Regional differences in voting for Barack Obama

Posted on August 12, 2009 by David Hume

I’ve been playing with quantitative data and mapping recently (numbers & maps are two things I’m rather preoccupied with). I was curious as to geographic variation in support for Barack Obama as a function of the % of a county that was white, and how expectations were shifted based on geography. In plainer language, some very white regions such as Vermont were much more pro-Obama than whites nationally, while others, such as the Upland South, were more anti-Obama. Below the fold is a map where I shaded pro-Obama counties (but the criterion above) blue and anti-Obama counties red. A more detailed methodology can be found at Gene Expression (along with more maps and a scatterplot).

Click map for “non-funhouse” version
trendnamp1

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9 Responses to Regional differences in voting for Barack Obama

  1. Susan says:
    August 12, 2009 at 6:00 am

    No surprises here. Vermont is one of the most liberal states in the country.The influx of back-to-the-land hippies in the early 1970s coupled with lifetstyle refugees from New York and New Jersey pretty much guaranteed that. A lot of the other deeply blue areas are either urban or places where you’ll find large clusters of colleges and universities.

  2. Chris says:
    August 12, 2009 at 11:27 am

    A lot of this seems to be regional effects that are not Obama-specific at all; they’re just the general political lean of the state/county. (Coasts, urban areas, etc.)

    What happens if you adjust for this by subtracting party ID, or Kerry vote share, or some other measurement of the general political culture of the area?

  3. Spawn of Cthulhu says:
    August 12, 2009 at 11:34 am

    I agree with the above comments. The lone blue spot in Texas is Austin, the 2 blue spots in the Florida panhandle are the Tallahassee area, etc.

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  5. Stopped Clock says:
    August 14, 2009 at 9:04 am

    Is Rhode Island really “white” on this map or is it just bad data? If it’s real it’s quite a significant outlier for New England. (loyal New Englander speaking here, my eyes always go there first)

  6. Stopped Clock says:
    August 14, 2009 at 9:10 am

    What’s up with the bright blue blotches in the mountain West? Is it possible that they’re majority Hispanic and/or American Indian, and just not identifying as such on the censuses? Also sorry to nitpick, but I notice that there a few counties in the entire nation that look purplish. Should purple be read the same as white, or is there something different?

  7. Donna B. says:
    August 14, 2009 at 10:48 am

    Click over the GNXP for some of the answers. As to the mountain west, it’s been infiltrated over the past 40 by Californians.

  8. trafficmatt says:
    August 15, 2009 at 7:53 am

    I’ve always been curious about the leftward bent of the northern plains (i.e. Wisconsin, Minnesota, ND, SD, Iowa). Minnesota I somewhat understand because of the universities and large urban area. The rest leaves me somewhat puzzled. These are mainly rural areas. Are they lefty because of an anti big-business mentality?

  9. Bruce says:
    August 19, 2009 at 3:50 am

    Wisconsin results were interesting. The conservative voting counties were the race-realist counties flanking Milwaukee. It’s easy to be a liberal when your living in Madison, Eau Claire, etc. and don’t actually see any Africans except on TV.

    The upper midwest is probably liberal because of liberal Lutherans and Roman Catholics.

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