2016 White and Non-White Vote by County Project

[Adam Griffin]

The margins were pretty close in all of these, and I suspect that Clinton won the White vote in the city proper for all of these cases, but the other suburbs in the county put Trump over the edge.

Per this model, Trump won the White Vote in Marion County, IN by 3.2%, Wayne County, MI by 0.4%, and Fulton County, GA by 2.5%.

I'm curious as to what number you have for Clayton County, GA: looks like it's in the 30s on your map. I had 50% in 2012. I'm thinking we both may be a bit off of what was the case in each of these elections. The problem with counties like Clayton (in general; at least with my map) is that the white share of the vote/population is so small that even small changes in non-white vote share can dramatically affect the white Democratic percentage. The great thing about GA specifically - and I think I mentioned it before - is the Georgia's voter turnout by race and by county stats from the SoS, if you haven't already checked it out and/or used it in your figures.

On the other hand, if there was to be a large swing among whites to Trump in any metro ATL county, then Clayton would probably be the most likely culprit.

[The_Doctor]

Regente, a question - does your map have the capability for us to see the county by county breakdown of white voters? Or is that coming or? I'd be very interested to compare your county by county map with Pres. Griffin's.

[nclib]

Wow!!! Fantastic job reagente!! Congrats!

The map is amazing. The white electorate in Detroit, Indianapolis and Atlanta voted for Trump. That result surprised me because i believed that the white vote in these areas was extremally liberal. Is there any reason for this? Is the AA vote so high in these counties that overshades the white vote?

PS: Just off topic, reagente are you portuguese?

The margins were pretty close in all of these, and I suspect that Clinton won the White vote in the city proper for all of these cases, but the other suburbs in the county put Trump over the edge.

Per this model, Trump won the White Vote in Marion County, IN by 3.2%, Wayne County, MI by 0.4%, and Fulton County, GA by 2.5%.

Very few whites live in Detroit proper and putting minority turnout at the same as whites and as 100% for Clinton still leaves Detroit whites as solidly Democratic. Indianapolis incorporates almost all of Marion County, so Trump likely carried Indianapolis whites. Not quite sure about Atlanta, especially because it continues into DeKalb county, but it's probably close either way.

Other major central cities in counties that Trump appeared to carry whites are Phoenix, Jacksonville, OKC, where Trump won outright, and Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Tampa, Orlando, Charlotte, Memphis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, and Buffalo.

[Adam Griffin]

^^^ FYI, the white vote in ATL proper is immensely Democratic: we're talking anywhere from 70-80% Democratic. It's the non-ATL Fulton whites that drag the number down. Only about one-third of whites in Fulton County live in the city limits.

There's a huge gulf in the voting patterns of whites in the city limits versus remainder of the county. You're basically looking at non-ATL Fulton whites as a whole being comparable to the surrounding metro (25-30% D); when combined with ATL proper whites, it gives you an approximately 40-45% D white population.

[DavidB.]

Very interesting project. Thanks for sharing, reagente!

[The_Doctor]

Any update on this? I'd love to see the interactive numbers. If you need help PM me.

[SaneDemocrat]

Let me know if you need anything.

[DPKdebator]

I'm surprised Trump didn't win Worcester and Hampden counties in MA- Worcester is somewhat similar demographically to Plymouth (both are 85% white and voted slightly over 40% Trump), and Hampden is around 70% white and virtually all the Democratic voters there live in the majority-minority areas like Springfield and Holyoke.

[Figueira]

I'm surprised Trump didn't win Worcester and Hampden counties in MA- Worcester is somewhat similar demographically to Plymouth (both are 85% white and voted slightly over 40% Trump), and Hampden is around 70% white and virtually all the Democratic voters there live in the majority-minority areas like Springfield and Holyoke.

Clinton won every precinct in Holyoke and Springfield including the predominantly white ones. Even though they're minority-heavy cities, the whites there and in Chicopee and Longmeadow can probably outvote people in places like Southwick and Monson. Same goes for Worcester and its surroundings.

