease of support over four election cycles. Now, look at the support for 3rd Party Candidates, especially in '14 and '16, where these votes are to the Left of Wyden and Merkley respectively.

OR GOV:



So here's where you really start to see the decline of Democratic support in Columbia County... Starting in '10 'Pubs started to win the vote at the County level, and even if we roll back in time Dems have had difficulty capturing 50% in the County, even when they were winning the Gubernatorial Vote... I have mentioned "Upstate-Downstate" Oregon voting patterns before, and these types of patterns are not unusual, especially in a State with an extremely weak political party structure compared to most other states in the Union.

Although overall numbers were pretty static, once you start seeing the swings that happened in '10 at the Gubernatorial level, made many of us wonder, at what point might Columbia vote 'Pub at the Presidential level?

Now--- the Voting Population of Columbia County is becoming increasingly connected to the Cities of the County between '88 and '16, that have the highest population growth rate in places like St Helens and Scappoose, which we will get to in the next installment.

Interestingly enough the Rural parts of Columbia County tended to be more Democratic than the Cities until fairly recently (We'll get to that topic a bit later).

Now, one must wonder to what extent the significant increase in the "Rural Vote Share" within the County between '12 and '16 were voters that went Obama '08/ didn't vote in '12, and came out to vote Trump '16? IDK, the answer yet, but something that I will look at once we get to rural parts of the County....



Next stop, rolling through some of the individual cities/towns/rural areas....

[Keep cool-idge]

Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0



So as part of my exercise in going back and updating some of the earliest posts on the thread, and those needing the most rework, as well as including additional data sets in the collection, we will now revisit Columbia County.

Here are the links to my two previous posts regarding Columbia County, so for the sake of redundancy, I will avoid repeating myself here, but strongly suggest going back and giving a brief read-through, since there are tons of interesting information and context, in a County that flipped to the Republican Party having voted Democratic for every election since 1932.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252085.msg5417454#msg5417454

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=252085.msg5421432#msg5421432

For anyone interested in the subject, I would also strongly recommend checking out the works of James Allen, who has published some pretty cool work on the Political Geography of Oregon.

Here's a link to his excellent Columbia County post on another Forum....

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/26/1550192/-Oregon-Political-Geography-Columbia-County

Ok--- brief synopsis of Columbia County.... a rare example of WWC County heavily rural and small town in nature that has long been a Democratic stronghold at the Presidential level, and until somewhat recently out-performed Democratic Party support compared to Oregon as a whole in both US-SEN and OR-GOV election.



US Census Data:

Pop: 49.3k
Age: 15% 65+, 30% 55+, 18% 18-34, 23% <18 (!!!),
MHI: $55.0k/Yr (20% Households > $100k/Yr,  29% < $30k/Yr, 40% < $40k/Yr)
Race/Ethnicity: 89.9% White, 4.2% Latino, 3.0% Mixed, 1.5% Other (Native), 1.0% Asian, 0.2% Black.
Employment: 52.2% 25-64 Yrs Employed
Food Stamps: 18.1%
Relative Occupations: 5.6% Repair, 5.9% Transportation, 1.6% Fire Fighting, 6.7% Construction, 1.0% Law Enforcement, 8.4% Production
Relative Industries: 0.3% Oil/Gas/Mining, 1.8% Utilities, 6.3% Transportation, 18.3% Manufacturing, 7.9% Construction.
Education: 27.9% > HS Degree (18% College Degree +), 61.7% HS Degree, 10.4% No HS Diploma

So, y'all get the picture.... the collar is very blue in Columbia County with almost 1/5 jobs directly tied to manufacturing, not to mention various other associated areas like trucking and repair gigs supporting the various manufacturing plants and ports within the county and surrounding area.

What is extremely interesting is the % of the population that is under the age of 18, since obviously this will be the next generation of voters in the County, and these numbers are much higher than I would have expected....

Ok--- so how has Columbia County voted over the past 100 years???



So, when I refer to Columbia County as a classic New Deal Democratic County, the chart above shows that to be the case, where Dems would barely hit 30% prior to FDR, and then suddenly they are clocking 60-70% for FDR, Truman even almost hits 60%, General Eisenhower even narrowly loses in '52, as does Nixon in '72 and Reagan in '84....

Here's another graph from a more recent historical period....



Very interesting.... so starting in 1980 Dems are struggling to get 50% of the Pres Vote, with John Anderson performing very well in Oregon, including Columbia County. Anderson voters roughly split 50-50 in '84 and Mondale wins. In '88 and the aftermath of the Reagan Recession still being felt in Mill towns throughout Oregon, Dukakis achieves the highest level of support for a Democratic Pres candidate in the past 36 years. Look at '92 and Perot does well in the County, as he did in much of Oregon, but Dem numbers still remain at about 50% through '04. Still it's pretty clear that the surge of support for 'Pub Pres nominees was between '92 and '04, likely heavily a result of the politics of Timber in Oregon. Still Obama in '08 achieves the 2nd highest level of support for a Dem Pres nominee since '80, and manages to mitigate dramatic swings in '12.

What happened in '16???  There was a relatively marginal increase in the 'Pub Pres vote, but still less than 50% of the Total Vote (TV), and support for 3rd Party Candidates surges to their highest level since Perot.

At this point, I am still extremely skeptical about Columbia County going through a complete realignment at the Presidential level, considering the unique circumstances of the '16 Pres race.

US SENATE:



So several interesting takeaways here.... Dem US SEN numbers have remained relatively flat since '92, with the exception of the spike in '04. Meanwhile look at the 'Pub trends since '08, and the decrease of support over four election cycles. Now, look at the support for 3rd Party Candidates, especially in '14 and '16, where these votes are to the Left of Wyden and Merkley respectively.

OR GOV:



So here's where you really start to see the decline of Democratic support in Columbia County... Starting in '10 'Pubs started to win the vote at the County level, and even if we roll back in time Dems have had difficulty capturing 50% in the County, even when they were winning the Gubernatorial Vote... I have mentioned "Upstate-Downstate" Oregon voting patterns before, and these types of patterns are not unusual, especially in a State with an extremely weak political party structure compared to most other states in the Union.

Although overall numbers were pretty static, once you start seeing the swings that happened in '10 at the Gubernatorial level, made many of us wonder, at what point might Columbia vote 'Pub at the Presidential level?

Now--- the Voting Population of Columbia County is becoming increasingly connected to the Cities of the County between '88 and '16, that have the highest population growth rate in places like St Helens and Scappoose, which we will get to in the next installment.

Interestingly enough the Rural parts of Columbia County tended to be more Democratic than the Cities until fairly recently (We'll get to that topic a bit later).

Now, one must wonder to what extent the significant increase in the "Rural Vote Share" within the County between '12 and '16 were voters that went Obama '08/ didn't vote in '12, and came out to vote Trump '16? IDK, the answer yet, but something that I will look at once we get to rural parts of the County....



Next stop, rolling through some of the individual cities/towns/rural areas....

I get the feeling that Columbia is going to be a swing county for the next 2-5 elections then go the way of coos county
While Cowlitz is going to go solidly republican in 4-8 years.

[NOVA Green]

Based on what exactly?

We haven't even gotten to the cities yet in Columbia County, especially St Helens and Scappoose which is really where most of the population growth rate is occurring.

Not only that, the County overall has been moving increasingly Democratic at the US Senatorial level, and has generally been a "Swing County" for 'Pubs at the OR-GOV level.

Not saying you are wrong about Columbia being a "swing county"  at a PRES level, but precisely where the 'Pubs have been gaining votes are in the Rural areas (That used to be more Democratic than the cities/towns). The unknown are the largest cities, and even in the smaller communities and rural areas the question is really how much of this change is a result of older ancestral Democrats passing away, to be replaced by individuals that were "Reagan Democrats" back in '80/'84, and much younger back then....

The other item to note, is that the '16 Trump/Clinton election was a bit unique at a PRES level, especially in a County so dependent on Timber related employment. Trump "promised" Oregonians at a campaign rally in Eugene back in May '16 that he would bring Timber jobs back to Oregon.

Although it was generally ignored in the National Media ('Pub Primary over Cruz/Kasich drop out right before), it was still heavily covered in statewide media, especially in Timber dependent regions of Oregon.

