50 State Steele?

A rudderless Republican National Committee wrapped up a raucous winter meeting today, selecting Michael Steele, a man who whiffed on a primary for Maryland state comptroller he was favored to win against a field of unknowns just a decade ago, as their new face in the post-Obama drubbing era.

Both of ElectionDissection.com’s editors secured press credentials - just like a legitimate news media outlet! – and were on hand, crowded into the designated press corner for all six, tension-fraught ballots that committee members needed to elect a new chairman.                                        

Steele boasted repeatedly of his tenure as Maryland GOP chair, and the election of Bob Ehrlich as governor and himself as Lt. Governor, under his watch.  Of course, Steele glossed over his ticket’s ousting four years later by then-Baltimore mayor Martin O’Malley, and falling 10 points short in his 2006 U.S. Senate bid against Ben Cardin. 

Word around the hall had it that Steele enjoyed strong support fellow Blue Stater RNC members.  Indeed, Steele enjoyed the support of DC’s Republican Party Chair Bob Kabel and national committeewoman Betsy Werronen.  

ElectionDissection ran into Patrick Mara, the Republican who fell short for an at-large DC Council seat last fall, after unseating veteran Republican Council Member Carol Schwartz in a bitterly contested, low turnout primary. 

Mara voiced his support for Steele, citing not only his support for his recent council bid, but also - reminding us that he cut his political teeth in his native heavily Democratic Rhode Island - an affinity for Steele as a Blue State Republican.  Mara explained that Steele understands that it takes a different sort of Republican, a more moderate Republican or one from a more diverse background, to compete in unfavorable terrain.  

Steele’s own rhetoric and from those who advocated on his behalf insisted that only he, the RNC’s media savvy first Afro-Am chairman, could appeal to diverse constituencies, rebuild party infrastructure and reinvent the partisan brand.  Critics drew parallels to the Obama campaign’s “change” theme that opponents found sorely lacking in specifics.  

But in his victory speech, Steele thanked RNC members from all regions of the country, including those from the Northeast, where Republican support has almost dried up in recent years.  (He also thanked the 18 members from the territories, key players on a committee of only 168, where the national committeewoman from the Northern Marianas Islands has a vote equal with the Republican chair from Texas, the nation’s largest Red State.)  “Get ready, baby,” he advised them.  A Steele-led RNC intends to compete there, too.  This was meant to contrast sharply with the man who was his last standing challenger, Katon Dawson, the slick, Southern, well-coiffed chairman from the Deep Red, Deep South Palmetto State, who resembled much of the traditional RNC membership.

Those remarks reinforced what occurred to me during our conversation with Mara: that a Steele chairmanship would implement a strategy similar to Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy, one that’s built up infrastructure in Deep Red states and enable Democrats to win recent races that they couldn’t contest earlier in this decade.  Given the daunting demographic trends that Republicans face these days, it’s hard to conceive how even more durable infrastructure can save the GOP.  But then again, few foresaw Democrats snaring the seat of a retiring Republican House Speaker, after Dean put his strategy into effect.

Can You Have Bi-Partisanship When You're Highly Polarized???

Today’s big story is the House’s passage of President Obama’s economic stimulus bill without a single Republican vote. The 244-188 vote saw all 177 Republicans vote against the package of tax cuts and spending increases aimed at job creation, infrastructure improvement, and other investments. In the early days of his administration, Obama had made numerous attempts at reaching some accord with the Republican membership, including visiting the members on Capitol Hill and engaging them in a wide ranging discussion and debate about the legislation. For those looking for a new era of bi-partisan cooperation, these early efforts were greatly welcomed. With yesterday’s vote, though, many of these same people are asking whether anything in Washington has changed. While some commentary has scolded Republican House members for talking a good game of bi-partisanship without being willing to walk the walk, a larger question must be explored—one that goes to the heart of the modern day Congress. Namely, why would we have expected many Republican votes in the first place???

Over the last several election cycles, we’ve seen the membership of the House of Representatives become increasingly polarized. This has been due to changes in both the Democratic and Republican caucuses. For the Democrats, the decline of the party’s fortunes in the south over the past generation or so has led to the virtual disappearance of the southern conservative (often rural) Democrat. As these seats became solidly Republican the Democratic caucus became increasingly liberal ideologically. While we’ve seen a slight reversal of this trend with the election of some more Blue Dogs recently, the Democrats nonetheless remain, as a whole, a more liberal bunch than their predecessors. For the Republicans we’ve also seen a geographic shift with the emptying of New England GOP seats as well as losses in the industrial Midwest. Thus, the GOP ranks have become increasingly conservative ideologically. As a consequence there are fewer members who find themselves occupying the middle range of the political spectrum—and thus acting as potential votes for the opposite party from time to time.

This polarization has also been aided, many argue, by the redistricting process that tends to create safe districts for members of both parties. With little fear of a serious electoral challenge, members don’t perceive any cost to adhering to their party’s agenda as opposed to their constituents’. Both agendas, are in essence, the same. To get a sense of this, I’ve taken a look at the last two House Republican caucuses. What we’re seeing is that the Republican members in office now have become quite safe in their re-election, despite going through two pretty wretched cycles. When defining what makes a member potentially vulnerable for defeat, political scientists have tended to use either 55% or 60% of the vote in one’s most recent campaign as a warning sign. So, for example:

In 2008, 37 Rep. House members received 55% of the vote or less
In 2006, 41 Rep. House members received 55% of the vote or less

In 2008, 38 Rep. House members received 55-60%
In 2006, 60 Rep. House members received 55-60%

Thus, close to 60% of the House Republican caucus received over 60% of the vote in 2008. Overall, 2006 seemed to be considerably worse than 2008 in putting members in the “danger zone.” Another way of looking at these numbers is to look at each member’s performance in 2008 compared to 2006. Here again, we see more members doing better. In 2008, 79 House Republicans got a higher % than they did in 2006; 66 got a lower %; and 9 received the same %.

So, for your average House Republican, despite the fact that your party has taken a beating over the past two cycles, their individual performance hasn’t been quite as bad. While a number of members have been swept out of office—thus Democratic gains of 32 and 21 seats—those that are left would seem to be quite secure. So perhaps expecting large swaths of them to start voting Democratic was premature. While trying to be bi-partisan is certainly admirable, the distance that Obama was trying to cover may have been too far. One might also argue that given the cushion he had given the large Democratic majority, he could afford to make bi-partisan overtures and still be rebuffed. The Stimulus bill still passed handily.

