Preliminary swing/trend

[platypeanArchcow]

Swing:

Trend:


So.  The West and Plains like Obama, with the notable exception of Wyoming and the unnotable exception of Arizona.  Oregon and Washington look lukewarm, but much of Seattle, Portland, and Eugene have yet to come in (I think.)  The upper Midwest likes Obama, with the notable exception of Minnesota.  Predictably, the New South as well as liberal, but not traditionally democratic New England states are also swinging left.  This leaves the rest of the northeast sort of tepid, and of course the interior South is the only area to actually swing to McCain.

So.  What's up with Minnesota and Wyoming?

[phk]

Sweet, I'm eagerly awaiting this.

[elcorazon]

So.  What's up with Minnesota and Wyoming?

Wyoming is too small to be statistically significant.  A swing of a few thousand voters can do that.

Minnesota has been trending GOP steadily for a while now.  They are getting to be more like the Dakotas, while the Dakotas are getting to be more like Minnesota.  A few cycles down the line, all three will be GOP-leaning swing states.

It's only a matter of time before Minnesota goes GOP in an election.

this kinda makes sense, although Minneapolis probably will keep Minn further left than the Dakotas for the foreseeable future.

I wonder if Franken pissed off the right enough to get them out to vote against Franken and while they're at it, also against Obama.

[Bacon King]

Minnesota: convention effect?

[Smid]

So.  What's up with Minnesota and Wyoming?

Wyoming is too small to be statistically significant.  A swing of a few thousand voters can do that.

Minnesota has been trending GOP steadily for a while now.  They are getting to be more like the Dakotas, while the Dakotas are getting to be more like Minnesota.  A few cycles down the line, all three will be GOP-leaning swing states.

It's only a matter of time before Minnesota goes GOP in an election.

this kinda makes sense, although Minneapolis probably will keep Minn further left than the Dakotas for the foreseeable future.

I wonder if Franken pissed off the right enough to get them out to vote against Franken and while they're at it, also against Obama.

Yeah - I was wondering if perhaps the tight Senate race (and all the polls I saw leading into the election suggested it was tight) perhaps brought out more Republican voters than otherwise might have been the case.

[Harry Hayfield]

National Swing: 4.5% to Obama

And yet the ranges are all over the place:

(Data from BBCi where all precincts have declared)

Highest Obama swing: Hawaii (18.20%)
Lowest Obama swing: Kentucky (1.76%)
Lowest McCain swing: Oklahoma (0.07%)
Biggest McCain swing: Arkansas (5.09%)

[platypeanArchcow]

Hey, the New York Times has a county-by-county swing map now:

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

[they don't love you like i love you]

So.  What's up with Minnesota and Wyoming?

Wyoming is too small to be statistically significant.  A swing of a few thousand voters can do that.

Minnesota has been trending GOP steadily for a while now.  They are getting to be more like the Dakotas, while the Dakotas are getting to be more like Minnesota.  A few cycles down the line, all three will be GOP-leaning swing states.

It's only a matter of time before Minnesota goes GOP in an election.

LOL

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=61179.0

2008 coming soon.

The exurban sprawl you mentioned has slowed considerably ever since the housing bubble burst. Not much of a factor anymore. I also see no real permanent movement toward Democrats in the Dakotas, this election was a one time factor due to a variety of reasons (and probably Bush overperforming.) The idea that all three states will be roughly the same in a few cycles I find quite laughable frankly.

Minnesota's "trend" is due to polarization basically. What McCain got in the state (or perhaps more accurately his share of the two-party vote) is basically the floor for any Republican who isn't an absolute joke (and Mark Kennedy was an absolute joke.) Of course the Democratic floor is even higher. In a GOP blowout, it would've been similar. Much like how in any GOP blowout there'll be a large "trend" to the Democratic candidate in Mississippi just because the floor there is so high (and not much far off from the ceiling. This isn't a sign of any long-term gains for Democrats in Mississippi.