Meanwhile, HRC in many of these same communities is associated with her husband Bill Clinton, that in many parts of Oregon was seen as not addressing the very real crisis that folks in "Timber Country" (Basically most of Oregon outside of Metro Portland) were facing.

One of the big dividing lines was about exporting raw logs from our forests overseas, so that they could be milled in Asia, while meanwhile we have insane unemployment levels in communities throughout my State.

This was one item that united all Oregonians...  What happened in '08, as a result of the Bush Jr recession, created another round of Mill closures, including of a permanent nature.

Many voters in these communities that voted for Obama in '08 and/or '12 felt that he would help bring desperately needed support so that small town schools wouldn't close and people could pay the mortgage on their house.

Unfortunately, all too many resource dependent communities in Oregon have been abandoned by both Democrats and Republicans alike at a Presidential level for three decades.

Now, although I'm not an expert on Washington politics, I have spent a bit of time in Cowlitz County,  especially in the Longview-Kelso area (50% of County Vote), and if anything it actually might well be  more likely to swing back harder towards the Dems than Columbia County....

Longview-Kelso is a Labor Union stronghold, and although there is a close connection between Columbia and Cowlitz Counties historically, geographically, and politically, honestly Cowlitz is more likely to shift back to a "Lean D" column than Columbia in the Post-Trump Republican era, mainly because of the rural/City splits as a % of Pop between these two counties.

Photo below is a snippet of a massive Labor Demonstration only a few years back in Longview when one of Port Owners tried to bring scab workers to replace Longshore workers on a West Coast Port.

[Keep cool-idge]

Based on what exactly?

We haven't even gotten to the cities yet in Columbia County, especially St Helens and Scappoose which is really where most of the population growth rate is occurring.

Not only that, the County overall has been moving increasingly Democratic at the US Senatorial level, and has generally been a "Swing County" for 'Pubs at the OR-GOV level.

Not saying you are wrong about Columbia being a "swing county"  at a PRES level, but precisely where the 'Pubs have been gaining votes are in the Rural areas (That used to be more Democratic than the cities/towns). The unknown are the largest cities, and even in the smaller communities and rural areas the question is really how much of this change is a result of older ancestral Democrats passing away, to be replaced by individuals that were "Reagan Democrats" back in '80/'84, and much younger back then....

The other item to note, is that the '16 Trump/Clinton election was a bit unique at a PRES level, especially in a County so dependent on Timber related employment. Trump "promised" Oregonians at a campaign rally in Eugene back in May '16 that he would bring Timber jobs back to Oregon.

Although it was generally ignored in the National Media ('Pub Primary over Cruz/Kasich drop out right before), it was still heavily covered in statewide media, especially in Timber dependent regions of Oregon.

Meanwhile, HRC in many of these same communities is associated with her husband Bill Clinton, that in many parts of Oregon was seen as not addressing the very real crisis that folks in "Timber Country" (Basically most of Oregon outside of Metro Portland) were facing.

One of the big dividing lines was about exporting raw logs from our forests overseas, so that they could be milled in Asia, while meanwhile we have insane unemployment levels in communities throughout my State.

This was one item that united all Oregonians...  What happened in '08, as a result of the Bush Jr recession, created another round of Mill closures, including of a permanent nature.

Many voters in these communities that voted for Obama in '08 and/or '12 felt that he would help bring desperately needed support so that small town schools wouldn't close and people could pay the mortgage on their house.

Unfortunately, all too many resource dependent communities in Oregon have been abandoned by both Democrats and Republicans alike at a Presidential level for three decades.

Now, although I'm not an expert on Washington politics, I have spent a bit of time in Cowlitz County,  especially in the Longview-Kelso area (50% of County Vote), and if anything it actually might well be  more likely to swing back harder towards the Dems than Columbia County....

Longview-Kelso is a Labor Union stronghold, and although there is a close connection between Columbia and Cowlitz Counties historically, geographically, and politically, honestly Cowlitz is more likely to shift back to a "Lean D" column than Columbia in the Post-Trump Republican era, mainly because of the rural/City splits as a % of Pop between these two counties.

Photo below is a snippet of a massive Labor Demonstration only a few years back in Longview when one of Port Owners tried to bring scab workers to replace Longshore workers on a West Coast Port.

Yikes that protest looks nasty.
Okay just very briefly going through the **** it's looks like Longview barely voted Clinton while kelso voted for trump by a decent margin of 12 points.
As for Columbia county you are probably right.
In my view if the dems are to win these voters back I think Joe Biden would be the strongest candidate Bernie and john bel Edwards are strong as well.

[NOVA Green]

[/quote]
Yikes that protest looks nasty.
Okay just very briefly going through the **** it's looks like Longview barely voted Clinton while kelso voted for trump by a decent margin of 12 points.
As for Columbia county you are probably right.
In my view if the dems are to win these voters back I think Joe Biden would be the strongest candidate Bernie and john bel Edwards are strong as well.
[/quote]

Unfortunately that photo was one of few easily available "free photos" on the internet, and like many other media photos tries to capture dramatic moments that tend to be more appealing to a Media narrative where certain types of conflict "sells papers", and in the more recent days of the internet sells clickbaits.

Reality is that the Union ILWU members in Longview/Kelso weren't rioting nor demonstrating against their fellow Union Workers (Police Officers).

Some 3,000 ILWU members stood up in Longview to prevent a Non-Union dock terminal opening up on the West Coast, that would have created a precedent for the various Banks and Investors that own the Ports of the West Coast, to basically completely destroy the power of the Union by using low paid "scab" replacement employees getting paid crap wages and benefits in violation of preexisting agreements with the various owners of the Port of Longview.

Had that dam cracked, basically Port owners and operators throughout the entire West Coast would have destroyed the Labor movement from Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Coos Bay, SF, Oakland, LA, Long Beach, San Diego (Forgetting a few there).

http://www.ilwu.org/longview-prepares-for-the-long-haul/

Now, one could definitely make a strong argument that some dramatic swings in the Wheat producing regions of Oregon/Washington as well as many farmers that have a significant business on exports of Ag products from the PacNW, swung heavily against the Dem Party in '16 because of the strike in Longview.

Additionally, one might well argue that the lack of action on the part of Democratic President Obama, might well have really drilled some nails into the coffin because of the lack of support for a key Labor Union action on the West Coast docks, while he was shifting towards the '12 Pres GE.

If a "Progressive Democrat" isn't going to fight hard for the Unions, and the standard 'Pub nominees are just like the same "Bosses of Old", why wouldn't there be both a huge defection to the Left in terms of 3rd Party voters, not to mention the appeal of a 'Pub Pres like Trump that at least initially rhetorically appeared to mention some of the complaints that Industrial Unions have been talking about since the '80s in the Pacific Northwest?

Meanwhile the Dem nominee has the last name Clinton, that has a strong negative correlation in both Timber producing regions of the PacNW, as well as among Industrial Workers outside of the large Metro areas of Oregon and Washington, that were arguably Perot's best regions in general within the region.

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0- Part II

Before I start going into individual cities and rural precincts, let's take a look at the changing distribution of voting patterns within the County. By that, I mean that you have what has demographically been a predominately rural county, where increasingly a majority of voters within the county reside with the "Cities and Towns" within the County.

So one item that I haven't really addressed systematically is the increasing concentration of the population of Oregon with "cities" vs rural areas, and how that is impacting, and will continue to impact voting patterns in Oregon over the upcoming decades.

Here is a graph that shows the shifts in the voting population in Columbia County over the past 30 years. As one can clearly observe, the County has moved from roughly 44% of voters in Cities and 56% in Rural areas back in '88/'92, to 46/54% in '00, and almost 50-50% in '08/'12, to 52/48 in '16.



Much of this is a result, as elsewhere in the State, as a direct result of Oregon's Land Use planning laws enacted back in '69/'73 that makes it extremely difficult to develop on rural properties outside of "Urban Growth Boundaries". The law backed by the Republican Governor and many Republicans in the State legislature was in response to massive population growth increases in the State, driven by out of State residents, and essentially protect rural farming and timber properties turning into a Californication type of urban sprawl.

Regardless of the individual merits of the concept and potential impacts when it comes to affordable housing in many fast growing parts of Oregon outside of Metro PDX, it still has had a major impact in terms of concentrating population growth within the various incorporated cities in Oregon.