[SaneDemocrat]

She won rich places.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

It will also lead to a voter base that's unwilling to support any serious redistributive policy, thus turning the Democratic party into the party of affluent, "cosmopolitan" managerial centrists who don't give a crap about poverty and inequality. That party would not even be worth supporting.

Even if your idea about this is true, the other party would likely be pretty close to advocating actual genocide in such a scenario.

I kind of doubt the idea you spout as well. It seems to be based on a BS "yuppie" prejudice more then actual reality(The vast majority of america in general is urban/suburban). This idea that rich people can't be economically liberal is laughable. The idea that all suburbanites are rich is even more absurd.

[Intell]

It will also lead to a voter base that's unwilling to support any serious redistributive policy, thus turning the Democratic party into the party of affluent, "cosmopolitan" managerial centrists who don't give a crap about poverty and inequality. That party would not even be worth supporting.

Even if your idea about this is true, the other party would likely be pretty close to advocating actual genocide in such a scenario.

I kind of doubt the idea you spout as well. It seems to be based on a BS "yuppie" prejudice more then actual reality(The vast majority of america in general is urban/suburban). This idea that rich people can't be economically liberal is laughable. The idea that all suburbanites are rich is even more absurd.

Yuppies are generally trash, rich people can be economically progressive, but a lot of them don't vote for democrats for that reason, and wouldn't vote for an stedfast leftist, who cares about income redistribution, social welfare, and huge investments in poor areas aiming at helping poor people.

All suburbanites aren't rich, but generally suburbanites that swung to the democrats in recent years, especially to clinton, are upper-middle class and rich.

Also WTF on genocide.

[Skill and Chance]

The Iron Range (and Vermont) really seem like outliers now.

Yes, and CO really stands out as well, although the remaining rural white Dem counties there are generally very different from rural white America writ large.  If there isn't a Dem nominee from the Bernie faction within the next 2-3 cycles, I could see even Vermont moving on.  Also, although this has been beaten to death around here, it's hard to see anything other than long term decline for the VA GOP if they are doing that well with the white vote and still losing everything statewide.  Florida should be (counterintuitively?) alarming for Dems, as there could still be a lot of untapped/unconverted GOP vote in the retirement communities on the west coast of the state.  Georgia, on the other hand, if that map was only a 5 point Trump win...

[The_Doctor]

I still haven't figured out how to make this into an embedded map (on site or externally), so I'll just link to the Fusion Table in the interim. I'll change the color scheme to Atlas colors once I figure out how how to embed it somewhere.

https://fusiontables.google.com/DataSource?docid=1UVNwaKv9xnAwuLv6Z7tFWxV5pu19qB6CIVGtIUsH#map:id=3

This is fantastic material. A quick question - do you know what % the white vote made up in each county versus nonwhite?

[The_Doctor]

I still haven't figured out how to make this into an embedded map (on site or externally), so I'll just link to the Fusion Table in the interim. I'll change the color scheme to Atlas colors once I figure out how how to embed it somewhere.

https://fusiontables.google.com/DataSource?docid=1UVNwaKv9xnAwuLv6Z7tFWxV5pu19qB6CIVGtIUsH#map:id=3

This is fantastic material. A quick question - do you know what % the white vote made up in each county versus nonwhite?

Yes, I have that data on my excel spreadsheets (as it is necessary to figure out the vote by county), but I didn't think to copy it over to the Google Forum.

Any chance of that? This is a work of art, so I understand if you prefer not to. This is fascinating data.

