Urban/Suburban/Rural Maps (Based on Exit Polls)

[RINO Tom]

I decided to do a map of how the urban/suburban/rural areas voted in the states that got an exit polls.  Ties are green, and states that didn't have an exit poll or didn't have enough answers for that category are gray.

THE URBAN VOTE

THE SUBURBAN VOTE

THE RURAL VOTE

[RINO Tom]

Couple notes:

- Yes, Indiana's self-described urban voters voted 50-46% for Trump.  I think Indiana, while having a fair number of Democrats across the state, is actually going to be one of the hardest states for Democrats to win in almost any realignment we'd see in the next 30-40 years ... the state, at least to me, seems to have more of a Great Plains-esque attachment to the GOP than an Arkansas-like one.

- While Virginia's self-described suburban voters did vote 48-47% for Trump, I thought everyone would like to know that self-described "DC Suburbs" voters went 68-27% for Hillary, and self-described "DC Exurbs" voters went 48-46% for Hillary ... must have been a lot of Republican suburban voters down in Richmond, Virginia Beach, etc.

- Only two states had over 60% of their self-described suburban voters vote Democratic: California and ... Nevada.

- Only two states had their self-described rural voters vote Democratic: Washington and ... South Carolina.

- The following states had their self-described suburban voters vote at least as far to the right or further than their rural voters ... any ideas why?  Here they are:
     - Arizona
     - Maine
     - New Hampshire
     - North Carolina
     - South Carolina

[Rookie Yinzer]

Haha. I wasn't expecting Hillary to win the rural vote in ANY state.  Wonder how close she kept it in Mississippi with its substantial black population most of whom live in rural areas.

[YE]

Couple notes:

- Yes, Indiana's self-described urban voters voted 50-46% for Trump.  I think Indiana, while having a fair number of Democrats across the state, is actually going to be one of the hardest states for Democrats to win in almost any realignment we'd see in the next 30-40 years ... the state, at least to me, seems to have more of a Great Plains-esque attachment to the GOP than an Arkansas-like one.

- While Virginia's self-described suburban voters did vote 48-47% for Trump, I thought everyone would like to know that self-described "DC Suburbs" voters went 68-27% for Hillary, and self-described "DC Exurbs" voters went 48-46% for Hillary ... must have been a lot of Republican suburban voters down in Richmond, Virginia Beach, etc.

- Only two states had over 60% of their self-described suburban voters vote Democratic: California and ... Nevada.

- Only two states had their self-described rural voters vote Democratic: Washington and ... South Carolina.

- The following states had their self-described suburban voters vote at least as far to the right or further than their rural voters ... any ideas why?  Here they are:
     - Arizona
     - Maine
     - New Hampshire
     - North Carolina
     - South Carolina

ME and NH rural areas are the most progressive of all rural states outside of Alaska. Arizona has Native Americans driving most of its rural population. Not sure on NC and SC.

Also contrary to what the exit polls say, Clinton did not get 60% in the suburbs in NV and I'd be surprised if she lost them in VA. 

[NOVA Green]

Surprised there isn't more scientific analysis of this than an exit poll (not in this thread, but in general). We can literally look at precinct-level data for this election (as well as the last two) so we should have a pretty clear picture of the rural-urban divide.

- The following states had their self-described suburban voters vote at least as far to the right or further than their rural voters ... any ideas why?  Here they are:
     - Arizona
     - Maine
     - New Hampshire
     - North Carolina
     - South Carolina

Not sure on NC and SC.

Disproportionately rural black voters versus predominantly white (and Asian) suburban voters.

Regarding Arizona, I did run the precinct numbers for Maricopa County some months back for both the 2012 and 2016 US Presidential elections (As well as Pima County) and crunched the numbers by Municipality and posted some data on another thread....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=274404.msg5908060#msg5908060

Here are the breakdowns by City for 2012 and 2016, as well as the 2012 > 2016 swings....





YE's comment regarding the Native American population in rural areas is definitely a factor, not to mention there is actually a fairly significant rural Latino population as well within Arizona.