Now, although Columbia County hasn't really had a dramatic contrast between Cities/Towns and Rural areas in terms of voting patterns, we are starting to observe an interesting gap emerging between the voting patterns within Cities and Rural areas....

Also, it must be noted that much of the population growth rate is occurring in two Cities, St Helens long a Democratic stronghold that has been gradually shifting purple, and Scappoose which was more of a Republican leaning City that has been increasingly moving Democratic as one of the few parts of County that is really feasible as an Exurban commuting City into Metro Portland (Don't believe the US Census Bureau hype about Columbia being part of "Metro Portland, that is anything but the case.

So, we have seen the growing power of smaller cities and towns in what has been a fairly rural county, so what have the voting patterns between Cities and Rural parts of the County been over the years?

Let's look at US Presidential Election results by "Urban" and "Rural" parts of Columbia...



So, here you see that the Cities of Columbia County as a whole have tended to be Democratic until 2016.... In fact Ross Perot placed 2nd after Bill Clinton in '92!

Obama in '08 actually came close to matching Dukakis % numbers in the cities, and although Trump performed the best that a 'Pub Pres nominee has come since '84, he still bagged well below 50% of the vote.

Still, even though it looks like the  Dem drop between '12 and '16 was mostly voters defecting to 3rd Party voters, 47% is nothing to sneeze at for a 'Pub candidate and it looks like roughly 4% of the Voters switched from Obama '12 > Trump '16 accounting for 8% of the Swing in the Cities.

The actual proportion of Obama '12/ Trump '16 voters might well be higher, considering the population growth rate within the cities of the County.

Anyway you look at it, the Cities went from 56-41 D in '08 to 52-43 D in '12 to 39-47 R in '16 for a +23% Rep swing between '08/'16, so there are definitely a significant amount of Obama/Trump voters within the mix, regardless of natural population growth within the County, as well as net immigration into the County from other States or counties in Oregon.

As I believe I have mentioned before, I am still skeptical about the long-term longevity of Republican support within the Cities of Columbia County and the 47% support for Trump in '16 is likely a high-water mark (No Harvey pun intended) for a 'Pub Pres candidate within the County against just about any Dem candidate without the last name Clinton.

So, how did Rural Columbia County vote over the past 30 years at the PRES level?



So interestingly enough, the Rural precincts in the County aren't actually that much more Republican than the Cities at a Presidential level.... 'Pubs tend to roughly perform about 3% better and Dems about 3% worse in Rural areas.

Still, it is actually a relative new phenomenon that rural areas have tended to vote a bit more 'Pub than the County at large...

Dukakis/Bush in '88 was almost even with right around 57/41 D-R split in both Cities and Rural precincts....Perot '92 did slightly better in rural areas bagging about 30% of the vote about 2% higher than the cities and it looks like most of that came from Dukakis '88 voters. We start to see a real shift in '00 where the cities vote 51-43 D and rural areas 47-45 D. By the time we hit '08 Obama is winning the cities 56/41 and rural areas 53/44. In '16 we get the first time since '84 where a Republican managed to capture over 50% of the vote in either cities or rural areas, where Trump managed to capture 52% of the vote.

Point being that even in rural precincts in the County that flipped for Trump, he still had a relatively lukewarm base of support to start with, and thus far hasn't likely done much as President to maintain or increase his support level among rural residents of Columbia County. Still, we'll get into all of that a little later once we roll through a more detailed review of rural precincts and parts of the County.

Now---- how have the Urban/Rural areas voted when it comes to US-SEN elections over the years?

Let's start with the Cities of the County....



So here the trend lines appear clear.... just as Democratic support has been decreasing for US-PRES, OR-SEN Dems are moving upwards...

Merkley won by +5% in the cities of the County in '08 (48-43 D) and in '14 by +13% (52-39 D). Wyden romped by +16% (56-40 D) in '10 and only by +15% in '16 (51-36 D) with most of the defections coming from the Left.

Rural Columbia US Senate results....



So again, we see relatively little gap between Urban/Rural precincts with 'Pubs performing about 2-3% better and the Dems 2-3% worse than in the Cities/Towns of the County....

Merkley narrowly lost Rural Columbia in '08 by 0.4% (45-46 R) and won it 8% in '14 (49-41 D). Meanwhile Wyden is cruzing to victory in '10 (53-43 D) and drops down on only an 8% margin in '16 (49-41 D) with again a significant defection to the Left.

So it's pretty clear that in both the cities and rural areas of the County, Dems can still win by 7-10% points at the US Senate level, and not only are outperforming Dem Pres candidates, but are actually performing reverse trending on certain down-ballot races!

What's going on with OR-GOV election results in the Cities/Rural parts of the County?

Cities:



So here it's pretty clear that Democratic support in the Cities started to really collapse in the late '00s.... Dems were able to hold onto about 50-52% of the vote in '94 and '06, keeping the 'Pubs to under 40%. By the time we hit '10 cities in the County (46-50 R). Margins are relatively similar in '14 and '16 with only a about a 3% spread with Dems capturing about 44/45% and 'Pubs around 47/48%.

This should have given local Dems in Columbia a giant wake up call, once the cities narrowly flipped for OR-GOV elections that the County had moved from a solidly Democratic County to a purple toss-up county....

What about Rural Columbia County for OR-GOV?



So here we see even more of a negative trendline for Dem Govs and more positive for 'Pub candidates....

Dems won Rural areas by about 3% in '94 and '06 with the 'Pubs capturing 42/43% of the Vote.

Move to '10 suddenly rural areas are going about 40-43% D with 'Pubs pretty consistent at about 52%, well over the Goal Line....

Still it should be noted how relatively strong Democratic at a Gubernatorial Level of support continues to be in Rural Columbia, especially when compared with many other parts of rural Oregon.

Rural areas are now starting to roll about 5% more 'Pub than the Cities at a US-SEN and OR-GOV level, and even more so at a Presidential level.

Still, lest any of my 'Pub friends on Atlas get too excited since 'Pubs max vote share in Columbia has been about 52% in only rural areas for only two elections (US-PRES '16 and OR-GOV '16).

I still believe that Columbia County is basically now a tossup-county at the Pres level, Lean Rep at the Gubernatorial level, and solidly Dem at the US-SEN and US-REP level.

Next stop detailed City precinct level data for Columbia, and then after that trying to dissect the more complicated breakdown of Rural Columbia which still accounts for almost 50% of the County Vote,

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0- Part III- Cities

Before I start going into details about the various cities and towns within Columbia County, I want to reinforce a point that I made in Part II about the relatively fast changing population distribution patterns within the County.

Here is a chart that shows the % of the total voting population by location in Columbia County between 1988 and 2016.




Only two places in the County have seen their share of the total vote within the County increase over the past ~30 years, Scappoose and St Helens, and to a lesser extent Columbia City, which is basically a neighbor of St Helens.

Although the main loss of vote share has been in Rural Columbia, it is also important to note that there has been a decline or stagnant growth in three smaller towns, that traditionally been a bit more Republican as far as the cities of Columbia County.

St Helens, which has always been one of the most Democratic places in the County, has seen it's voting share increase from about 19% in '88/'92/'00, and then suddenly started to grow significantly hitting 22-23% of the County voting share in '08-'16.

Scappoose has seen larger and more sustained population growth, jumping from 9.3% of the County Vote in '88 to 13.8% in '16.

These trends are part of the reason that I am a bit skeptical about how sustainable the recent support for Republican Presidents candidates are within the County, and suspect that the 2016 massive swing towards Trump may have been a deviation from the norm rather than a permanent realignment. It is also important to consider the high % of the population of the County that is <18, and where they are concentrated, since this will obviously become an important component of the political geography of the County over the next 10 years.

It is possible that the reason for the gradual drift of Columbia County towards the Republican Party has been because The Greatest Generation, that fought in WWII and/or worked in the defense plants and sprawling industrial military infrastructure that stretched all the way along the Columbia River to Portland and Vancouver, are gradually passing away. In an overwhelmingly FDR New Deal County, such as Columbia, one would imagine this would disproportionately impact the Democratic Party in a negative direction, as their generation has become increasingly supplanted by the Baby Boom generation that was much less Democratic within Columbia County....

Time to take a look at the Cities of the County....

Here is a map of Columbia County for your reference....




