Alabama Megathread 4: A New Hope

[Landslide Lyndon]

Roy should have bussed them all in.  Would have taught the Dems a thing or two.

To be fair, busing in voters from Iraq and Afghanistan is a much bigger logistical challenge than busing them in from Mississippi.

[DINGO Joe]

Roy should have bussed them all in.  Would have taught the Dems a thing or two.

To be fair, busing in voters from Iraq and Afghanistan is a much bigger logistical challenge than busing them in from Mississippi.

Well, maybe he could have used members of the Full House Fan Club of Mississippi to claim they were members of the military and now that I think of it, they probably should all ride horses instead of buses, but it's not my job to sort out these logistics, it was Roy's and he failed.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

I am very pleased with Secretary Merrill, thank you sir for doing a good job. Frankly, he is by the far the best Republican statewide currently serving in Alabama. And if Doug's seat must go red in 2020 (not entirely convinced here yet, sorry!), I would want Mr. Merrill to have it.

[Bidenworth2020]

I am very pleased with Secretary Merrill, thank you sir for doing a good job. Frankly, he is by the far the best Republican statewide currently serving in Alabama. And if Doug's seat must go red in 2020 (not entirely convinced here yet, sorry!), I would want Mr. Merrill to have it.

remember,he willingly voted for Moore. Just because he does his job honorably does not make him likeable.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Moore Statement: https://twitter.com/WVTM13/status/946483742222282754?s=09

[IceSpear]

On election night, Roy Moore claimed that Military absentees would help him to win... they actually expanded Jones' victory margin.

It probably had more to do with there being more provisional ballots (lean very Democratic) and a smaller number of military ballots (lean Republican).

Wouldn't military ballots skew young and nonwhite? Not exactly Moore's best demographics.

[GeorgiaModerate]

On election night, Roy Moore claimed that Military absentees would help him to win... they actually expanded Jones' victory margin.

It probably had more to do with there being more provisional ballots (lean very Democratic) and a smaller number of military ballots (lean Republican).

Wouldn't military ballots skew young and nonwhite? Not exactly Moore's best demographics.

Also, what's reported as "military" often is simply "overseas" ballots.  This includes both overseas civilians as well as military.  Overseas civilian votes tend to be heavily Democratic.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Certification Report: http://sos.alabama.gov/sites/default/files/voter-pdfs/2017%20Official%20General%20Election%20Results%20with%20Write-In%20Appendix%20-%202017-12-28.pdf

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

I am very pleased with Secretary Merrill, thank you sir for doing a good job. Frankly, he is by the far the best Republican statewide currently serving in Alabama. And if Doug's seat must go red in 2020 (not entirely convinced here yet, sorry!), I would want Mr. Merrill to have it.

remember,he willingly voted for Moore. Just because he does his job honorably does not make him likeable.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Is there a statewide breakdown of write-ins somewhere?

[The Other Castro]

Is there a statewide breakdown of write-ins somewhere?

It looks like it's just by county, but Strange got the most, followed by Busby.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

49.96559701% of the vote went to Jones.

Rip absolute majority.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Monroe County voted for Moore by a margin of 14 votes...

[Adam Griffin]

GOPland: Didn't get a majority - illegitimate!

[Antonio the Sixth]

49.96559701% of the vote went to Jones.

Rip absolute majority.

So close! Damn.

[IceSpear]

GOPland: Didn't get a majority - illegitimate!

As opposed to their god emperor who couldn't even get a plurality, much less a majority.

[DINGO Joe]

Several counties refused to count write-ins for fictional characters and Bibb County refused to count votes for:

Honesty and Integrity
Both are an embarrassment
Jesus Christ

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Monroe County voted for Moore by a margin of 14 votes...

Watching Monroe switch from blue to pink when the last precinct came in was the saddest part of watching returns that night. ( Would have made for a prettier map.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

I am very pleased with Secretary Merrill, thank you sir for doing a good job. Frankly, he is by the far the best Republican statewide currently serving in Alabama. And if Doug's seat must go red in 2020 (not entirely convinced here yet, sorry!), I would want Mr. Merrill to have it.

remember,he willingly voted for Moore. Just because he does his job honorably does not make him likeable.

Very true, I am not saying I really like the guy, but I can't think of any statewide GOPer in Alabama who is any better than him. He is the best of the worst.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I can't think of any statewide GOPer in Alabama who is any better than him.