[Adam Griffin]

I still haven't figured out how to make this into an embedded map (on site or externally), so I'll just link to the Fusion Table in the interim. I'll change the color scheme to Atlas colors once I figure out how how to embed it somewhere.

https://fusiontables.google.com/DataSource?docid=1UVNwaKv9xnAwuLv6Z7tFWxV5pu19qB6CIVGtIUsH#map:id=3

It won't embed here (because this forum is a thousand years old), but:

[Adam Griffin]

I still haven't figured out how to make this into an embedded map (on site or externally), so I'll just link to the Fusion Table in the interim. I'll change the color scheme to Atlas colors once I figure out how how to embed it somewhere.

https://fusiontables.google.com/DataSource?docid=1UVNwaKv9xnAwuLv6Z7tFWxV5pu19qB6CIVGtIUsH#map:id=3

It won't embed here (because this forum is a thousand years old), but:

I'm aware of that feature, but I haven't managed to successfully embed it on any of the other discussion forums I'm on. I've also tried looking for a free website host, but nearly all of those make HTML embedding something you have to pay to enable. How did you acquire the page to host your 2012 map, if I may ask?

FT is basically a proto-GIS solution that to my knowledge Google isn't expanding or servicing anymore. It had a lot of potential but like with many Google services that start out, they simply gave up. It lacks a lot of features, including any reasonable embed options for most forum BB code.

I own the domain/hosting for that website, so I just uploaded a simple HTML page with the embedded code. I can do the same for you if you'd like.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Yuppies are generally trash, rich people can be economically progressive, but a lot of them don't vote for democrats for that reason, and wouldn't vote for an stedfast leftist, who cares about income redistribution, social welfare, and huge investments in poor areas aiming at helping poor people.

All suburbanites aren't rich, but generally suburbanites that swung to the democrats in recent years, especially to clinton, are upper-middle class and rich.

Also WTF on genocide.

"Yuppie" is a stupid word. Generalizing people as trash based on income is stupid at best. Many rich people currently vote based on themselves, but that isn't a hard rule. This dislike of the democratic party's trend in voterbase seems  based on a tribalistic dislike of "yuppies".

Also the genocide comment was a reference to the trump wing of the republicans, which would basically run the party in the scenario described. Perhaps a bit hyperbolic.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

So far, the results of the project look a bit weird. For example, the Trump White vote in Robeson County, NC is probably too high. Why would non-Whites in northern Georgia, southern Missouri, and rural Oklahoma and Nebraska vote GOP?

[Crumpets]

Since I know there was a similar map made for the 2012 election, is there any chance we could get a swing map between the two? I imagine it would track pretty much with affluent and educated communities generally swinging to Clinton and poorer and less-educated communities swinging to Trump, but I'd be curious to know if there are any exceptions.

[Intell]

Yuppies are generally trash, rich people can be economically progressive, but a lot of them don't vote for democrats for that reason, and wouldn't vote for an stedfast leftist, who cares about income redistribution, social welfare, and huge investments in poor areas aiming at helping poor people.

All suburbanites aren't rich, but generally suburbanites that swung to the democrats in recent years, especially to clinton, are upper-middle class and rich.

Also WTF on genocide.

"Yuppie" is a stupid word. Generalizing people as trash based on income is stupid at best. Many rich people currently vote based on themselves, but that isn't a hard rule. This dislike of the democratic party's trend in voterbase seems  based on a tribalistic dislike of "yuppies".

Also the genocide comment was a reference to the trump wing of the republicans, which would basically run the party in the scenario described. Perhaps a bit hyperbolic.

Yuppies are not just rich people, their effects on cities and urban development has been disastrous, the dislike of the trend of the democratic party, is that we no longer represent poor, trash white working class communities in cities and rural areas, but instead we get the votes of upper-middle class people, who are in many cases economic centrists, with no desire of a reformation of society to help the working class.

Poor blacks and african americans still vote democratic, as they are threatened by the racism of the republican party, that whites aren't, which is good, but alongside that, we should still be getting the votes of poor whites, who had been democratic voters (outside of the south) for so long.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Yuppies are generally trash, rich people can be economically progressive, but a lot of them don't vote for democrats for that reason, and wouldn't vote for an stedfast leftist, who cares about income redistribution, social welfare, and huge investments in poor areas aiming at helping poor people.

All suburbanites aren't rich, but generally suburbanites that swung to the democrats in recent years, especially to clinton, are upper-middle class and rich.

Also WTF on genocide.