1.) St Helens- Pop 13.0k- MHI $ 50.2k- (22.8% of County Vote in '16)



Location for the scary Disney kids flick Halloweentown back in the late '80s , the City has long been dominated by skilled industrial workers at the Port of St. Helens, various paper/pulp Mills, a major fertilizer plant (Dyno-Corp), specialized metal fabrication for the auto industry, as well as ceiling tiles mfg plant, not to mention being the regional commercial shopping city, and the seat of County Government. Tourism is a relatively new addition, because of the relatively close proximity to Metro Portland.

I won't completely repeat my v 1.0 version of Columbia County, but to briefly recap the loss of 300 jobs at the Boise Cascade pulp & paper mill, directly attributed to unfair trade practices from China, during the Great Recession hit the City hard. When people wonder why Oregon that in theory benefits more from Global Trade than many other parts of the US in terms of our statewide exports to overseas markets, they are neglecting to consider the fact that certain industries have been especially hard hit, including the paper & pulp and timber mills. It always pains me to see our forests being destroyed while raw logs are getting shipped overseas rather than being processed in our factories and mills in Oregon and Washington.

Rant aside----

http://tdn.com/business/local/boise-inc-to-cut-jobs-at-st-helens-paper-mill/article_2e7c66ee-b87c-50d1-9587-750ec230384c.html

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/04/oregons_largest_fertilizer_pla.html

Meanwhile you have a denial of a massive energy project from an Australian MNC that would have added some jobs to the Port of St Helens....

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/judge-upholds-oregon-denial-of-coal-terminal-permit/

Ok--- What are the Social Demographics of St Helens?

Age: 10% (65+), 21% (55+), 27% (<18), 10% (18-25), 26% (18-35)
Race/Ethnicity: 85% (White), 6.5% (Latino), 4.5% (Mixed), 2.3% (Other), 1.3% (Asian)

Now if we look at the intersection of age and ethnicity the Anglo % of the Pop is well over 90% for 55+, drops down a few notches for the 35-54 age bracket, slightly less for Millennials, and then only about 79% Anglo for voters <18....

Employment Status: 25-64: 54.9% Employed
Food Stamps: 29.4% on SNAP

Relative Occupations: 7.0% Repair, 5.4% Health Care Support, 1.4% Law Enforcement, 6.6% Construction, 2.0% Health Techs, 18.5% Administrative, 4.7% Transportation, 5.6% Personal Care, 6.5% Production.

Relative Industries: 0.5% Oil/Gas/Mining, 5.9% Transportation, 8.2% Construction, 5.5% Finance/Insurance, 18.3% Health Care, 13.4% Manufacturing, 13.9% Retail

Education of 25+ Yr Pop: 25.2% (Higher than HS Diploma, 17% Four Yr Degree or Higher), 61.6% HS Diploma, 13.2% no HS Diploma

Ok--- so the data basically reinforces the general profile of the City that I laid out earlier in this post, but also helps fill in some data points when it comes to how will St Helens vote in the future?

On that note, let's take a look at US PRES results from '88-16 in the City....

As part of a new experiment on my V 2.0 results decided to add another graphical representation, involving an Excel Embed, but still plan on keeping the charts as well. Not sure about y'all but tons of dry graphic text is harder to read than a spreadsheet, but still adds more detail than simply a graph, so plan on keeping both going forward.



Ok--- what does it look like in a Graph format?



So looking at the data from St Helens 'Pub Pres numbers have generally hovered around the 40% mark between '00 and '12. The outlier is clearly 2016 where there was a 20.9% R swing, and 'Pubs flipped at least 5% of the total voters in the City, regardless of the massive defection to the Left on the part of many other Democratic Party Pres voters, to bag an impressive 47% of the Vote in the largest City within the County and one of the few population growth areas....

Was 2016 an exception or a deviance from the norm?  However it's pretty clear that there are a ton of voters in the City that will likely comprise a majority of voters in '20 against either a "Generic Republican" or "Trump '20".

Needless to say since St Helens accounts for roughly 1/4 voters in the County, if '16 was an exception, and Trump only drops 1-2% of his '16 voters, St Helens will like revert to more like a
53-43 D City in '20, and the County swings will be visible based upon this one City.

How has St Helens been voting for US-SEN?



Let's look at in a graphical format....



So here's the trippy gig--- 'Pub Senators are plunging in support in the City, meanwhile as Dems appear to be growing in popularity, even as the county flipped to Trump in '16....

What complicates it even further, is the significant defection to the Left against Wyden that included many individuals that voted HRC/DJT/LBT/GRN/Bernie Write-Ins....

To accentuate that point, that I briefly referenced elsewhere on the thread, Wyden was running against the following people in the OR-SEN-'16 GE...

https://ballotpedia.org/Steven_Cody_Reynolds_(Oregon)

He captured 5% of the vote in St Helens for US SEN as a former candidate under the Progressive and Pacific Green Party banner in OR CD-01 in '14.... in '12 he also ran for the same office under a united Libertarian/Progressive/Green coalition.

Additionally, you have Shanti Lewallen running for US-SEN as the Working Families Party candidate in '16. She captured about 4% of the vote in St Helens....

https://ballotpedia.org/Shanti_Lewallen

Meanwhile the Greens captured 2% of the Vote....

https://ballotpedia.org/Eric_Navickas

By my count that is about 11% of voters in St Helens that voted for Left-Wing candidates in the US-SEN GE, that obviously includes both a significant number of registered 3rd Party Voters and Indies, but also an extremely significant % of registered Dems, as well as a healthy chunk of Registered 'Pubs and even quite a few Trump voters thrown into the mix.

Interesting stuff, and it appears to belie the argument that Columbia County is swing hard 'Pub at a sustained level for US-National offices, considering that 'Pubs have been struggling hard to capture over 1/3 votes for US-SEN, and in both '10 and '16 most of the 3rd Party Votes were to the Left of Wyden...

What about OR-GOV results from St Helens?



Now let's look at in a graph format....



So here we see St Helens gradually slipping away from supporting Dem candidates for OR-GOV over the years.... This is perhaps not totally surprising considering the traditional Oregon "Upstate/Downstate" deal that I mentioned multiple times elsewhere, and traditionally OR-GOV candidates tend to under-perform significantly in rural areas, small towns, etc in downstate Oregon, not to mention significant drops in support in places like the suburbs of PDX, and various Cities in the Willamette Valley...

Although we can't totally interpret the tea-leaves and bird entrails for US-PRES elections based solely upon a Statewide race, it does appear that the Democratic "floor" in St Helens tends to run around 45-48% typically, and the 'Pub ceiling around 47-48%....

Make of that what you will, but at this point DJT stands out as the major outlier in terms of Republican performance within the City compared to any other office examined over recent elections.

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0- Part IV- Cities

2.) Scappoose- Pop 6.7k- MHI $ 57.2k- (13.8% of County Vote in '16)



Scappoose is the 2nd largest City within Columbia County, and as mentioned previously the fastest growing part of the County, a pattern that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Much of the growth has been driven (No pun intended) by it's increasing role as a bedroom community for those willing to undertake what is arguably one of the worst commutes in Metro Portland in exchange for cheaper housing.

Almost 80% of residents in the City commute out of county for work, with roughly 40% driving into Multnomah County, 20% to Washington County, and 7% to Clackamas County.

Despite it's increasing status as a commuter city, much of the workforce still has relatively blue collar characteristics, although there is a growing component of specialized professional workers in White Collar occupations that reside within the City, so it doesn't really fit the profile of an Upper-Middle Class exurban commuting town, unlike some other parts of Metro PDX.

What do the Social Demographics of the City look like?

Age: 15% (65+), 25% (55+), 18% (18-34), 30% (35-54) 27% (0-17)
Race/Ethnicity: 86.6% (White), 6.1% (Latino), 3.1% (Mixed), 2.3% (Asian), 1.9% (Other)

Note: If we look at age/ethnicity we see only a relatively small % of the 35+ population coming from minority backgrounds, and we start to see that percentage jump significantly among Millennial voters, and even more so among the 0-17 age range.

