Obama's 365th Electoral Vote

When the votes were finally finished being counted, Obama's electoral vote count got increased by 1 due to an ununsual feature of one state's allocation of its votes. Nebraska is one of two states (Maine being the other) that awards its electoral votes by congressional district rather than giving the statewide winner the state's total haul. While Obama won each of Maine's two congressional districts, the Nebraska vote was split. Despite the fact that McCain won the state by about 15 points, Obama actually captured one of the congressional districts--the 2nd. As a result, he captured its electoral vote with the remaining 4 going to McCain.

While this outcome might be an interesting bit of trivia in its own right, its useful to compare 2008's numbers with 2004. In '08, Obama was able to claim the district with a narrow 3,370 vote margin of victory (138,809 to 135,439). In 2004, however, Bush won the district handily, capturing 61% of the vote (153,041 to 97,858). This historically strong Republican flavor of the district is seen in the fact that only once since voting for Harry Truman has it gone Democratic. It has a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+9. Given this 11 point shift, I thought I'd explore the district a little more.

With the aid of Jack Huerter, one of my students and Omaha native, I got a sense of the district's demographics. The 2nd District is comprised of Douglas County and a small slice of neighboring Sarpy County. Douglas County is made up of the city of Omaha plus its suburbs extending westward from the city center. While being the most diverse of the state's 3 congressional districts, the 2nd is still overwhelmingly white with 10% of the population being African American and 6% being Hispanic. Overall, Douglas County provided 81% of the district's votes in 2008 while the Sarpy County portion provided the remaining 19%. Comparing the Douglas and Sarpy votes, we find that, using the 2 party vote totals, Obama beat McCain in Douglas 52% to 48% while McCain beat Obama in the Sarpy portion 57% to 43%.

To aid in the exploration of the district, I created the map shown above which focuses on Douglas County. Thanks to the Douglas County Elections Commission I was able to get both the precinct level voting data and precinct map. From it I created the color coded map that shows the distribution of Obama's and McCain's support throughout the county. I've created an excel file for the precinct level voting for Douglas County that is available here. Here is the original map without the color coding that provides a clearer picture of the boundaries and streets.

What we see is an Obama vote that is concentrated within the city of Omaha and some of its more western neighborhoods and a McCain vote that is, as we'd probably expect, heavily suburban. Within the city, the African American community is concentrated on the north side (see precincts in Ward 2 especially). For the Hispanic population of Omaha, the city's south side is where the largest concentration exists, especially in the areas around I-80. These south side neighborhoods were historically white working class and Omaha, like many cities, has seen this group move to the suburbs over the years. As we move westward out of the city, Jack suggests that the suburbs begin in the area of around 90th Street. We see from the map that this is where the McCain strength intensifies and we enter areas of solid red--the urban grid ends and is replaced by neighborhoods of winding streets and cul de sacs. A final group I was interested in was the Omaha student population. Creighton University is a mid sized Jesuit school located in the heart of downtown (precincts 2-15, 2-16). Its area went solidly for Obama. The University of Nebraska at Omaha has a sizable student body of about 15,000 but according to my Omaha expert is largely commuter based and thus not concentrated in any one voting area.

I had hoped to do a close comparison between the 2008 and 2004 numbers at the precinct level. However, in talking to someone at the Elections Commission, I was told that there were some pretty dramatic changes to the precinct boundaries, thus making a comparison difficult. Nonetheless, I did get the precinct level numbers that are available here so that you can make your own observations. On a very basic level we can get some sense of Obama's improvement over Kerry. In 2008, Obama won 151 of Douglas County's 350 precincts (43% of all precincts). In 2004, Kerry managed to win only 94 of the 341 precincts (28% of all precincts). While Obama's best precincts were no doubt some of Kerry's best, especially among African Americans, Obama would seem to have benefitted from a greater number of votes coming out of these areas.