[Sbane]

Hey, the New York Times has a county-by-county swing map now:

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

Sweet...I called that swing in northwest Ohio. Same reasons as Indiana I suppose? In fact if you look at the Ohio map, you will see the biggest swing areas for Obama were from traditionally republican areas. He didn't really do that well in the cleveland area and he definitely didn't do well in the southeast. Basically he didn't get his swing in the "c". He did well in Cincinnatti and Colombus though, probably why he got the nice cushion.

[they don't love you like i love you]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=61179.0

Couple of things: First, what's the growth trend in the Democratic districts, and what's the growth trend in the Republican districts?

Depends on which districts. Most of those rural northern districts aren't losing population as badly as most rural areas though. This isn't North Dakota.

Second, state-house politics is a completely different beast from Presidential politics.  Firebrand Labor McWorker who wins a landslide as a Democrat in Northern Minnesota is running on a completely different set of issues than the national party, especially if he's a social conservative.

Obama won most of those areas.

Also note the red blob in the middle of the state.

The exurban sprawl you mentioned has slowed considerably ever since the housing bubble burst.

Housing will pick up again.  Defunct mines are dead forever.

Most of the mines are still strong for quite awhile, this isn't West Virginia.

Meanwhile more and more people are getting sucked into the soul-eating land of big box stores and big box churches, working desk drone jobs in sprawling industrial parks, going to church on Sunday/Wednesday to be told that God has a plan for them to be rich, and also that He hates gays, abortions, and Democrats.

It's not just a Twin Cities trend.  This is going on around every major city in the Upper Midwest.  Except that Minnesota is dominated by the Twin Cities metro in a way that no other state in the Upper Midwest is dominated by a major metro.

Yeah but you're greatly overestimating this trend and forgetting that it's not isolated and canceled out by greater secularism and immigrants/minorities...

Minnesota's "trend" is due to polarization basically. What McCain got in the state (or perhaps more accurately his share of the two-party vote) is basically the floor for any Republican who isn't an absolute joke (and Mark Kennedy was an absolute joke.) Of course the Democratic floor is even higher.

Not nearly as high as it was when it went for Dukakis.

Obama did better than Dukakis, who had special issues working for him in the Midwest.

Just a bunch of main points:

1-Go look at the margin of votes in the exurban counties. They vote about 60% Republican, which sounds strong. But they have about as much population as only Minneapolis proper, which is 75-80% Democratic. And that's not even counting St. Paul.
2-Name any real gains the GOP has made in Minnesota since 2002.
3-What do the Dakotas have comparable to the Twin Cities (something that will be needed for all three states to vote basically the exact same way.) Fargo and Sioux Falls aren't going to start voting >75% Democratic anytime soon, nor are Bismarck and Rapid City going to disappear.

I'd bet anything Obama's performance in the Dakotas was just personal appeal, hardly any "trend", largely many factors, Bush being a good candidate for the area, McCain being a poor one, ethanol, social wedge issues not dominating the election, etc. I'd be shocked if this continues any.

[Nym90]

Yeah, sorry Beef, but the Upper Midwest isn't trending Republican, not by a long shot. Minnesota didn't trend GOP this year by much, and it swung (not just trended) Dem in 2004.

McCain is a much better candidate for Minnesota than Bush, all else being equal (which of course it was far from being). Plus Palin sounded a heckuva lot like a Minnesotan, the convention was there, the GOP turnout didn't suck thanks to the Senate race, and the economy is actually not that bad in Minnesota compared to the rest of the Midwest or even the country as a whole.

Even closed metal mines are far from dead, as prices of copper and iron continue to rise. Very few of them in this part of the country are actually empty, it just got too expensive to extract the remaining ore. The tipping point in the cost benefit equation will eventually come onto the right side again.

One thing that I find fascinating is how much better Obama did in the rural Northeast and Midwest than he did in the rural South (at least, the rural Southern counties that have few blacks) and Applachia. Lily-white Midwestern areas liked Obama pretty well but lily white Southern areas (such as they are, mostly in Appalachia) swung hard against him.

Also, Obama's extremely strong suburban performance everywhere, and his showing with Latinos. I was quite surprised that he won Harris County, TX for example, where Sam's anecdotal evidence about Latino turnout must have been as accurate as Phil's anecdotes about how badly Obama would do with blue collar voters in eastern Pennsylvania (and the contrast in the blue collar vote between eastern and western Pennsylvania is pretty alarming, too).