Employment Status: 55.1% 25-64 Year olds employed
Food Stamps: 11.4% on SNAP

Relative Occupations: 1.6% Law Enforcement, 6.5% Transportation, 9.9% Production, 3.4% Engineering, 1.5% Legal, 5.8% Construction, 6.1% Business, 1.3% Fire Fighting, 3.0% Material Mvmt, 12.9% Sales, 3.1% Computers and Math, 1.7% Health Techs

Relative Industries: 3.6% Utilities, 0.3% Oil/Gas/Mining, 23.4% Manufacturing, 6.6% Transportation, 3.8% Wholesalers, 5.7% Gvt, 6.6% Construction

So here you can see the occupational/industrial profile that I described earlier with an astounding 23% of the workforce employed in the manufacturing industry regardless of if they work in one of the factories in Scappoose or down the road in Columbia County, or commute down the Intel plant in Hillsboro or other Tech companies in Silicon Forest, or the Industrial Manufacturing zone of Northwest Portland, etc...

We do have about 15% of the workforce in specialized professional occupations such as Legal, Business, Science/Math, or Computers, with a significant proportion of these likely commuters to Metro PDX as well.

Education: 33% (> HS Diploma, 21% with a 4+ Yr Degree or higher), 58.1% (HS Diploma > Some College), 8.6% No HS Diploma

So although the City is slightly more educated than the County as a whole in terms of % of the Pop with a Bachelor or higher, it is less so than Oregon as a whole and Metro PDX. The presence of a significant component of the population with 2 year vocational degrees, also highlights the Blue Collar nature of the workforce, particularly for manufacturing and industrial type industries and occupations.

Time to take a look at voting patterns within Scappoose...



Now for a graphical format:



Ok--- here's what I'm talking about when it comes to discussions about the future of Dem/Pub support for US PRES candidates in Columbia County....

The fastest growing City is increasingly moving Democratic, and is now emerging as the most Democratic City within the County.

'Pub support levels have basically dropped from around 44/45% in '88/'00 to 42/43% in '12/'16.

Although there was a significant swing towards the 'Pubs in '16, this was essentially only because of a collapse in the Democratic Vote share towards 3rd Party candidates, and no real net % increase for Trump.

Roughly 6% of the City voted Green or wrote in Bernie, and the Libertarian ticket took the highest vote share of any City/Town within the County capturing 7.7%.

To put it simply Scappoose is a place where typically we should expect to see Dem Pres candidates winning by 10-15% in more typical Pres elections moving forward, especially as the City continues to grow with Millennial voters moving into Scappoose from elsewhere in Metro, as most of Metro PDX becomes an unaffordable place to buy a house as a first time homeowner.

It is important to note, and an overlooked fact that in the larger Metro areas of Oregon within the Willamette Valley (Portland, Salem, Albany, Eugene, Springfield), Trump did not perform especially well among WWC blue collar voters. Almost all of the swing were voters defecting from the Dems to 3rd Party candidates, rather than a net gain in 'Pub support.

Scappoose appears to exhibit similar characteristics....

Slight side note, St Helens might well also start to shift back over the next decade for similar reasons, but only 28% of the population commutes to work in Metro PDX versus 70% (!!!) of Scappoose.

What's going on with US Senate results?



Graphical format:



So here we see even more vividly the solidification of Dem support within the City...

Dem's have basically been winning US-SEN races by 10-20% margins since '08, with the closest one being in '08 when Merkley unseated Moderate incumbent 'Pub Gordon Smith in a nail biter statewide election.

'Pubs haven't captured above 40% of the vote since '08 and the trend-lines keep getting worse, especially considering the 9% of the City that voted for the Left in '16 for US-SEN.

OR-GOV:





So here perhaps is where we see a potential silver lining for Republicans.... although the City has become increasingly Democratic at the US-PRES and US-SEN level, it has remained stagnant at the OR-GOV level, with 'Pubs narrowly winning the past three elections, albeit by small and decreasing margins.... The Dem vote share appears to be stuck at around 45/46% with only small incremental gains whereas Pub voting numbers have decreased significantly between '10 and '16.

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0- Part V- Cities

Now that we have covered the 37% of County Voters in the only real population growth areas of the County, time to take a look at some of the smaller cities/towns within Columbia County that collectively account for an additional 15% of the total County Vote.

3.) Columbia City- Pop 2.3k- MHI $ 67.2k- (4.8% of County Vote in '16)

The third largest population Center in the County, and pretty much the only other place in the County that has seen a significant increase in vote share between '88-'16, with much of that happening between '88 and '00 versus '00-'16.



Basically a Sister City of St Helens only a Mile away, it sits directly along the Columbia River, with some pretty cool River views, as opposed to St Helens, where most of the population lives a Mile or so Inland. Needless to say, this means that the population tends to skew a bit older and wealthier than most of the rest of the County, and has the highest MHI of any place within Columbia County.

Although this is one of the few Cities in Western Oregon that I haven't been to, next time I'm driving Highway-30 towards Astoria, I'll probably make a Pit Stop here to check out the River views and do some Cargo Ship spotting, which has become a bit of a hobby anywhere that I visit along the Columbia River....

Let's roll the demographics....

Age: 19% (65+), 35% (55+), 26% (35-64), 16% (18-34), 22% (0-17)
Race/Ethnicity: 95.4% (White), 2.9% (Latino), 1.0% (Mixed)

So looking at the intersection of age/ethnicity the City is overwhelmingly White, even among the youngest age brackets where Latinos are probably about 10% of the 0-14 Year Population.

Employment Status: 53.0% (25-64 Yrs Employed)
Food Stamps: 12.6% SNAP benefits

Relative Occupations: 3.1% Fire Fighting, 4.4% Engineering,  8.5% Construction, 3.8% Social Svcs, 5.1% Repair, 3.8% Material Mvmt, 2.0% Health Techs, 18.6% Administrative, 8.3% Production

Relative Industries: 8.5% Construction, 17.0% Manufacturing, 1,2% Utilities, 4.6% Transportation, 11.2% Education, 5.7% Gvt, 2.4% Information, 4.9% Administrative

So if we look at the relative occupations and industries among the working age population in the City, we see a much higher concentration of workers tied to jobs that tend to pay a bit better, and most likely are individuals that have had a few decades to climb the ladder within their various public/private sector jobs.

Education: 32.3% (> HS Diploma, 24.1% Bachelors or Higher), 61.8% (HS Diploma > Some College), 5.9% (No HS Diploma)

Columbia City has long been a place for decades where those working and living within the County and moved into relatively decently paying careers eventually buy a home with a view, after decades of working in WWC occupations and industries.... A bit more educated than many parts of the County, and although the population is almost as White as a sheet, with tons of locals wearing collars cut in Blue, the locals aren't cut from the same cloth as Trump.

Rant aside, time to roll some numbers....

Chart:



Graph:



So, what do these numbers show? Basically the wealthiest place in the County for decades that Dukakis only narrowly won by 2% in '88 in a Democratic landslide in Columbia County, essentially shifted to being a +10% Dem City '00-'12.

The '16 'Pub numbers stand out in particular, not because of the margins/swings, but because a 'Pub Pres candidate was able to bag almost 47% of the Vote.... We aren't talking about a place in Oregon where there was a much greater swing towards the Pub '12 nominee than the '16 nominee (Which appears to be a bit more common among similar communities....we are talking about 3% of the voters that went Obama in '12 voting for DJT in '16, regardless of 3rd Party defections to the Left with unpopular HRC raising the Democratic Banner in the '16 GE.

Still overall, with 4% going Green/Bernie as well as the 6% that voted Libertarian, Columbia City looks like a marginal Democratic town for US-PRES come 2020...

So here's something I have been saying for awhile, is that the MSM and Atlas obsession with a fictitious stereotype of WWC voters has ignored the direct correlation between age/ethnicity. The common definition of a WWC voter in '16 was focused so much on educational attainment levels, and paid little attention to greater variable such as Age, at a time where the Greatest Generation is being gradually supplanted by Baby Boomers in the 65+ demographic.

Let's move on to US-SEN results....

Chart:



Graph:



Ok--- maybe I'm totally off the mark here, but it sure as hell looks like Columbia City has been shifting hard "D" over recent election cycles, and 'Pub vote share have dropped every election since '92.

Putting it simply, Merkley only won Oregon by 50k votes in '08 and outperformed his Statewide margins in what is essentially an Upper Middle-Class Blue Collar and aging community...

Dems look like they are winning this demographic by 20% for US-SEN, regardless of how people vote at the Presidential level.