One group of members that we might want to focus on more closely, especially when the Stimulus bill comes back to the House for final passage, is the freshman class. The Republicans have 23 members who have never been through this type of process before and for whom the Stimulus vote was their first consequential decision. When we look at this group we see a much more insecure bunch. Of these 23 members, 13 received less than 55% last year and another 6 received between 55 and 60%. With their no votes they have served to put a big target on their backs.

When yesterday’s vote took place, I was reminded of a similar vote that took place at the beginning of the last Democratic presidency. In 1993, the House vote on President Clinton’s $500 billion deficit reduction package transpired in a very similar fashion. With every Republican vote against the bill, the legislation managed to pass by a single vote. The story of this vote is one I use in the first lecture I give as a part of my course on the U.S. Congress. With the vote of freshman House Democrat Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky of Pennsylvania, the budget resolution squeaked through giving the new president his first major legislative victory. In making her decision, Mezvinsky angered a large segment of her suburban, affluent constituency. Because of the bill’s provisions to increase taxes on upper income earners, she immediately put herself in electoral jeopardy. Sure enough, in the 1994 Republican landslide, Mezvinsky was a casualty.

The reason I bring this story up is because Mezvinsky, like all freshmen members, was just learning how to do her job when this vote took place. Unlike her more senior colleagues, she didn’t have much experience in determining how her constituents would react to her vote and how she could regain their trust. The big difference between the 1993 vote and yesterday's, of course, is that the Clinton package raised taxes while the Obama bill cuts them. While it has been proven dangerous to vote for a bill that hits your constituents in the wallet, we don't know whether there's a cost in voting against a bill that will add money to them. This uncertainty is no doubt running through many of the current freshmen after yesterday’s vote. While we’ll have to wait a while to see how their votes play out both at home and in Washington, you can be sure they will be getting a lot of attention—attention they’d no doubt rather avoid—over the coming weeks.

Tomorrow, ElectionDissection.com will be at the Republican National Committee meeting in Washington to get a sense of how the party is grappling with the state they find themselves in. We'll report back, with special focus on the election of the new party Chairman.

From Campaigning to Governing--"Going Public" Version 2.0

In the mid 1980’s presidential scholarship by political scientist Samuel Kernell argued that presidents were able to gain bargaining power and leverage with Congress by “going public.” In an environment in which politics was becoming increasingly individualized and fragmented—due to the decline of political parties, candidate-centered campaigns, and greater constituency driven pressures on legislators—presidents found it necessary to go outside of Washington to generate support for their agenda. By going over the heads of recalcitrant legislators and appealing directly to the public, presidents could get constituents to, in effect, do the work of compelling Congress to act. Whether it be through public appearances and speeches in person or through the air waves, the office of the President, aided by technology and its ability to draw media coverage, was at an advantage vis a vis a more fractured Congress.

With the advent of the Obama administration, it seems as if we may be on the verge of a new, and potentially more powerful, iteration of this “going public” dynamic. As has been much discussed, one of the Obama campaign’s greatest strengths was its organizational muscle. By not only harnessing the best technology and social networking tools of the day, but pairing it with a campaign ethos premised on community organization and grass roots mobilization, Obama was able to register scores of new voters, provide continuous updates to a 13 million strong email distribution list, and repeatedly tap its network for campaign contributions. With victory in hand, the question then became—“Now what???” How do you keep this network engaged when the immediate pressures and excitement of a campaign are gone? Can you put the network to use in trying to enact your agenda? Can these people help you govern?

Initial indications are that this is exactly what the Obama Administration is hoping to do. Over the last few weeks, we have begun to see the roll out of “Organizing for America” (See NYTimes coverage here). While the specifics of this plan are still pretty vague, one can imagine how it could be put to use in pressuring Congress. Just as people were alerted to various developments in the campaign, a similar communications apparatus could be used as the House or Senate is preparing to vote on the Economic Stimulus plan, health care reform, etc. With individuals getting specific information on their particular member of Congress, the poor staff assistants who answer the phones in congressional offices might find themselves deluged with pleas for congressional action. Having answered such calls myself and knowing how legislative offices sometimes discount mass appeals of this type—especially when they seem generated by an outside entity—the team behind Organizing for America will need to be quite sophisticated in their methodology.

On a related level, another indication that Obama is going to attempt to maintain his organizational structure is the recent ascension of Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. Hand-chosen by the President, Kaine shares not just a close relationship with Obama (he was one of Obama’s first high profile endorsers) but also a governing ethic. Both have fashioned themselves as pragmatists more than ideologues and Kaine’s success in Virginia (seen first by Mark Warner) showed the viability of a campaign premised on “expanding the map.” With Kaine now topping the Democratic Party, he seems charged not only with the more traditional party leadership responsibilities—fundraising, candidate recruitment, and organizational maintenance—but with using the tools developed by the Obama campaign to push its governing agenda. In fact, Organizing for America will be housed at the DNC. One potential outcome of this (and indeed danger) that I speculated about earlier in the campaign is that the “Democratic Party” ceases to exist in any true sense, and is replaced with the “Obama Party.” Given the unprecedented degree of marketing and branding that the Obama campaign did, one wonders if tensions could emerge down the road. Might rank and file Democrats bristle at being subsumed within the Obama machine? Might they resent pressure generated by Organizing for America? How do policy differences and conflicting agendas get resolved? While all of these questions will no doubt get answered—and probably in a messy fashion from time to time—what seems clear is that a new method and machinery for “going public” is in the offing.

TARP Trends

With its first notable post-Inauguration vote, the new Congress is indicating that, even if all those platitutudes heralding a new post-partisan and/or post-racial Era of Good Feelings should indeed dawn on us, ushered in by the new Administration, sectional rifts will still sometimes rend both parties.

A quick look at the break down of Members who crossed the aisle over today’s House vote amending the TARP econ bailout plan points to a more identifiable regional trend animating the votes of GOP rebels than the Dems who opposed their leadership. Although The Hill describes the vote as “largely symbolic” and the title of the WaPo article notes the bill includes “Strict New Requirements on Use of Bailout Funds,” this vote can be considered one of the Obama Administration’s first tests in Congress

Given that the House Democrats’ swelled ranks have brought in a caucus that is more diverse in age, ideology, region and in intesity of the loyalty each feels to various elements of the victorious Democratic majority of 2008 (to name a few), more splits seem likely on roll call votes, esp. should Obama’s honeymoon with Congressional Democrats prove to be abbreviated.