The core block of Republican support in Arizona has been in suburban and exurban areas around Phoenix (As well as parts of the City that are more suburban in nature perhaps than one might realize).

These are precisely the areas that swung hardest towards HRC in 2016, hence my observation that the trend lines are not looking good for 'Pubs in AZ in 2020, assuming that Trump is still their candidate.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Surprised there isn't more scientific analysis of this than an exit poll (not in this thread, but in general). We can literally look at precinct-level data for this election (as well as the last two) so we should have a pretty clear picture of the rural-urban divide.

- The following states had their self-described suburban voters vote at least as far to the right or further than their rural voters ... any ideas why?  Here they are:
     - Arizona
     - Maine
     - New Hampshire
     - North Carolina
     - South Carolina

Not sure on NC and SC.

Disproportionately rural black voters versus predominantly white (and Asian) suburban voters.

Regarding Arizona, I did run the precinct numbers for Maricopa County some months back for both the 2012 and 2016 US Presidential elections (As well as Pima County) and crunched the numbers by Municipality and posted some data on another thread....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=274404.msg5908060#msg5908060

Here are the breakdowns by City for 2012 and 2016, as well as the 2012 > 2016 swings....





YE's comment regarding the Native American population in rural areas is definitely a factor, not to mention there is actually a fairly significant rural Latino population as well within Arizona.

The core block of Republican support in Arizona has been in suburban and exurban areas around Phoenix (As well as parts of the City that are more suburban in nature perhaps than one might realize).

These are precisely the areas that swung hardest towards HRC in 2016, hence my observation that the trend lines are not looking good for 'Pubs in AZ in 2020, assuming that Trump is still their candidate.

This reminds me of the fact Dallas reaches north into Denton County.

[NOVA Green]

Those ME numbers are definitely fishy. Not buying that Clinton did worse in the suburbs than in the rural areas there.

But thanks for doing this.

Maine does look a bit odd, especially when contrasted against the election result by Township that Dave has available for us....

To be fair, there wasn't a major gap between the "suburban" and "rural" areas in the exit poll results for Maine, so even if somehow the math "adds up" it would likely be more a result of what type of coding was used to separate these two communities than anything else (Cities < 5k = rural unless they are directly connected to a Town > 10k ?)



Now what stands out here is that only 6% of the respondents identified as "urban" in the exit poll, which would appear to only include voters within the City of Portland itself, with 51% suburban and 43% rural....

A good chunk of these "suburban" voters likely reside in the areas immediately around Portland (Heavily Clinton), Lewiston & Auburn (Narrow HRC combined), Bangor/Orono/Old Town City (Moderate HRC)....

What might be an interesting exercise, since Maine does break down its data into very specific townships would be if someone could go through the exercise of coding "suburban" towns/townships amounting to 51% of the vote starting with drilling down all of the larger incorporated towns and then throwing in some surrounding townships that are within likely standard commuting range of these larger towns to see what the numbers look like....

The only way these "rural" numbers would make sense would be if some of these SE Coastal towns were included as "rural", since otherwise it would be hard to get close to a 45-47 Trump win number from rural areas (43% of statewide vote).

I mean there simply aren't enough votes from the areas around Bar Harbor/Camden/Rockland, some historically French-Canadian Democratic parts of Northern Maine (Where there were some huge swings towards Trump), some isolated spots like Farmington, Bethel, Native American Reservations, etc to overcome what appears to be a pretty solid Trump victory in Northern and Inland parts of the State, without inclusion of some of these SE Maine Coastal communities that appear to be more defined cities (suburban in Maine speak) than "rural.

Thoughts anyone or does someone with more knowledge, skills, and experience in the political geography of Maine want to attempt to code townships to see what might explain this, other than perhaps inaccurate exit polling data based upon limited sample size of rural Maine?

[Arbitrage1980]

Trump won the VA suburban vote? That's surprising since Hillary crushed him in Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William.

[RI]

No way Clinton won the rural vote in WA.

[brucejoel99]

No way Clinton won the rural vote in WA.

I wouldn't necessarily doubt it.