Shelby.

[NOVA Green]

Alabama 2017 US-SEN Precinct Review # 6: Morgan County:

 

As I posted elsewhere prior to the election, Doug Jones uphill road to victory would be likely reliant not just on heavy African-American turnout, depressed turnout among White Evangelicals in rural areas, flipping White Middle-Class voters in the larger Cities and Suburbs of the State, but also performing well in Northern Alabama (Not just Huntsville) and regaining a good chunk of the Al Gore 2000 vote from Ancestral Democrats in the old TVA "New Deal" part of Alabama.

If we look at the US Presidential election results for Morgan County from 2000 to 2016, as well as the 2012 Supreme Court Race, we see that Doug Jones actually hit the numbers he needed within the County.



Although the larger Metro Areas and College Communities got a disproportionate amount of attention from the Media and Pundits alike, when you look at places like Morgan County (Pop 120k), or Calhoun County (Pop 120k) which I covered earlier, these votes all add up and it is all fine and dandy to run up the numbers in places like Metro Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville, the Black Belt, but you'll run out of steam if you get killed by insane margins in places like this.

Before we start going into the precinct results in greater detail, let's review the demographic profile of the County:

Race/Ethnicity:



These numbers get even starker once you break them down by Age:



Median Household Income Relative to Alabama:



So doing really well compared to most parts of the State in terms of household Income....



Heavily dependent on Manufacturing....



and lower rate of educational attainment than Alabama as a whole....

So, what does the precinct level data show from Morgan County???

Let's start with the % of votes by Place within the County in 2016 and 2017:





So we see the largest City of Decatur going from a 30-32% vote share between '16 and '17, rural areas holding steady at 42% of the County Vote Share, minor changes in Hartselle and Priceville, and the provisional and absentee vote going down dramatically (Likely predominately voters in Decatur).

Now, here are the total vote numbers by place in '16/'17:





Here is a graphical format that shows the swings and percentages among communities in the County:



So the obvious thing that jumps out here:

1.) Decatur the largest single community within the County swung hard Democrat between 2016 and 2017 going from (39-57 Trump) to (56-43 Jones) for a 32% vote swing....

2.) The total Democratic vote numbers increased in all communities within the County (Other than Decatur, which we will get back to shortly), even in rural areas, meaning that you had a not insignificant number of Trump > Jones voters.

3.) The Republican Vote completely collapsed between '16 and '17, regardless of the impact of Trump > Jones voters (We'll come back to that one as well).

Now let's take a look at demographic data briefly from the largest City in the County before breaking down the precinct results from the City:

Decatur, Alabama:

Pop 56k....

Pop by Race/Ethnicity:



Household Income by place Decatur and Morgan County:



Not nearly as well off as most other parts of the County...

Workforce by Industry:



Slightly lower rate of manufacturing than the County as a whole, slightly higher rates of construction, as well as retail and service sector jobs....

Educational Attainment:



Higher than the County average and basically mirrors numbers from Alabama at large....

Decatur Alabama Precinct Results:

So how did the heavily African-American precincts of Decatur vote in 2016 and 2017?

US Census Tracts:



Precinct Results:



So, we see roughly a 20% decrease in the Democratic vote in the heaviest African-American precincts of Decatur, which equate to virtually the entire drop in the total Democratic numbers within the City of Decatur....

How did heavily White wealthier precincts within Decatur vote in 2016 and 2017?

Median Household Income by Census Tracts:



Here are precinct numbers for Decatur Alabama....



So there are four precincts highlighted in Blue, where Doug Jones added votes compared to HRC's '16 numbers....

Several precincts stand out.... Precinct #17 (TC Almon Rec Center) is an overwhelmingly White precinct, with an MHI of almost $73k/yr where Dems expanded their total vote numbers 44% between '16 and '17 (20% HRC- 75% DJT) to (38% Jones- 59% Moore).

It's still the most Republican precinct in the City, but damn those margin swings make the +20% HRC margin swings in places like the Upper-Income White 'Burbs of Chattanooga, Knoxville, and various places in Texas, look like child's play.

Float down to precinct # 10 (Decatur Baptist Church), overwhelmingly White with an MHI of some $ 70k /Yr (25-71% Trump), (44-54% Moore)....