But on this early vote, the atrophied Republican rump in the House looks like it feels more confident in opposing their leadership now that Tom DeLay’s old mantra of keeping a Republican majority at any cost is a moot point.

Of the 18 Republicans voting “aye,” 11 hail from Rust Belt states hit hard by the economic downturn and who might expect constituents to benefit from bailout funds. (This group includes seven from Michigan alone, include the traditionally conservative Rep. Peter Hoekstra, from the state’s Dutch-settled southwest. Hoekstra was joined in this group by social conservative fire breather and Speaker Gingrich failed coup plotter Rep. Mark Souder, from a hard-pressed Fort Wayne-based northwestern Indiana district.):

Camp (MI)
Ehlers (MI)
Hoekstra (MI)
LaTourette (OH)
McCotter (MI)
Miller (MI)
Rogers (MI)
Schock (IL)
Souder (IN)
Turner (OH)
Upton (MI)

Reps. Lance of New Jersey and Castle of Delaware might be lumped in here too, hailing from industrial states.

Among other GOP rebels:

Rep. Dave Reichert, also, represents Washington state, home of heavy Boeing layoffs.

Rep. John Campbell, who’s made a name for himself as a spending hawk, hails from a far Southern California CD home to possibly ailing aerospace firms.

The last three rebels hail from Florida, including the brother duo of Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart. Interestingly, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, their Cuban-American Republican cohort who usually votes with them, stayed loyal on this vote, though Rep. Vern Buchanan of a demographically shifting Sarasota-based CD joined them.

Democratic apostates include a few Southern Democrats from Old South CDs who frequently defy their leadership: Reps. Shuler and McIntyre of North Carolina, Rep. Marshall of Georgia, Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi and freshman Rep. Bobby Bright of Montgomery, Alabama, whom is voting more with the GOP already despite their failure to recruit him as a candidate this cycle.

Other potential trends at work here:

Western freshman from districts that have boomed in recent years: Reps. Walt Minnick of Idaho and Ann Kirkpatrick of rural Arizona.

The other two rebels hail from Hillary-heavy voting and hurting Pennsylvania CDs – Reps. Jason Altmire and Tim Holden – who may think the package isn’t generous enough.

Can You Rebuild a Party Based On Nostalgia??? Or, What Do the Republicans Do About George W. Bush???

A few weeks back John wrote about the Republican party’s current search for a new Chairman. While I haven’t followed the sweepstakes blow for blow, some aspects have caught my attention and led me to think more broadly about the direction of the party.

In a much publicized debate (watch here) on January 5th hosted by Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform, all six of the candidates to head the RNC were asked to name our greatest president. Not missing a beat, each dutifully answered “Reagan” in an almost Pavlovian fashion. This fealty to Reagan seems to be the first commandment of modern Republicanism. While the Gipper was certainly the modern GOP’s most successful politician, there seems to me to be some real danger in trying to refashion the Republican Party around a theme of Reagan revival and nostalgia.

As much of the data on last year’s election has made clear, a strong predictor of the vote was age. Among the cohort of voters under the age of 30, Obama won two thirds of the vote. As much of the literature on political socialization has shown, party loyalties tend to be fashioned early in one’s life and endure rather well over time. Thus, the Democrats are salivating over these numbers, seeing a solid voting block extending well into the future. While its naïve to think that this age cohort will continue to have such solid Democratic loyalty as they enter their 40’s, 50’s, and beyond, its not far fetched to speculate on the numerical advantage they’ll have, especially when combined with other variables pointing in the Dems favor—increases is the minority population and the correlation between level of education and Democratic support.

So why the danger in dwelling on Reagan?? When this was originally reported I couldn’t help but think of the students that I teach. My current group of students—those just entering political life through voting, internships, and other types of mobilization—was born in 1988. They have absolutely no direct recollection or memory of Ronald Reagan. In fact, they were twelve when Bill Clinton left office!!! For them, the only President they’ve had any meaningful experience with is George W. Bush. And from the exit polling we’ve seen, that experience doesn’t appear to have been too positive. In thinking about this phenomenon, I got to wondering about how presidential legacies are both important in shaping people’s view of parties and policies yet also hindrances in allowing parties and politics to move forward.

When presidents get elected and parties come to power, they do so through the formation of coalitions—a collection of individuals and groups who, at best share a common set of policy preferences and interests, and at the very least, are drawn to one side more than the other, usually out of disappointment with the ruling party’s performance. These coalitions are oftentimes fragile as coalition members differ about policy specifics or priorities. In these cases, the interest of maintaining power takes precedence over ideological purity. Whether or not these coalitions remain intact and endure over time has been crucial to our thinking about eras of party dominance or “realignments.” When a coalition disintegrates, parties enter into periods of self-examination. They must figure out why their support disappeared and how to cobble together the support necessary to return to power.

Some historical examples can be used to illustrate this. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Republican Party used the memory of Lincoln and "waving the bloody shirt” to ensure a series of victories throughout the Gilded Age. At some point, though, that was no longer enough to win. Lincoln, though an American giant, was no longer at the forefront of Americans’ consciousness and the Civil War generation had died off. A new strategy was needed. Later, the Democratic Party rose to dominance with the formation of the “New Deal Coalition.” With support from the South, big cities, unions, farmers, and increasingly African Americans, FDR was able to win 4 successive elections and the Democrats were able to control Congress consistently for over a generation. By the end of LBJ’s term, though, the coalition had frayed. This brings us to Reagan. Reagan’s success was not just in giving some clarity to the Republican Party’s policies, but in co-opting those prodigal members of the old Roosevelt coalition—working class whites, southerners, etc. and bringing them over to the Republican side.

While Clinton was able to bring some of them back, George W. Bush’s two victories, though extremely narrow, had many in the GOP ranks positing an enduring Republican majority. We now know how that turned out--and that’s where the GOP’s problem lies, in my view. I don’t know how you can rebuild the GOP by trying to act as if Bush never existed. How do you rewind to Reagan and start over? Again I think of my students’ generation. When they think of the Republican Party, they don’t think of Reagan, they think of Bush. Even on the Democratic side this year we saw how the American electorate has a short term memory. Much of Hillary Clinton’s campaign seemed premised on the notion of a Clinton Renaissance—“vote for me and we’ll go back to the 90’s when everything was great.” Again, we’ve seen how that turned out. A candidate who was wholly forward looking captured voters’ attention, offered a new type of politics, and rode to victory.