Big Blue Badger

As I hinted yesterday, the results from Wisconsin were staggering for Obama, compared to past Democratic performance. He flipped 32 counties from '04 and won statewide by 13 points. The map at left gives you a sense of where the greatest upticks took place. As I've been saying for a long time, the key for Wisconsin Dems is not just Milwaukee and Madison, its the Mississippi River counties. You can see the big Obama performance there.

Also of interest to me was the voting in the city of Milwaukee. Obviously Obama was going to win big there--and he did with with 78%--but I was curious about the south side. The south side of Milwaukee has always been Democratic territory but it is the home of Milwaukee's white ethnic (mostly Polish and German) blue collar community--Joe the Plumber land, in short. In 1964, George Wallace actually kicked off his campaign at Serb Hall, one of the south side's venerable gathering spots and home to a wicked Friday night fish fry. Given what we saw during the primaries in Chicago (see post here) I wondered whether McCain might actually win parts of the south side. Well, now that we've got some data, it appears that Obama actually carried it. See the map below which shows this year's citywide vote in comparison to 2004. McCain may have actually won some individual precincts here but until that data becomes available, we can't be sure. I'll also be interested in some of the inner suburbs that come off the south side--Greenfield, West Allis--to how Obama performed.

Lots more Wisconsin analysis to come.

Maps courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Where They're Campaigning--A Macro Picture

In a number of posts over the past weeks, I’ve been looking at where each of the campaigns have been visiting to get a sense of their strategies and objectives. What can sometimes be missed in these daily snapshots is the larger picture or context in which the campaign takes place. Candidate visits are a part of the overall strategy of a campaign. In structuring their campaign, candidates must choose how to allocate their time, resources, and organization as well as how to frame their message and that of their opponent. With limited time, money, and organization the campaigns seek to best maximize the return on these resources within the context of a campaign’s constantly shifting position. If a candidate feels that a state is no longer in reach, they will no longer visit or air advertisements there, as witnessed by McCain’s pullout of Michigan in recent weeks. A candidate confident that a state is on their side won’t waste time with a visit—see Obama and Iowa, for example. If, however, a state seems either in danger of falling out of one’s column or potentially moving into it, a candidate will shift attention there. Here, witness the Obama campaign’s recent shift to Florida and Missouri.

Thus, by looking at where the two campaigns are spending their time, and how this has shifted over the recent weeks, we can get a sense, perhaps, of the larger direction the race is moving in. So, for example, are the campaigns spending most of their time in states won by Bush in 2004? If so, this would seem to bode well for the Obama campaign. If the Democrats are devoting resources to these states at a greater rate than states they won in 2004, they would seem confident in their ability to expand the electoral map and gain the electoral votes necessary for victory (assuming they aren’t sure they’ve already lost states they won in 2004). If McCain, likewise, is spending most of his time in the same states, this would imply a defensive stature. The Republicans can only afford minimal losses from the 2004 Bush map to win the presidency. Given the polling in some of these Bush states (Iowa, New Mexico, Virginia) McCain must find a way to win some states won by Kerry in 2004.

So, then, where are the campaigns actually spending their time? I’ve built a spreadsheet (see here) that tracks each visit by each presidential and vice presidential candidate since the end of the Republic an National Convention. These visits are tabulated by the Washington Post in their “Campaign Tracker” and updated daily. In the first column I’ve listed the date of each visit. Column 2 lists the candidate (Biden, Obama, McCain, Palin) making the visit. Column 3 is the state of the visit followed by the city in Column 4. In Column 5 I’ve noted the few visits that were fundraisers and not traditional campaign rallies or events. In the next 4 columns I’ve captured the “offensive” or “defensive” nature of each visit. This, I feel, will give a sense of the campaign’s real movement. Thus, we see Democratic visits to Bush 2004 states (offensive); Democratic visits to Kerry 2004 states (defensive); Republican visits to Kerry 2004 states (offensive); and Republican visits to Bush 2004 states (defensive). To add a visual dimension to this coding, I’ve color coded each column red (Republican) or blue (Democratic) to allow one to get a quick sense of what’s going on and to see these changes over time. I’ve also coded the visits that coincide with each debate yellow and not counted them in my tabulations as these cities were not chosen by the campaigns. I’ve also not counted a few visits that candidates made to their home state (Biden to Delaware and Palin to Alaska) because these visits do not seem part of the campaigns’ electoral strategy but were rather part of these VP nominees “roll-outs.” I’ve also not counted visits to New York as part of September 11 commemorations as official campaign stops.