OR-GOV:

Chart:



Graph:



So--- here is a classic example of "Upstate" vs "Downstate" Oregon politics that I have talked about many times before.... Dem support has been gradually ebbing away for Gubernatorial Elections, even as it has generally increased for US-PRES ('16 aside here) and US-SEN elections....

This is yet another example of why OR-GOV elections still frequently tend to be close....

Still it is noteworthy that the Oldest City in the County has been consistently the most Democratic City in Oregon Gubernatorial Elections, and just flipped in '16.

Instead of risking a timeout or character limit error will create a new Post to move to the next City....

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0- Part VI- Cities

4.) Vernonia- Pop 2.1k- MHI $ 57.8k- (4.1% of County Vote in '16)



Here's a self-quote from my earliest post on Columbia County and the City and Vernonia....

Once the home of one of the most modern and largest timber processing mills in the United States, that virtually eliminated all of the Old Growth in the Northern Oregon Coast range between 1930 and 1960, it is now a small town that still relies on logging (>120 jobs directly tied to about five small family owned logging companies based in town). As was typical of many small towns and rural communities that relied primarily on logging during the days of Timber Wars of the late '80s and early '90s, it swung Republican, while many of the Mill Towns continue to remain reliably Democratic.

So, we get the picture... still at a town of ~4k is a major commercial center as well for much of SW Columbia Co, in a relatively remote location where it's a hell of a drive to go shopping elsewhere within the County/Region.

Vernonia got hit hard with massive flooding in '07, for the second time in ten years, that not only included a heavy rain event, but also may well have been exacerbated by Forest Management practices going back to the '50s/'60s in the surrounding Forests, in an area which is essentially a small River Valley surrounded on three sides.

Demographics:

Age: 18% (65+), 29% (55+), 29% (35-54), 22% (18-34), 21% (0-17)
Race/Ethnicity: 94.5% (White), 3.6% (Latino), 1.7% (Mixed)

Employment Status: 50.9% (25-64 Yrs Working)
Food Stamps: 15.3% SNAP

Relative Occupations: 2.6% Law Enforcement, 10.6% Construction, 4.9% Engineering, 3.0% Health Techs, 10.7% Production, 1.7% Fire Fighting, 14.0% Management, 4.6% Transportation,

Relative Industries: 4.7% Utilities, 7.7% Finance/Insurance, 20.2% Manufacturing, 6.0% Transportation, 9.7% Construction, 6.6% Government

So, Vernonia has basically become a community with a large chunk of the working age population that commutes long hours to work in various other parts of the County and elsewhere to work Factory and Construction jobs...  Meanwhile you have an interesting phenomenon where now 14% of workers identify as "Management". I suspect that this is a mixture of small business owners in Vernonia that might have a relative handful of employees, combined with various individuals that commute remotely to work for Tech companies, and then throw in some other people that do the long commute to work in Hillsboro and elsewhere, not to mention owners of farms in the surrounding region. Not sure exactly why this is such a high % of occupations, but my best guess...

Education: 18.8% (> HS Diploma, with 7.9% of that number with an Associates Degree), 71.0% (HS Diploma/Some College), 10.1% (No HS Diploma)

US Pres Election Results....

Chart:



Graph:




So, here's where one really starts to see an impact at US-PRES results in Columbia County....

Sure it has been one of the more Republican Presidential Cities within the County for awhile, but looking at the respective swings almost gives you whiplash....

Still anyways you look at it, this was solidly Democratic Country in '88, gave one of the highest levels of support to Perot in '92, swings hard against Al Gore and the "Environmentalist Agenda" in '00, turns right back around in '08 for Obama, swings hard against Obama in '12, and then goes crazy about Trump giving him a record high 57% of the vote in '16....

'08 appears to be the deviation from the norm here and typically 'Pubs these days should expect to pick up about +15% for US-PRES elections. Still realistically, looks like 40% is a standard Dem floor in Vernonia and 55% as a 'Pub ceiling....

US SEN CHART:



Graph:




So here see 'Pubs capturing only 44-47% of the vote and Merkley barely lost in '08, as meanwhile increasingly voter shift to the Left in US-SEN elections...

Still a 40% Dem floor in one of the two most 'Pub Cities/Towns isn't a bad deal, considering that most of the collapse in the 'Dem vote came after Bill Clinton supported Environmentalists in the PacNW, albeit with Option 9 that most Environmentalist considered the worst deal possible for Forestry Policy in the region....

The fact that 'Pubs haven't been able to crack 50% of the US-SEN vote since '08 is telling in and of itself.

OR-GOV:





Def not good for Dems at a statewide level, but still capturing 40% of the Vote in arguably the most 'Pub city in Columbia County is still fairly impressive, and the 'Pub GOV candidate did only  capture 54.0% in a City that gave Trump 57% (+30% R at the Pres level), with the 'Pub US-SEN candidate only capturing 46%, while narrowly winning a City that voted hard Left in the '16 US-SEN race.

Still not done with the county--- a few more cities to go and then I'll need to run rural precincts that were consolidated between '12-'16 to try to run a Adam Smith. David Ricardo scene and try to separate my apples from oranges and all that great stuff...

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0- Part VII- Cities

5. Rainier- Pop 1.8k- MHI $ 48.1k/Yr- (3.4% County Vote in '16)



Located right across the Columbia River from Longview, Washington, Rainier is perhaps most well known to Oregonians as the former site of what was the only Nuclear Power plant in the State.

It also happens to be the a City that has one of the only bridges crossing the Columbia between Portland and Astoria on what is essentially a working river corridor.

The Port of Longview with its Union terminals and related trucking and warehousing work are major sources of employment in the area, as well as some large timber Mills.

Demographics:

Age: 17% (65+), 32% (55+), 26% (35-64), 23% (18-34), 19% (0-17)
Race/Ethnicity: 85.6% (White), 4.5% (Other), 3.6% (Black), 3.1% (Mixed), 2.3% (Latino)
Employment Status: 52.5% (25-64 yrs) Employed
Food Stamps: 24.7% SNAP

Relative Occupations: 9.1% Transportation, 2.7% Fire Fighting, 5.9% Material Movement, 4.3% Social Svcs, 10.4% Food Service, 4.7% Repair, 3.2% Farming, 6.1% Construction, 3.8% Computers/Math, 3.2% Health Care Support, 7.6% Production

Relative Industries: 4.2% Utilities, 8.3% Agriculture, 7.1% Transportation, 12.4% Hospitality, 17.8% Manufacturing

Education: 25.2% (> HS Diploma, 19% Bachelors or Higher), 66.5% (HS Diploma), 8.3% (No HS Diploma)

Voting Patterns....



Graph Format:



So here you can see the Democratic Party's issue at the Presidential level in a nutshell. Although Rainier has never been a Democratic stronghold in the same way as St Helens (Which is increasingly being supplanted by Scappoose for that title), it has generally tended to roughly mirror the Countywide voting patterns, and in fact until 2016 voted to the Left of the US as a whole.

The Republican vote share has been inching up as the Dem vote share has been decreasing in a City where Ross Perot beat Bush Senior for 2nd Place in '92.

The 18% vote swing in '16 was one of the largest in the County, and even adjusting for Democratic 3rd Party defection, Trump still was able to win 6% of the total voting population that had backed Obama in '12.

Still, Trump was only able to capture 49.9% of the vote, so it remains to be seen if we will see a bit of a reset in '20 to more of a competitive election within the City.

US SEN:

Chart:



Graph:



Interestingly enough, if there is a political realignment going on it certainly isn't happening at the US-SEN level....

Despite a significant movement towards Trump, Republican support for US-SEN actually decreased between '10 and '16, although as mentioned elsewhere Dem support dropped off the Left.

Merkley increased support by 2-3% between '08 and '14, and 'Pub numbers have been pretty stagnant at 40% for US-SEN since after Gordon Brown was voted out in '08.

OR GOV:

Chart:



Graph:



Ok--- so here's where can see perhaps best the slow shifts in Party support within the City, and part of the reason why I suspect that Rainier will still continue to remain competitive at the Presidential level...

Although Rainier has now flipped from supporting Democratic Gubernatorial candidates to narrowly backing Republican candidates, the margins aren't particularly impressive, especially considering that in "Downstate Oregon", 'Pubs typically tend to outperform their Presidential numbers by at least a few points in general.

At this point I would still rate Rainier as a "Tossup" City at the PRES level, slight 'Pub tilt for OR-GOV, and lean DEM for US-SEN.