This brings us to Bush. As he prepares to leave office next week, a number of press outlets have been compiling retrospectives on the Bush years. As one might expect, the pictures have not been positive. Whether it be fiscal, foreign, or domestic policy, the Bush legacy is not one that many will point to, especially in the near term, as worth being repeated. How, then, does the Republican Party regroup? How do they address the Bush legacy? Do they, after a respectful period, go through a period of disavowing everything done over the past eight years—essentially arguing that Bush was not a true conservative? With explosive spending, hubristic foreign policy ambitions, and a regular disregard for limited government and “states rights,” there is certainly ample evidence for this claim. The question of Bush’s “real” conservatism was a subject explored in depth in Andrew Sullivan’s “The Conservative Soul.” The downside of this strategy, of course, is that you alienate much of the party’s base, those Americans who still give Bush relatively high approval ratings. The other downside is that, over the past two elections, there seems to be a greater willingness for Americans to accept “more government.” A more ideologically pure Republican Party may in fact be an even less popular one.

For a second strategy, on the other hand, do you try and move forward, acting as if the Bush years were a bit of an aberration in conservatism’s march (never articulating this belief, though) in hopes that the American electorate will forget, over time, their negative feelings about the past eight years and return to the Republican fold? While there is an ebb and flow to our politics--bringing parties in and out of power--that might justify riding out the storm, I’m still not convinced that pining for a return to Reaganism is the right course. A party built on an image or nostalgia for the way things used to be will have difficulty moving forward, especially when the electorate they are trying to court has moved on.

Some More Good Post-Election Analysis Coming Out

Another quick post while I keep digesting some of the more comprehensive post-election analysis that's coming out. The Forum is an on-line journal edited by UW-Madison political scientist Byron Shafer. The great thing about it, in my mind, is that it seeks to bring together a more academic mindset and rigor to the analysis of contemporary events. Thus, it acts as a first draft of political science research. They've just put out an issue that focuses on the election with articles on turnout, the role of race, the election results in historical perspective, and an interesting piece by Thomas Schaller that sees Obama's victory as a culmination of changes wrought by the Great Society. Good reading.

ElectionDissection.com Book Club--The Rosetta Stone for 2008

The first comprehensive examination of the '08 election has been published this week and I'm just beginning to get through it. They'll be a lot of posts generated by this analysis so I'm going to wait until I've had a chance to digest the numbers. The book is "How Barack Obama Won" by NBC's Chuck Todd and Sheldon Gawiser. The best thing about the book is that it gives a state by state and regional analysis rather than simply a national one. As readers of this site know, we much prefer these micro level examinations over more generalized descriptions of electoral outcomes. There's too much variance across the country. Also at first glance, it seems, is that their analysis is heavily driven by exit polling data. While this is certainly a useful tool--and something I've relied on in some of my analysis--it can't be the only data we draw upon. Until I'm able to get through the whole text, though, I don't want to get too critical. So stay tuned.

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.

Does It Matter Where a Senator Comes From???

Before all of the shenanigans in the Illinois Senate seat appointment emerged, there was an underlying discussion about the ability of whoever was appointed to win "statewide." With the assumption that the designee would hail from Chicago, attention immediately turned to the fact that whoever was chosen would have to run two years later for a full term. An even more daunting schedule awaits Hillary Clinton's successor as the new Senator will have to run first in 2010 for the right to fill out the term, and then in 2012 for a full 6 years.

Given that the designee will not initially gain their seat via the will of the people, there is uncertainty as to how palatable they will be to the electorate once they are on the ballot. More ethically minded governors than Rod Blagojevich need to speculate about how the new Senator will fare across a state's myriad voting groups. In the case of Illinois, should the designee come from Chicago they begin, potentially, with a large voting bloc ready to support them (or that is at least familiar to them). This would especially be the case for appointees already holding some elected office--House members, mayors, state senators, etc. Once in office, however, they will need to broaden their appeal to voters across the rest of the state.

Complicating this, sometimes, is the fact that voters "out-state" tend to receive coolly politicians from the "big city." These candidates might be perceived as arrogant, unconcerned with the needs of people from small towns or rural areas, or too ensconced in the ways of the state's dominant metropolis. Thus, "out state" voters might react against them in favor of someone more familiar. Central to Richard Fenno's theory of "home style" is the need for voters to identify with candidates in order to trust them. This tension between the big city and "out-state" has manifest itself in my home state of Wisconsin where a governor who hailed from Milwaukee hasn't been elected since the late 1920s despite the fact that the Milwaukee metropolitan area accounts for roughly 30% of the state's population. While Chicago clearly dominates Illinois' economy and is by far the population center, there is no guarantee that a Senator from there will automatically win. This question got me wondering, then, about how common it is for Senators to come from their state's largest city or metropolitan area. Is it truly an advantage or might "out state" Senators be more attractive. Thus, I decided to look at the current Senate (minus Obama) to see if one type of candidate is more prevalent.

In answering this question I would note that there are numerous caveats to raise. Many many factors, aside from residence, account for why candidates win Senate seats. Among these are their previous experience (elected offices, private sector work, etc.), the underlying partisanship of the state, the quality of their challenger, whether they are an incumbent or seeking their first term, fundraising prowess, and the political climate in which their campaign takes place. Also, we can't automatically assume that the candidate will automatically win these big city voters in a proportion greater than the norm. Further worth noting is that some states have many population centers, thus creating numerous "big city" vs. "out state" dynamics. California comes immediately to mind with L.A., San Francisco, and San Diego acting as population meccas; Texas and Florida might also be cited. Thus, this analysis, and any conclusions we might draw, will be crude at best. Nonetheless, what do we see.

Above I've produced a simple spreadsheet that shows each state's two Senators followed by the state's largest city and metropolitan area. I included both city and metro areas because of the possibility that the suburban spread of one city might make it larger than that of the state's largest city proper. Because metro areas share common media a candidate might be able to take advantage of this to attract a large voter base. I also included metro areas because in some states the largest metro area is in fact a cluster of suburbs to a city in a neighboring state--New Jersey being the obvious example here. Next I've listed both the residence and city of birth for the Senator. While we see that many Senators reside in the same places in which they were born, Senators will also try to identify both their residence's and birthplace's voters as their own. Should there be a match between either the Senator's residence or birthplace and either the state's largest city or metro area, I've highlighted the correlation.