[they don't love you like i love you]

Yeah, sorry Beef, but the Upper Midwest isn't trending Republican, not by a long shot. Minnesota didn't trend GOP this year by much, and it swung (not just trended) Dem in 2004.

McCain is a much better candidate for Minnesota than Bush, all else being equal (which of course it was far from being). Plus Palin sounded a heckuva lot like a Minnesotan, the convention was there, the GOP turnout didn't suck thanks to the Senate race, and the economy is actually not that bad in Minnesota compared to the rest of the Midwest or even the country as a whole.

Even closed metal mines are far from dead, as prices of copper and iron continue to rise. Very few of them in this part of the country are actually empty, it just got too expensive to extract the remaining ore. The tipping point in the cost benefit equation will eventually come onto the right side again.

One thing that I find fascinating is how much better Obama did in the rural Northeast and Midwest than he did in the rural South (at least, the rural Southern counties that have few blacks) and Applachia. Lily-white Midwestern areas liked Obama pretty well but lily white Southern areas (such as they are, mostly in Appalachia) swung hard against him.

Also, Obama's extremely strong suburban performance everywhere, and his showing with Latinos. I was quite surprised that he won Harris County, TX for example, where Sam's anecdotal evidence about Latino turnout must have been as accurate as Phil's anecdotes about how badly Obama would do with blue collar voters in eastern Pennsylvania (and the contrast in the blue collar vote between eastern and western Pennsylvania is pretty alarming, too).

Let me just say this though: No one voted soley because of Palin's accent.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Let me just say this though: No one voted solely because of Palin's accent.

Did anyone vote GOP because of the convention, either?

Doubtful, but that was just a short point I wanted to make over something even more trivial.

The big question I have after 2008: Were the "Values Voters" of the Upper Midwest converted back to being Democrats and swing voters?  Or did they just vote Obama out of a sense of national emergency, only to return to the GOP?  We're going to have to watch the next few cycles play themselves out to determine that.

No way to tell now. However they are not needed for Democrats to win in Minnesota. Even most of socially conservative rural Minnesota doesn't go for religious right nuttiness.

Phil Knudsen's grandparents, Sven and Lena, were staunch Labor Democrats, and that political tradition still runs deep in parts of NE Minnesota, Western WI, and the U.P. Michigan.  However, Bush flipped a lot of those counties in 2000 and 2004, seeming to portend the decline of that political culture.

Bush won counties in NE Minnesota?

Now, is Obama's success a resurgence of the old culture, or a temporary reaction against Bush?  Do the Knudsens (and their neighbors, the Brzezinskis and the Heikenens) return to their political roots, or are they now part of the new social conservative movement that was the basis of the 1994 Republican Revolution and Bush II's rise to power?

BRTD's state house maps would seem to indicate a return to political roots, but I would point out that local politics is a lot more flexible, and local Democrats could be adjusting themselves to new political realities.  47 Democrats serve in the Kansas House of Representatives.  Do you really think they would be Democrats in Washington?

Please note the growing red blob in the middle too. And northern Minnesota is nowhere near as conservative as you seem to think.

In the Dakotas and Montana, the New Economy is serving to break up the Sagebrush political culture that dominated the region for decades.  People are slowly trickling in from other regions of the country, and Sioux Falls, Billings, and Missoula will steadily become more cosmopolitan in outlook.

Are they ever going to start voting >75% Democratic? No of course not. Besides look at the overgrown towns that are large enough to be considered major cities out in the region already. Boise, Wichita, Omaha...most are only marginally more Democratic and often more partisan. Ada county is where the largest share of normally Republican voters stuck with Bill Sali. My precinct voted >89% for Obama. And it's really big. And it wasn't even his best in the city. That's not going to happen in Fargo or Sioux Falls.

Here's another factor that was failed to be mentioned: While it's obvious that blacks in Minnesota were as inspired to vote as everywhere else (Obama got >96% in one precinct!), they make up a far smaller share of the state than most places.