6.) Clatskanie- Pop 1.8k- MHI $ 40.5k/Yr- (2.9% of County Pres vote in '16)



Clatskanie is the most remote incorporated City within the County other than Vernonia. Basically separated by physically inhibitors on all four sides, with the Columbia River and no bridge to the North, Mountains to the East and West that can easily shut down Highway 30 during the Winter as a result of snow/ice, landslides, not to mention the thick Winter Fog and heavy rainfall, as well as Mount Clatskanie and the Oregon Coast Range to the South, it tends to have a rugged individualistic streak from the early 1900s when Scandinavian loggers first settled in the region (20% of the population still cites themselves as Norwegian/Finnish/Swedish), to the formation of a People's Utility District during the Great Depression/New Deal, and later into the '50s/'60s mill work at the Stimson Lumber companies mill in town, or one of the mills in the immediate area.

As a Mill town it has also long suffered from the boom/bust cycle of the timber industry, and most recently the Wauna Mill only 15 Miles West of town was just the latest casualty.

To quote myself from v 1.0 of Columbia County:

The closure of the Georgia-Pacific (Owned by the Koch brothers) Wauna Mill near Clatskanie, Oregon caused an estimated layoff of 900 employees, many of them Union members, and as a result of a Federal finding, workers were eligible for additional support due to "shift in production to another country".

http://media.oregonlive.com/mapes/other/OutrageInOregonFinal2.pdf

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/30/263832/-

http://www.camaspostrecord.com/news/2014/apr/01/g-p-mill-navigates-global-local-issues/

Although the Stimson Mill is still around, and the CEO is actually one of the largest campaign contributors to the Republican Party, more recently the City became caught up in another jobs/environment deal involving a Bio-Diesel Plant that was funded with "Green Dollars" from the State, which went bankrupt, and ended up selling it to an Oil Company after several deadly accidents happened right down the railroad tracks....

http://www.opb.org/news/article/oil-train-protesters-block-tracks-to-oregon-shippi/

Demographics:

Age: 18% (65+), 30%(55+), 22% (35-64), 25% (18-34), 25% (0-17)
Race/Ethnicity: 82.1% (White), 9.3% (Latino), 7.5% (Mixed), 1.1% (Other)

Age/Ethnicity: Most Latino City in Columbia County, with particularly high numbers in the 0-10 age range and 20-30 years range. This may well impact the politics of the City over the next 10 years.

Employment Status: 45.3% 25-64 yrs employed
Food Stamps: 26.4% SNAP

So the poorest City in the County with generally the highest unemployment rates, because of lack of economic opportunities and boom/bust nature of Mill Work.

Relative Occupations: 4.3% Fire Fighting, 18.5% Production, 1.9% Law Enforcement, 9.7% Facilities

Relative Industries: 3.2% Utilities, 8.4% Administrative, 4.1% Entertainment, 20.5% Manufacturing, 4.0% Transportation, 14.2% Retail, 10.2% Education

Interestingly enough it looks like Working-Class public sector Union employees like teachers, cops, and firefighters are disproportionately represented, as well as manufacturing workers....

Education: 27.6% (> HS Diploma, 14.2% Bachelors or more), 60.1% HS Diploma, 12.3% No HS Diploma

So, of the six Cities of Columbia County you have the lowest level of educational attainment, especially when you look at the roughly 50-50 breakdown between those with 4 year degrees versus vocational degrees, especially considering that the City really isn't that elderly compared to many other places within Oregon.

Voting Patterns:

US PRES:

Chart:



Graph:



So here's the interesting thing.... although Clatskanie became the 2nd most Republican City in Columbia Co. after the Timber wars of the late '80s/early '90s, it has actually remained fairly competitive at the Pres level through 2012.... Obama matched his national margins in '08 for example, and only narrowly lost to Romney in '12....

Although the 'Pubs received their record number of 53% in '16 with Trump, the actual swings in the City were significantly lower than several other Cities in the County, albeit with a healthy +3% increase in the 'Pub vote share....

Sure, there's no question in my mind that Clatskanie is definitely Lean 'Pub at the Pres level going forward, but if even Gore was able to crack 48% here in '00 and Obama 46% in '12 this isn't landslide territory.

US SEN:

Chart:



Graph:



Here's what I'm talking about--- they backed incumbent 'Pub Gordon Smith against Merkley in '08, flipped in '14 for roughly a 6% D swing, and Wyden actually increased his margins between '10 and '16.

So although it might look like the 'Dems are toast here, ~45% looks like a realistic floor during normal election campaigns for Federal Offices.

OR GOV:

Chart:



Graph:



So another data point.... despite Clatskanie moving into the 'Pub column for US-PRES in '16, increasing support for US-SEN (D) in '16, they also swung back almost 20% for OR-GOV between '14 and '16 (!!!!).

Key question will be at the Pres level was the Trump gig just a deviance from the norm? It doesn't appear that this thus far been a transferable phenomenon.... if Kate Brown can virtually tie a 'Pub in Clatskanie, she should be on an easy Coast to Victory in '20.

Next Stop: Rural Columbia---- this is probably going to be a pain in my arse since the precincts have remained intact from at least '88-'12, and the rural ones are going to take some real work to deconstruct boundaries.... Ugh...

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0- Part VIII- Rural Columbia County

Ok--- we have now established that "Rural Voters" accounted for a large 48% of the '16 Vote Share in Columbia County. Although it is overall a significantly decreasing share of the County Vote, we need to take a look at various precincts within the County to gain a greater understanding of election trends.

Before I start rolling some numbers, a few brief comments about "rural voters" in many parts of Oregon.

We have a land-use planning law dating back to the early '70s that strictly manages and controls growth within "Urban Areas" in Oregon.

Although this doesn't mean that it is impossible to sell your property to a developer for a decent profit, it needs to occur within the "Urban Growth Boundaries" based upon municipal/county/State policies and regulations.

As in most cases there are various types of "Grandfather Clauses" that still protect agricultural and timber parts on the edges of urban/suburban/exurban areas, while also allowing property owners to sell land for development within defined boundaries , and provide increased housing supply within a manged system.

So, when we talk about some of the largest rural precincts in Rural Columbia County, we are generally talking about larger lots outside of various City Limits, and also an older population that can afford to buy 1-4 acre lots or more on the edges of the Cities.

Time to roll with some numbers... here is a precinct map from the '16 GE, the first time in 25+ years where the boundaries changed.

Current Precinct Map:



Largest Rural Precincts by 2016 Votes"

7.) SE Scappoose--- Precinct # 35 (3.9% of '16 County Vote. Down from 4.4% in '88)



Although exact Census numbers aren't available, roughly 25% of the population appears to be 60+ Yrs, versus 21% Millennials. Population is about 86% White. Income appears to be above the County average in the Southern portion of the precinct, and a bit less in the Eastern more farming portion of the precinct.

Only about 1% of workers are in the agricultural industry (Not a timber producing precinct), 20% Manufacturing, 7% Construction, 4% Wholesalers, 8% Retail, 8% Transportation, 5% Professional, 10% Education, 16% Health Care.

Ok--- so generally a significantly working-class precinct with a high-concentration of workers in "Blue Collar" industries, combined with a significant chunk in Middle Class "White Collar" jobs in education and health care.

Interestingly enough one of the two US Census tracts that overlaps with much of the precinct shows a high level of educational attainment, with 43.4% with a Post Secondary Degree, 22% of the population's highest level of attainment is an HS Diploma, 7% w/o an HS Diploma.

Election Results:

US PRES:





So--- how to interpret all of this?

Rural Scappoose was significantly more Democratic than the City in '88. Bush Sr only captured 24% of the Vote in '92 placing a distant third behind Ross Perot who bagged 30%. The precinct remained Democratic until '16 when Trump narrowly won it with a plurality of the vote. The first sign of a dramatic drop-off in Democratic Support was in 2000, where there was a 10% Swing towards the 'Pub candidate... This was likely a result of a perception that Gore was too extreme on environmental policies among an older population in a County and precinct heavily dependent upon jobs in the Timber Mills. Still, it is also possible that much of the margins were a result of the large 3rd Party vote here (10%) of whom a majority voted for Nader.

Still, 'Pub numbers kept creeping up although the precinct was roughly a 52-53% Dem / 39-42% 'Pub precinct in '00/'08/'12.