As a bit of trivia, I'd note that Brooklyn seems to be a great place to be born if you aspire to represent a state other than New York in the Senate, as Barbara Boxer (CA), Bernie Sanders (VT), and Norm Coleman (MN) all hail from there.

Overall, we see that for just barely a majority of Senate seats--52--does the incumbent Senator come from their state's population center. Thus, there doesn't seem to be, on its face, much of an advantage from coming from the area with the most votes. Candidates seem to be able to emerge from a variety of places within a state--some from big cities, some from tiny hamlets. One thing that might be worth exploring--which I didn't calculate--is whether the size of the biggest city vis a vis the rest of the state--matters. If the biggest city in a state is comparatively small the advantage accrued by winning those votes is less that if the state's biggest city is proportionally much larger.

I'd be happy to entertain any other theories or observations that anyone has about how meaningful the "big city" vs. "out-state" dynamic is.

Saul Anuzis to GOP Economic Populists: "This is not your average Republican twitter page!"

ElectionDissection strolled down to the offices of Americans for Tax Reform for the latest in the series of Newsmaker Breakfasts hosted by the American Spectator.  The “newsmaker” on hand was Saul Anuzis, the Michigan Republican Party chairman who earned the Paultards’ enduring animus by calling for Ron Paul’s exclusion from Republican presidential primary season debates after his symbiotically beneficial contretemps over 9/11 blowback with fmr. NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani in South Carolina.

Despite the fact that its Congressional delegation has been shrinking in recent rounds of redistricting and expects to at the next census, Michigan’s noteworthy political legacy is even more salient as potential bailouts for the Big Three dominate the headlines.  It’s clear that Anuzis’ decades of experience in the trenches of Wolverine State politics do color his vision for a revivified GOP as he vies for RNC Chair.

Anuzis highlighted his vision for harnessing new media to facilitate disseminating the GOP’s message.  (Best line: “This is not your average Republican twitter page!” Oxymoron of the week: “Republican twitter page!”)  And he repeatedly harkened back to the fabled “Reagan Democrat,” citing appealing to this once-decisive voting bloc as the key to a Republican resurgence.  Suburban Detroit’s Macomb County boomed in the 1950s and 60s with auto workers as White Flight emptied the white working class neighborhoods of Detroit’s Wayne County.  Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg identified Macomb as the spiritual home of this famously crucial electoral demographic.  (It’s interesting to note that Greenberg, post-2008, agrees that this political dinosaur is, in fact, extinct.)   

“Reagan Democrats,” of course were those Northern, often-ethnic and heavily Catholic, white working class voters who were lured away from their ancestral Democratic moorings by GOP appeals to their conservative opinions on moral issues, busing and crime and Cold War hawkishness.  But many of these voters were proud union men (and women) who couldn’t swallow even Ronald Reagan’s free trade agenda.  This was especially acute in Macomb Co., Michigan in the 1980’s as competition from Japanese imports rattled Detroit’s long-term game plan.

While social conservatism can be found in Michigan politicians of both parties – Reps. Dale Kildee, Bart Stupak and John Dingell count themselves as either pro-life, pro-gun or both – so, too, does the state’s formidable strain of economic populism infect voters on both sides of the aisle. 

Alabama’s segregationist governor George Wallace first identified this political animal instinctively, scoring above his national average in Macomb in his 1968 indie bid, and capturing a majority in the 1972 Democratic presidential primary statewide.  Twenty years later, Pat Buchanan barnstormed the state denouncing imports and racked up his best score this side of the Granite State in his challenge to George H.W. Bush’s renomination.  Four years later, he fared even better, denouncing NAFTA at every stop. 

Only an underwhelming performance in Detroit dragged Ross Perot’s percentage statewide back to his national average in 1992.  In over half of Michigan’s counties, his call to heed that “giant sucking sound” supposedly sending manufacturing jobs to Mexico pulled in over a quarter to 30% of the vote.

And in this year’s Republican presidential primary, Mike Huckabee scored well in Dutch-settled southwestern Michigan where his social conservatism no doubt resonated with the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church-goers.  But, his economic populism seems to have struck a cord here, too.  The area’s Dutch-American U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra was the only Michigander Republican to oppose NAFTA back in ’93.  Huckabee’s populist notes also played among Yoopers, too, in the Upper Peninsula’s mining and timber towns. 

But Michigan’s stunted population growth has frozen the smaller, broken rust belt cities like Saginaw, Flint, Muskegon and Bay City, where Wallace, Buchanan and Perot exploited white working class anxiety, as well as both the U.P. and the Dutch southwest where Huckabee found a base far above the Mason-Dixon Line. 

Macomb is growing, but still totals far behind Oakland’s population.  (Besides, Obama captured the county comfortably, flipping the narrow win G.W. eked out in 2004.)  Contrast Macomb to its fellow Detroit suburb, Oakland County.  Once home to Midwestern, Michigan, Gerald Ford-style regular Republicans, as this affluent and educated enclave population expands, it threatens to surpass Detroit’s Wayne County, which still continues to hemmorage residents, as the state’s largest jurisdiction.  Oakland’s Democratic trend is relentless as Obama scored the best Dem numbers since LBJ, beating FDR, even!  McCain’s percentage dipped to near Goldwater and Alf Landon lows.  Once safe GOP Rep. Joe Knollenberg also succumbed to Oakland's Democratic wave in '08, after what shouldn't have been a surprisingly close race in '06, given the county's trends were then becoming evident.  (Note, too, the strong showing by North Dakota Rep. William Lemke’s third party bid here in 1936, whose message melding social conservatism and economic populism was amplified by on air harangues from Father Coughlin, the anti-Semitic radio priest whose Shrine of the Little Flower sits in now-trendy Royal Oak, a leading indicator of Oakland’s partisan progression.  Royal Oak gave Gore a 51-45 win over Bush in 2000.  By 2008, Obama’s margin here had grown to a lopsided 61-37.)