Now lest anyone thinking I'm obsessed with how Upper-Middle Class White 'Bamans voted in 2017, head on over to Precinct # 16 (Oak Park Baptist Church)....

The MHI here is only about $ 40k/ Yr (23-72% Trump) suddenly goes (44-52% Moore)....

So what does this all mean?   In Northern Alabama, at least in the largest City in Morgan County, we saw a Universal swing among White voters towards Doug Jones, regardless of social and economic class, with major gains in raw votes among Upper-Income and Working-Class White precincts alike....

This is certainly not insignificant, as I stated earlier, it would be virtually impossible for Doug Jones to win, without bringing these voters back home, especially in an Ancestral Democratic part of Alabama.

Ok... enough talk about Decatur, what the hell happened in the rest of the County?

Let's look at the 2nd largest City in the County, Hartselle (Pop 14.4k)

Overwhelmingly White (93% vs 4% African-American), fairly wealthy part of the County (MHI $ 51.4k/Yr), 33% have a College Degree, 24% of the population works in manufacturing, higher than normal population of occupations in items such as Engineering...

So the problem here is that the two precincts also include a bunch of surrounding rural areas, so it doesn't give us a complete picture compared to US Census Data...



Now let's take a look at the wealthiest City within Morgan County....

Priceville---- MHI $ 79.2k/Yr, 93% White, 42% with a College or two year degree, occupations and industries have strong correlations with professional occupations and manufacturing industries....



We have similar issues as with Hartselle in that you have these surrounding rural areas that are included within municipal election precinct boundaries, so swings within the City itself are likely much larger than suggested by the Precinct results.

Last stop... Rural areas (42% of the County Vote)....

So the term rural gets a bit tricky, since after staring at precinct maps and Census tract data for a few hours, I can tell you there is at least one precinct and probably a second that technically are more likely "Exurban in Nature" where Doug Jones gained a decent chunk of Trump voters, but hell trying to segregate these wasn't the main focus of the project.

Important take-aways from Rural precincts.... Roy Moore saw roughly a 45% decrease in total Republican Vote compared to the 2016 General Election, within the most overwhelmingly Republican Part of the County (42% of total County Vote), meanwhile it looks like the Jones campaign was able to get just about every last Democrat out to vote in just about all of these rural precincts (!!!), which is an impressive organizing endeavor in and of itself.

The Jones campaign was running like this was General Election turnout campaign in Alabama, and the Moore campaign was sitting there with their thumbs up their derrieres thinking name recognition and Special Election turnout levels would be enough to get the job done (This was even before the sexual assault allegations hit).

Now there is one rural precinct that was eliminated (Ebenezzer Volunteer Fire Department) and consolidated with the Morgan County election precinct (So ignore the data for those two---- I'm already aware of that and it doesn't change much other than just the total vote, margins, and % numbers for those two precincts between '16 and '17).



Anyways, hope all of y'alls appreciate the work I did on this, took me a couple hours to pull this all together, and now that the election has been certified, I would much rather spend my time dissecting the results of the US-Senate election in Alabama than all this other wrangling that has been dominating this thread for well over a month now.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Alabama 2017 US-SEN Precinct Review # 6: Morgan County:


Anyways, hope all of y'alls appreciate the work I did on this, took me a couple hours to pull this all together, and now that the election has been certified, I would much rather spend my time dissecting the results of the US-Senate election in Alabama than all this other wrangling that has been dominating this thread for well over a month now.

Extremely impressive work.

[Bidenworth2020]

Alabama 2017 US-SEN Precinct Review # 6: Morgan County:


Anyways, hope all of y'alls appreciate the work I did on this, took me a couple hours to pull this all together, and now that the election has been certified, I would much rather spend my time dissecting the results of the US-Senate election in Alabama than all this other wrangling that has been dominating this thread for well over a month now.

Extremely impressive work.

[Tender Branson]

Interesting side-fact:

There were ca. 5.400 ballots left to count after election day (some 400 military absentees and 5.000 provisional ballots).

About 4.400 of them were counted as valid. Jones won them by 63-35-2, which is why his overall winning margin increased a bit.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

For all those still holding out on Moore, just eat the darn loss already. You lost, it's over. I know it burns like a fireant on a toenail, but it's the right thing to do, I've been in those shoes too many times lately, your turn.