"Yuppie" is a stupid word. Generalizing people as trash based on income is stupid at best. Many rich people currently vote based on themselves, but that isn't a hard rule. This dislike of the democratic party's trend in voterbase seems  based on a tribalistic dislike of "yuppies".

Also the genocide comment was a reference to the trump wing of the republicans, which would basically run the party in the scenario described. Perhaps a bit hyperbolic.

Yuppies are not just rich people, their effects on cities and urban development has been disastrous, the dislike of the trend of the democratic party, is that we no longer represent poor, trash white working class communities in cities and rural areas, but instead we get the votes of upper-middle class people, who are in many cases economic centrists, with no desire of a reformation of society to help the working class.

Poor blacks and african americans still vote democratic, as they are threatened by the racism of the republican party, that whites aren't, which is good, but alongside that, we should still be getting the votes of poor whites, who had been democratic voters (outside of the south) for so long.

I agree with your observations, especially the bolded part.

I wrote about this in another post about growing up with middle and upper class suburbanites in Orange County in more detail but it basically comes down to this: the Democratic Party is gonna have to decide these next 8 years or so on which group they want to target: upscale whites or working class whites. They can't have it both ways. These socially liberal upscale white folk are not gonna form a coalition with working class whites if it means that the Party starts to court these working class folks with an economically populist message. They'll run right back into the GOP's hands.

On the flip side the Democratic Party could rebrand itself as the Party of big business and tax cuts for the wealthy but socially liberal which would garner them more of the upscale white demographic at the expense of losing more and more working class whites and possibly a decent chunk of working class minorities as well.

[Adam Griffin]

Thanks! That's a really gracious thing for you to do. Would you like me to invert the colors on the map before it's uploaded to a new page? Also, I have the statewide results calculated, so I could probably make some images of maps to show that as well.

No problem - it's live now. I have your forum profile attributed at the bottom but if you'd like anything changed or added, just let me know.

Either/or on the color scheme. I clarified on your page that it's the traditional color scheme for now, but if you change it, I'll be happy to update descriptions. I'm probably going to cross link our two but presumably in either case, people will be able to read descriptions and not get too confused.

A couple of recommendations, especially when it's in a format like this. Whenever you are "editing" the FT map (i.e. when you click on the layer's arrow and go to "Change Map"), the last positioning of the map before you click "Done" determines the default positioning of the map in the embed. If you notice, the white/non-white maps are at different zoom levels and positions; this is why. On mine, I did my best to line up each map in the same position - for aesthetic reasons, mainly, and to also position the default view where I thought most people would be interested in seeing it. Sadly, I can't remember whether the embed code needs to be re-copied each time when you reposition the map or not - I'm leaning toward no, but if you were to change the positions/zooms of each map and it doesn't reflect there, just let me know.

Another thing you might have noticed is the legend stretching. FT will make the legend width based on the title of the legend, and currently, it's taking up a pretty big percentage of the embed's width. You might want to shorten it to something like "Trump Margin (%)" or "Trump Margin PctPt" or something like that.

[Adam Griffin]

Since I know there was a similar map made for the 2012 election, is there any chance we could get a swing map between the two? I imagine it would track pretty much with affluent and educated communities generally swinging to Clinton and poorer and less-educated communities swinging to Trump, but I'd be curious to know if there are any exceptions.

It's doable in a sense, but as reagente pointed out, we used different ways of generating our maps. Because 2012 was simple enough in terms of a two-way model, I just focused on calculating Obama's share of the white vote directly (due to the fact that in most places, Romney's share would be ([Obama's share] - 1pt). 2016 was more complex and the way reagente did his makes more sense. We also presumably used different data-sets/combinations of data to make our maps.

Nevertheless, I could pretty easily generate a map that shows the difference between Obama and Clinton's shares of the white vote. It should be pretty accurate in the vast majority of cases, but as I've already noticed, we were in disagreement in some select counties based on the margin difference in them.

[Adam Griffin]

^^^ Everything should be fixed/added now.