Building on a question from Economist.com blogger Dave Weigel suggesting the GOP's appeals to socially conservative voters and anti-immigrant demagoguing had aliented electorates in similar suburban counties nationwide, ElectionDissection questioned Anuzis about whether his strategy for staving off further losses in Oakland included toning down the economic populism that hasn't been a vote-winner there – especially in light of a Big Three bailout that may play well in his state, but not among the Southern-anchored grassroots of the party he wants lead - his answer focused more on this blog’s analysis of Michigan’s political geography than his thoughts on recasting the Republican message.  But Anuzis did offer some interesting off-the-cuff insight into shifting intra-state demographics – UAW retirees, for instance, migrating up north to retire and the increasingly racially diverse make-up of Oakland Co.’s electorate – which offer fodder for future posts.  

The Twin Cities' Suburbs and Obama's (Lack of) Coattails

To get a sense of why they're still counting votes in the Minnesota Senate race, the above maps might be instructive. Obviously, Obama's support was more widespread than Al Franken's. Initially, I thought the reason Franken wasn't able to capitalize on Obama's big win was due to underperformance in Ramsey County (St. Paul). Being Norm Coleman's home--he was Mayor of St. Paul prior to running for the Senate--this wouldn't be surprising.

When one compares the candidates' performance in both Ramsey and neighboring Hennepin County, however, another explanation seems more plausible. In looking at the countywide vote, Franken actually did better in Ramsey than Hennepin. The third party candidate in the race, Dean Barkley, performed about equally well in each county, receiving 15.5% in Ramsey and 14.7% in Hennepin. Franken, while winning both counties quite handily received 51.1%in Ramsey compared to 49.3% in Hennepin. Coleman thus took 33.3% in Ramsey and 35.7% in Hennepin.

In comparing the maps one sees a noticeable strength for Coleman in the western and southern Minneapolis suburbs, still part of Hennepin County. Whereas Obama was able to win in a number of these outer precincts, Franken fell short.

This split ticket voting was evident not only in the Senate race. Going into November 4th, Democrats were hoping to pick up the open House seat being vacated by moderate Republican incumbent Jim Ramstad in the 3rd District. On election day, however, Republicans were able to hold the seat with the election of state legislator Erik Paulsen. Whereas Obama won the 3rd district with 53% of the vote, Paulsen scored an 8 point victory over Democratic nominee Ashwin Madia.

This dynamic was not confined to the Twin Cities. In a number of suburban areas, sizable Obama wins did not necessarily translate into Democratic congressional pickups. For example, in a similar type of race, moderate Republican Rep. Mark Kirk was able to hold onto his suburban Chicago seat despite the fact that it went for Obama.

**Maps courtesy of Minnesota Secretary of State

Does It Take Two Hurricanes Plus an Indictment to Elect a Republican in New Orleans???

Louisiana has to have some of the most interesting, yet oftentimes confusing, politics in the country. And since the devastation, and demographic chaos unleashed by Hurricane Katrina, Bayou politics has become more unpredictable. The most recent evidence of this came about Saturday as a result of the congressional election in the 2nd district that saw the defeat of long embattled (and indicted), yet long tenured Congressman William Jefferson. The result of the election was the ascent of the first ever Vietnamese-American to Congress, Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao. How we got to this piece of history takes a little explaining.

The arrival of Hurricane Gustav this August essentially pushed back each election for the seat. November 4th was actually the primary, which Jefferson won in the overwhelmingly Democratic district. With the primary completed, the general election was thus held on Saturday. However, as we know, elections held after the general are fraught with both unpredictability and low-turnout (witness last week's Georgia Senate run-off). While Jefferson's indictment, one would think, would be responsible for his defeat, other factors are likely bigger factors. First, as the coverage of the election makes pretty clear (good number breakdown here), turnout among African Americans--the largest group and backbone of the district--was very low. While low turnout among a candidate's base might be enough to spell their demise, Jefferson's difficulties were exacerbated by another Hurricane--Katrina. In my look at HBCU voting last week (see post here) I examined the vote in a number of southern counties. As we would have expected, the total number of votes in these high African American vote counties greatly exceeded what we saw in 2004. In Orleans Parish, however, the opposite happened. Because of the massive out-migration and displacement among African Americans caused by Katrina, 50,000 fewer votes were cast this year than in 2004. Thus, Jefferson found himself faced with an unfavorable environment:

Fewer Total Democratic Voters + Low Turnout + Indictment = TROUBLE

Throw in the fact that Cao has an incredibly compelling story and you have Saturday's result. While people are already doubting the ability of a Republican to hold this district in a more "normal" election year like 2010 (running against someone not under federal indictment), such jockeying for the seat can wait for a while in light of the history this election made.

Indian Republican or Republican Indian? Slurpees or Casinos?

Savvy flaks in the Party of Lincoln are perpetually mindful of their historic paucity of even passably plausible minority public faces.  And, in the midst of the GOP’s post-drubbing soul searching, former Maryland Lt. Gov. – and famously failed Senate nominee – Michael Steele has stepped forward, offering himself as a reform-minded candidate of color for RNC chairman, differentiating himself from the white guys in suits/Republican Regular types who usually vie for the post. 

However, after the smoke cleared from the recent round of internecine squabbling among what’s left of the congressional Republican rump before the 111th Congress convenes, one more of those public faces has fallen by the wayside. 

Only those who follow this sort of insider skullduggery took note that when Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.) withdrew in the face of a seemingly overwhelming challenge to topple him from the head of NRCC, the House GOP campaign arm, Republican leadership lost it’s only American Indian.  Critics hounded Cole as the GOP lost previously safe seats in special elections - including shockers in rural Mississippi and fmr. Speaker Denny Hastert’s in once-rockribbed Republican Illinois – and blamed him for failing to stanch House GOP losses in November.  Tension lingered between Cole and House Minority Leader Boehner.  So, Cole’s distinctive ancestry (at least in these circles) seemed to be the last thing on Members’ minds.  

Much more attention has been lavished on Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.  The Subcontinental Indian descended chief executive of a state that nearly elected a former Grand Wizard as recently as the 1990’s, is repeatedly dubbed a "GOP rising star" in the press. 

With Cole on the way out and the Jindal on the way up, it’s hard to escape hearing Lisa Lampanelli, the “Queen of Mean,” bark out her witty update on the old stereotype, “dot or feathers,” in 2005’s dirty joke biopic, “the Aristocrats.”  The GOP’s new direction?  “Slurpees not Casinos!”       