In tabulating these visits, a few trends become clear. First, we see that by an overwhelming margin, the race (in terms of visits) is being conducted on Republican turf. This is very good news for the Obama campaign. 115 visits were to states won by Bush in 2004 (64 by the Obama campaign, 51 by the McCain campaign). Only 58 visits were to states won by Kerry in 2004 (26 by the Obama campaign, 32 by the McCain campaign). Put another way, the Obama campaign has spent 71% of its visits in states won by Bush while McCain has only spent 39% of its visits in states won by Kerry. Looking at this in more detail one sees, perhaps, a more dire picture for McCain. In the last ten days, the McCain campaign has only visited 3 states won by Kerry (Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and 1 stop by Palin in Maine). Over the same time period, the Obama campaign has visited 7 states won by Bush (Florida, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia). Clearly, as Obama’s polling has improved over the past month, the campaign has felt emboldened to venture into a broader array of states, some of which were not thought to be winnable a few months back.


Another thing one notes is that the Obama campaign has been able to use its candidates—at least in terms of ground covered—more efficiently. One notices in the data a number of events attended by both Republican or Democratic candidates. These joint events, while probably larger in scope, are a less efficient use of the candidates’ time. Having two candidates in two places allows a campaign to accomplish more than having two candidates in one place. Here again we seem to have a Democratic advantage. Whereas the Republican ticket has had 19 joint events (thus coded as 38 visits), the Democratic ticket has had only 6.

When we look at the visits candidate by candidate, we don’t see a noticeable difference in terms of the candidates’ workloads. Obama has made 48 visits; Biden 42; McCain 42; and Palin 41. We do see some interesting trends, though, when we look at where each of these candidates has ventured. Joe Biden is probably the most interesting. He has made 43% of his visits to just two states—Ohio (13 visits) and Pennsylvania (5 visits). Thus, the “boy from Scranton” with his blue collar persona is clearly being used to try and shore up the segment of the electorate that has been most elusive to Obama throughout the campaign. Obama has made only 9 visits (19%) to those two states and concentrated his efforts on targets outside the Rust Belt like Colorado, Virginia, and Florida.

Thus, by looking at the campaign in a more “macro” sense, we can get some indication of the direction things seem to be moving. Some states that were earlier seen as competitive have seemed to solidify. Michigan, for example, hasn’t been visited by the McCain camp since September 23. It appears solidly in the Obama column. Likewise, the McCain campaign last visited Wisconsin and Minnesota on October 10. The decision by the RNC to stop airing ads in Wisconsin might signal that the Badger State is out of reach. Other states have suddenly gotten a lot more attention. Prior to October 9, Missouri had gone a month without being visited by the Obama campaign. Since the 9th, though, the Democrats have made 6 visits in a newfound sense of bullishness.

Over the remaining two weeks of the campaign, I’ll continue to monitor these visits to see if any further shifts take place. Should the polling begin to tighten in some states we’ll no doubt see the campaigns flock there. I’d also note, in closing, that the campaigns’ use of advertising will be a part of this larger strategy of resource allocation. The data for this year’s campaign advertising provided by the Wisconsin Advertising Project can be compared with these candidate visits to get a more complete picture of how the Democrats and Republicans view the current state of play. Like with visits, their recent findings suggest a battle being fought on Republican turf. The recent announcement by the Obama campaign that they had raised a staggering $150 million in September ensures that for the remainder of the contest, the Democrats will not be hindered by a lack of resources. While the laws of physics may prevent Obama and Biden from being wherever they would like to be, the opportunities available via the airwaves appear limitless.


**Update: Nate Silver takes a slightly different, but equally interesting, look at the data on candidate visits at FiveThirtyEight.com