Ohio 2008 Place Map (City, Town, Village)

[mileslunn]

Great Map.  My one question is how come there is so much red in Wisconsin while Minnesota seems far more blue.  Western Wisconsin is pretty rural and white so it seems odds it went so strongly for Obama.  New England is also went heavily for Obama, but this region has always been quite liberal compared to elsewhere in the US.  As for Pennsylvania, no surprise, it is quite polarized between the urban and rural areas.  Even New York seems to have a fair bit of blue, although looking at the county by county results it seems most counties that voted for McCain only went for him narrowly, while New York City went massively for Obama, so there was no way McCain was going to overcome Obama's strength in New York City unless he got somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2/3 of the vote in upstate New York.

[mileslunn]

Great Map.  My one question is how come there is so much red in Wisconsin while Minnesota seems far more blue.  Western Wisconsin is pretty rural and white so it seems odds it went so strongly for Obama.  New England is also went heavily for Obama, but this region has always been quite liberal compared to elsewhere in the US.  As for Pennsylvania, no surprise, it is quite polarized between the urban and rural areas.  Even New York seems to have a fair bit of blue, although looking at the county by county results it seems most counties that voted for McCain only went for him narrowly, while New York City went massively for Obama, so there was no way McCain was going to overcome Obama's strength in New York City unless he got somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2/3 of the vote in upstate New York.

Fundies in the Minneapolis suburbs/exurbs. Compare to the area around Milwaukee in eastern Wisconsin. Western Wisconsin is more like the Duluth area in northeastern Minnesota. Rural whites in the Democratic areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota are Scandinavians, mostly, your traditional mainline Protestant progressives. (Capital P Progressives, too, in both the US and Canada historically.)

Also, Obama won New York minus New York City (and Long Island, but it's less Democratic than the remainder of the state as a whole) with about 55% of the vote, so upstate New York is solidly Democratic. You could take out the entire NYC MSA, and it still would be solidly Democratic.

It is true Obama won upstate New York, although they were still more counties and municipalities won by McCain than Obama, however Obama did win all the larger ones though.  I would say Upstate New York would be a swing state since the results in the past few elections have generally been not far off the national average.  Kerry I think won by only 2,000 votes.  The strong Obama win this time corresponded with his strong win nationally.

[mileslunn]

Great Map.  My one question is how come there is so much red in Wisconsin while Minnesota seems far more blue.  Western Wisconsin is pretty rural and white so it seems odds it went so strongly for Obama.  New England is also went heavily for Obama, but this region has always been quite liberal compared to elsewhere in the US.  As for Pennsylvania, no surprise, it is quite polarized between the urban and rural areas.  Even New York seems to have a fair bit of blue, although looking at the county by county results it seems most counties that voted for McCain only went for him narrowly, while New York City went massively for Obama, so there was no way McCain was going to overcome Obama's strength in New York City unless he got somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2/3 of the vote in upstate New York.

Fundies in the Minneapolis suburbs/exurbs. Compare to the area around Milwaukee in eastern Wisconsin. Western Wisconsin is more like the Duluth area in northeastern Minnesota. Rural whites in the Democratic areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota are Scandinavians, mostly, your traditional mainline Protestant progressives. (Capital P Progressives, too, in both the US and Canada historically.)

Also, Obama won New York minus New York City (and Long Island, but it's less Democratic than the remainder of the state as a whole) with about 55% of the vote, so upstate New York is solidly Democratic. You could take out the entire NYC MSA, and it still would be solidly Democratic.

The Upper Midwest seems to be the only area where suburbs are more Republican than rural areas. I'm imagining this is only true in Minn., Wisc. and N.H.

Definitely true in Wisconsin.  Partially true in Minnesota, although the more densely populated suburbs went for Obama in Minneapolis-St. Paul.  It was more the exurbs that went for McCain.  Hennepin County - Minneapolis and Ramsay County - St. Paul still would have gone for Obama as well as he won Washington County and Dakota County.  Asides from New England, Upper Midwest seems to be the only area where large chunks of predominately rural and white counties voted for Obama.  There are some states though where suburban areas more Republican than the state as a whole, but usually it is due to other factors.  For example, the Cincinnati Suburbs are far more Republican than Ohio as a whole and even more so than rural Ohio, however the Southwestern part of the state is also the most conservative part.  The Cleveland suburbs however are more Democratic than the state as a whole.  Orange County is also more Republican than even rural California, but the Los Angeles County suburbs and to a lesser extent, Ventura County are more Democratic.

[mileslunn]

Here is the whole upper north and east of the US - from Minnesota to Maine

I would be interested in seeing Illinois and Indiana.  It would be interesting to see how Obama did in his home state.  I suspect he probably did quite well in the Northern part of the state including many traditional Republican areas, but I suspect less so in the downstate parts.  If anything, I think being from Chicago might have been a liability as this region seems to be ignored quite often by Chicago and many I get the impression don't particularly like the Northern part of the state. 

Indiana would be interesting, although I suspect much like Ohio and Pennsylvania, most of the state went Republican, Obama just won the cities, however he won them by larger margins than the Democrats usually do and he didn't get clobbered in rural Indiana like the Democrats normally do.  Still it would be great to see this.

[mileslunn]

Well, to figure out that Obama did better in North IL, one doesn't have to see the township map: the county map suffices. Yes, Obama wiped McCain off the map in the North and did relatively poorly in the South. Every single county in IL did swing to Dems this time, but whereas almost all northern counties also trended D, most Southern didn't.

Obama is the first Dem ever (IL is on the Atlas since 1892) to win at the presidential level in such counties as DuPage, Kane, Kendall or McHenry. His margins in DuPage and Kane were over 10% (about 55% of the vote in both) - not a bad performance in a solid Republican territory.  What is it, that a township map can add to this?

I am aware of Obama's strength by county, however it would still be interesting to see the breakdown as some counties like Kane, Kendall, Will, and McHenry have both built up suburban sections and more rural sections so I would be interested in seeing if it was just the suburban parts Obama won or if he extended his strength into the countryside.  I should note DuPage County was already trending Democrat even before as I think Bush did rather poorly by historical standards.  Like many suburbs, the Collar County Republicans tend to be more your centre-right suburban type voters, not your hard right types you find in the South or more rural areas of the Midwest.  I would also like to see how Obama vs. McCain did in the St. Louis suburbs as those have been trending more Democrat than the surrounding areas.