The Black Student Vote and Barack Obama

Last week I came across this article about Obama’s win in North Carolina. Mentioned at the end is the claim that Obama’s win can be partially explained by increased turnout not just among African American voters, but especially students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU's). The Tarheel State has 11 HBCUs. This got me thinking about the role of this student group across the country and whether or not we can point to any clear gains made by the Obama camp as a result of this energized student base. Also bolstering my interest in this question was the fact that last weekend saw the playing of the annual Bayou Classic in New Orleans, one of my favorite sporting events of the year to watch. If you don’t think the Obama win was important to the student bodies of Southern and Grambling State Universities, check out the halftime performance of the “Battle of the Bands”—in many ways a more passionate and heated contest than the football game itself (Southern here, Grambling State here).

Thus, I decided to build a database of voting across the HBCU universe and do some number crunching. The database has been posted here (Google account required) along with the explanatory key for each column.

HBCU’s were created, beginning in the aftermath of the Civil War, to allow African Americans access to higher education. The vast majority of these schools are located in states of the Deep South, which isn’t surprising given the degree to which blacks were excluded from college enrollment in these states’ flagship universities. Thus, HBCU’s have for decades acted as the route to the professions for many of the country’s black students. Currently, about 14% of all African Americans in college attend an HBCU and about 25% of the bachelor’s degrees awarded to African Americans come from one of these schools. Over time, several HBCU’s have not only welcomed non-black students but have become predominantly white or other minority. The University of Texas El Paso, for example, is now over 70% Hispanic. This school, formerly known as Texas Western, has an important place in collegiate athletics and HBCU history in that its 1966 national championship men’s basketball team was the first to start 5 black players (against the all white University of Kentucky dynasty). Thus, their role not only in educating the black community, but the nation as a whole, has been vital.

There are currently 103 HBCU’s across the country, located in 22 states and 76 counties. Only a small handful are outside of what we would consider “the South”—Lewis College of Business in Detroit; Cheyney and Lincoln Universities in Pennsylvania; Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles are examples. Alabama is the state with the most HBCU’s—14. Next among the states with many such schools are North Carolina (11), Georgia and Texas (9), and Mississippi and South Carolina (8). Another thing one notices, and which is included in the database, is the diversity in the size of each of these schools. Some have only a few hundred students while others are quite large—Howard University, Florida A&M, Texas Southern, and Southern University are among the largest. Overall, however, in looking at enrollment size, it doesn’t seem as if these schools—within their respective counties—provide enough votes to truly sway an election.

When we look at how each of these schools’ counties voted this year—and compare this year’s race to 2004’s--what do we see? First, Barack Obama won 52 of the 76 counties in which HBCU’s are located. While on the surface this might have been useful for Obama in capturing several states, the reality is that many of these wins took place in states that went solidly for McCain. For example, as mentioned Alabama contains 14 HBCU’s yet was won by McCain with 60%. At the county level, Obama won 3 of the 8 counties containing these schools. Likewise, in Mississippi, Obama won all 6 of the counties containing its HBCU’s and in South Carolina he won 4 of 5 HBCU counties (McCain won each state with 56% and 54% respectively). This fact, it seems, illustrates a much larger point not only about the history of the HBCU movement but about America’s complicated political history.

In numerous posts over the past year or so I’ve dwelled upon the debate about white vs. black voting in the Deep South. What we’ve seen, through not only exit polling, but also simple geography and demographics, is that there has been a clear divide between black and white voters in the region. For example, most of these HBCU’s are physically located in counties that have very sizable black populations. 58 of the 103 HBCU’s reside in counties that are at least 30% African-American. Thus, it would seem as if the decision about where to locate these schools was very deliberate. Because these schools in many cases served a population that was underserved and lacking in resources it made sense to have them close to where the student body would hail from. Also, one wonders how successful these schools would have been (or even if they could have been created) had they been located in overwhelmingly white areas. For example, only one HBCU (Clinton Junior College in Rock Hill, SC) is located in a county that is less than 20% black in the Deep South states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana. Worth remembering is the degree to which the residence of the black population in the South (as seen across counties) has been remarkably stable. Thus, returning to the vote this year, it seems as if the Obama vote we see at the county level is not so much a result of these schools bringing political change to an area, but rather amplifying the underlying preferences that have always been there. Obama’s candidacy energized this underlying Democratic allegiance and gave it reason to turn out in greater force than it had in years past.

When we compare this year’s vote to 2004, while we do see evidence of change, some of it seems due to other factors. Whereas Obama won 52 of the 76 HBCU counties, John Kerry managed to win only 39. Obama’s improvement on Kerry’s number took place across 8 states, flipping three counties in North Carolina (Cumberland, Forsyth, and Wake); 2 in Louisiana (East Baton Rouge and Caddo) and Texas (Dallas and Harris); and one each in Alabama (Jefferson), Delaware (Kent), Florida (Leon), Georgia (Peach), Pennsylvania (Chester), and Virginia (Henrico). The Texas wins in the counties containing Dallas and Houston can be attributed to no longer having native Texan George Bush on the ballot. Likewise, the addition of Delaware’s Kent County can be tied to Joe Biden’s VP nomination. Here is a breakdown of these counties, their Obama vote %, Black % vote, and HBCU enrollment:

Jefferson AL (Birmingham) 52.6% Obama, 39.4% Black, 3000 Students
Kent DE (Dover) 55.0% Obama, 20.7% Black, 3000 Students
Leon FL (Tallahassee) 62.2% Obama, 29.1% Black, 10000 Students
Peach GA (Ft. Valley) 53.4% Obama, 45.4% Black, 2500 Students
Caddo LA (Shreveport) 51.5% Obama, 44.6% Black, 1100 Students
E. Baton Rouge LA (Baton Rouge) 51.1% Obama, 40.1% Black, 11000 Students
Cumberland NC (Fayetteville) 58.9% Obama, 36.7% Black, 4000 Students
Forsyth NC (Winston-Salem) 55.3% Obama, 25.9% Black, 2800 Students
Wake NC (Raleigh) 57.3% Obama, 19.7% Black, 4300 Students
Chester PA (Cheyney) 54.6% Obama, 6.2% Black, 2800 Students
Dallas TX (Dallas) 57.7% Obama, 20.3% Black, 700 Students
Harris TX (Houston) 50.8% Obama, 18.5% Black, 10000 Students
Henrico VA (Richmond) 56.2% Obama, 24.7% Black, 1500 Students

Of those remaining counties, the only county with both a close margin of victory for Obama and a sizable HBCU population is East Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana. Thus, whereas Southern University may have lost the Bayou Classic on Saturday, their vote may have helped tipped their county to Obama’s side, something Grambling State wasn’t able to do in Lincoln Parish which went heavily for McCain. Whereas Leon County Florida has a big HBCU population (Florida A&M) it was quite lopsided in its support for Obama. The presence of Florida State University there and its big student population might explain some of the margin and could perhaps show a greater tendency of white and black students to vote in a more colorblind way. For the North Carolina county flips, we see both relatively large margins for Obama and a relatively small HBCU population.