Hit '16 and suddenly Dem numbers plunged from 53% to 42%, and 'Pub number jump from 42% up to 46%, with Libertarians grabbing 6% and Write-Ins (Bernie) capturing 4%.

Bottom line, this is still essentially a toss-up precinct in US PRES elections, and most likely still retains a slight Lean Dem precinct in a Generic "D" vs Generic "R" election.

Key question is how will Seniors, that account for most of the uptick in 'Pub numbers here vote in '20, and how will Millennials and Middle-Aged voters that contributed most heavily towards 3rd Party support shift in the future.

US-SEN:





Ok--- looks like the precinct is shifting "Hard D" at the US-SEN levels.

Merkley increased his vote margins by 10% between '08 and '16.

Slight drop for Wyden between '10 and '16 as GE voters move to the Left.

OR GOV:





So we start to see a significant shift towards 'Pubs for Gov in '10, although interestingly enough we see Kate Brown pumping up the Dem numbers in '16, although it's looking like a 47-49% 'Pub precinct these days in Gubernatorial Elections.

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0- Part IX- Rural Columbia County

8.) Delana- Rural Precinct #6 (3.9% of County Vote in '16 down from 4.7% of County Vote in '88)




This rural precint is located roughly halfway between Clatskanie and Rainier and stretches from the Columbia River to the North, down the Foothills of the Oregon Coast range to the South.

It is centered upon two small twin communities of Delana and Alston along State Hwy 30, with most of the population concentrated in the Northern part of the precinct.



Because of its location, it is most likely that a signficant chunk of the workforce commutes into Rainier to work, or across the bridge into Washington state in jobs in the Port, factories, and warehouses of Longview.

Based upon Census Block Group data, the precinct appears to be fairly old with over 30% of the population 60+ years, and overwhelmingly White. Economically the Tract that it is located in is one of the poorest in the county in terms of MHI, although it's difficult to isolate, since Rainier and another precinct overlap with this tract.

About 8% of the workers are in the agricultural industry, most likely logging related jobs, 16% Manufacturing, 6% Transportation. The area has a relatively low level of educational attainment, even compared to Columbia County at large.

So how has this aging rural blue collar precinct been voting over the years?





So here you see what used to be one of the most Democratic Precincts in the County dramatically shift in 2016, after decades of solidly supporting Dem Pres candidates.

Even in 2000, George W. was barely able to crack 40% of the Vote. The swings towards the Republican candidates between both '08/'12 and '12/'16 have been dramatic, although Obama still won the precinct by 2% in '12.

Despite Dem 3rd Party defection in '16, you still have a significant number of Democratic Trump voters, accounting for roughly 6% of the precincts voters.

The key question is to what extent will these voters swing back in 2020, or in a Post Trump era? Precincts like this are obviously a key element of Democratic Party support within Columbia County, and obviously places that the 'Pubs need to hold if they want to remain competitive in countywide elections.

US SEN:





So at the US-SEN level, we don't observe those same trends as at the US-PRES level... you have a fairly consistent 50-40% Dem lead, and 'Pub numbers have been slipping over the past few elections.

OR-GOV





So here is where you do see some movement towards the 'Pubs. The Dems used to be able to win here, albeit much more narrowly than for other elections. Since '10 it has shifted into a lean 'Pub mode, with the 'Pub vote share ranging from 47-50%. Interestingly enough even as this precinct swung hard towards Trump, it actually improved for the Dem Gov candidate between '14 and '16.

9.) McNulty (Precinct # 12- 3.4% of County Vote in '16, down from 4.1% in '88)





Not really a rural precinct in any traditional sense, McNulty is basically an Unincorporated community directly adjacent to the largest Population Center in the County, St Helens. Although you find property with a few acres within the precinct, in many ways it is more an extension of the City proper, but where you can buy a three bedroom house like in the Photo above for $250k, or more house and more modern for $425k.

Although I don't have access to Census data, it is best to think of McNulty as essentially a Middle-Class plus community, on the edge of what is a fairly blue collar City. Because of its position lying directly South of the City along Hwy 30, my suspicion is that you see a higher % of commuters to Metro PDX than St Helens at large.

Still it's not really a fast growing area compared to the County at large even though it went from 644 voters in '88 to 918 in '16. As I mentioned previously at the start of the "Rural Columbia County" part, population growth tends to be clusted within Urban Growth boundaries that limits sprawl and development, outside of established boundaries.

So let's take a look at voting here over the years...

US PRES:





So, as I suspected back in '88 when there were still a ton of New Deal Democratics floating around in Columbia County, and before the precinct shifted with increased population spillover from Portland, it was one of the more Democratic Precincts in the County.

We start to see the shifts around 2000, when W. was able to capture almost 40% of the Vote.... By '08 'Pub numbers creep up to 42%, despite Obama capturing the largest Vote Share of a Dem here since '88. There is only a slight drop-off in Dem support between '08/'12, but 'Pub numbers tick up slightly as 1% of voters switch from Obama>Romney and 3rd Party LBT and CON voters switch 'Pub.

Now it's '16 we see about 2.4% of the voters switch from Obama '12 > Trump '16.

I suspect we have a few things going on here.... some of the older voters in the precinct swung heavily Trump, while meanwhile Middle-Aged and Older Millennial commuters opted out the binary HRC/Trump math.

Still, 75% of the '12>'16 swing was caused by Obama defectors to 3rd Party candidates, rather than Obama '12 / Trump '16 cross-over voters.

This is still a tossup precinct at the PRES level, with likely a small Dem edge even in the Post-Obama era.

US SEN:





Sure as heck doesn't look like McNulty is swinging 'Pub for US-SEN... 'Pubs can now barely capture 40% of the US-SEN vote, and incumbent Liberal Dems are now winning by 11-22% margins.

OR GOV:





So, here we see how the changing Demographics of the precinct are working to the 'Pubs advantage at the Gubernatorial level... Although it's still not really a Republican Precinct considering that their numbers range in the 47-49% area and Dems around 45%, still something to watch for close statewide elections.

Now that I've covered 12% of the County voters in the three largest "rural" precincts by total voters, and 25% of "rural" voters in the County, I'll probably wrap up Columbia County with one more post and attempt to briefly summarize some of the outstanding rural precincts.

[NOVA Green]

Oregon County Update # 7- Columbia County- v 2.0- Part X- Rural Columbia County


Let's take a look at a few of the remaining rural precincts

10.) Yankton (3.4% of County Vote '16; 3.2% County Vote '12)

Rural area just outside of St Helens....





Let's take a look at the most Republican Precincts in Columbia County in '16....

11.) Rural Vernonia (2.6% of County Vote '16; 2.7% of County Vote '88)

SW Columbia County- Logging Country

Most 'Pub precinct in the County for decades





12.) South Clatskanie (1.9% of County Vote 2016; 2.0% in '88)

One of the most 'Pub precincts in the County in '16... logging country South of Clatskanie.





Damn--- did y'all see what I saw there?

A 34% swing towards Trump?

These are some of the largest precinct swings that I have seen in Oregon, and 3rd Party voting does not explain in any way shape or form Dem margins dropping from 49% of the vote in '12 to 29% in '16, nor the 'Pub vote share jumping from 47% to 61%....

Granted this doesn't explain the overall flip in Columbia County, it still indicative of a massive collapse in confidence in a 2x Obama Dem precinct, that went Bush +7% in '00, and that Perot came close to winning behind Bill Clinton by 4 points in '92....

I was actually astonished when I first these numbers since a 34% swing is absolutely insane by any standards.

So, overall the Democratic Party is nowhere close to dead in Columbia County, and certainly not at the Presidential and US-SEN level.

The fastest growing areas in the County, including rural surrounding areas, are still generally quite receptive towards Liberal Democratic politics....

If Trumpism was an anomaly within the Republican Party, Columbia County will likely shift back to becoming a marginal Democratic County, since even in areas where Trump performed best in '16 there a still a ton of voters that have been and will continue to vote Democrat on pocketbook issues, even if the Democrats nominate Donald Duck as their candidate (Ok--- bit of rhetorical excess there).

Still, even as the 'Pubs have been creeping up countywide in their numbers over the past few decades, I suspect that their crest/peak might have hit Columbia County in '16....

[Canis]

Can you please explain this?

I want a series on how a republican won a statewide office in Oregon