What are some other things we see when crunching these numbers??? Overall, Obama’s performance across these counties greatly improved on that of Kerry, something McCain was not able to replicate vis a vis George Bush. Compared to 2004, the Democrats got a higher % of the vote in 72 of the 76 counties considered here. Obama only underperformed Kerry in Jefferson County Arkansas (which he still won handily), Mercer County West Virginia, and Harrison and Wood County Texas. While McCain’s county %’s versus 2004 are dismal (only gaining in the 4 Obama declined in), an even worse scenario emerges when we look at raw vote totals. Given that the size of the electorate increases over time and that this year saw higher turnout than 2004, one would assume that both McCain and Obama would get more votes in each county than Bush and Kerry did respectively. Not so. Whereas Obama got more votes than Kerry in 70 of 76 counties, McCain only got more votes than Bush in 31 of the 76!!!! And remember, we’re mostly talking about the Deep South here. When you compare the improvements that Obama made with these declines suffered by McCain, you see how Obama was able to turn some areas from red to blue. Here, North Carolina jumps out.

Obama won North Carolina by 14,177 votes. In the HBCU database, we saw how Obama flipped Cumberland, Forsyth, and Wake County. Looking at the net vote gains (Democratic gains in 2008 over 2004 minus Republican gains in 2008 over 2004) in these three counties, Obama had a net increase of 126,563 votes. That’s your win right there. If you take other strong Obama counties in the state included here—Mecklenburg (Charlotte),
Guilford (Greensboro), and Durham (Durham)—you add an additional 162,154 votes!!! That’s nearly 290,000 votes gained in just 6 counties. Not only did Obama vastly overperform in North Carolina, McCain didn't even break even with past Republican showings. That is a sure fire way to lose.

Another state that I thought might show a similar dynamic was Virginia. Overall Obama had a 234,527 vote cushion. In the database here, there are 3 counties with an HBCU (Brunswick, Henrico, and Prince George) plus Hampton and Norfolk cities which are not part of a county jurisdiction. When you add up the net gains made by the Democrats one sees that Obama had a 70,928 vote advantage. Thus, while the Democrats increased their performance against the Republicans vis a vis 2004 in these counties, they had to rely on other counties, especially in northern Virginia to put them over the top. I should be clear that in neither North Carolina nor Virginia do I suggest that the HBCU presence and student vote were the reason these states switched from red to blue. I’d make the same caveat about the county level results as well. Rather, using this lens through which to view the election returns allows us to pick up on things we may otherwise have missed.

By focusing on HBCU’s, the data shows that we are for the most part looking at counties that are southern, black, and consistently Democratic. The Obama campaign and the 2008 election seem to have energized this electorate and given them the opportunity to elect the country’s first black president. Given the politics of the states in which most of these schools exist, we didn’t see the Obama campaign rack up massive numbers of electoral votes. States like Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina were never really in serious danger. Most of the gains made by the Democrats in these states and elsewhere seem attributable just as much to Republicans staying home as new Democrats turning out. In those states that did switch (North Carolina and Virginia) other factors surely contributed to the gains—greater white support for Obama, the economic crisis, etc. The HBCU’s, in short, didn’t make Barack Obama our next president. Nevertheless, beyond the more academic exercise of crunching election returns by using HBCU’s as a prime variable, one can’t deny the meaning that this election had to these schools’ students. If you don’t believe that, watch this.

Georgia Sen Runoff: Could it have been "Peach-ier" for Vernon Jones than Jim Martin?

Most press previews of today’s Georgia Senate runoff focus on how the result is expected to hinge on Afro-Am turnout.  Black voters were believed to have boosted overall turnout by over 600K this year and sliced McCain’s margin over Obama by ten points as compared to Bush’s 2004 margin over John Kerry.  And conservative white Democrats are believed to have returned to the fold down ballot after going for the McCain-Palin ticket for president.  (No wonder that the GOP has sent in Sarah Palin to rally the base in this expected low turnout runoff.) 

Performance doesn’t seem to be too far off, geographically-speaking.

Here’s the map of county returns for president:

 And here’s the Senate county map

Note Mitchell County’s tie!):

 

 Given this playing field, it’s difficult not to speculate how this race might be panning out if Dem nominee Jim Martin, a fmr. State rep. and failed Lt. Gov. nominee, had fallen to DeKalb Co. CEO Vernon Jones in the primary.  Jones’ bid might have been fatally wounded by ethics questions, but given his moderate – and even conservative – views on some issues and his geographic base, Jones might have been an ideal candidate.  In fact, Jones has flirted with Republicans: donating to the Georgia Republican Party and confessing to voting for George W. Bush, twice, all the while hectoring Martin for being insufficiently pro-Obama.   

Jones’ controversial temperament seems to have stunted his growth into a politician in the mold pioneered by Black Caucus Blue Dog Georgia House Democrats Sanford Bishop and David Scott, who have built up a support in white rural Georgia – the heart of Lester Maddox country! – by staking out conservative positions on issues such as gun control and positioning themselves as guardians of local and ag interests – particularly peanuts, in Bishop’s case.

Jones would differ significantly in that he would be the first politician to carve such a support base out of a booming New South county like DeKalb.  DeKalb is now majority Afro-Am, but continues to be fairly affluent even as its residents’ hues have changed.  Despite being home to the notorious giant bas-relief memorial to Confederate generals in Stone Mountain, DeKalb was a rare oasis of support for Richard Nixon, as George Wallace swept the Peach State in 1968.

While Bishop or Scott might be secretly harboring questions of how they might have been better positioned in this post-Obama runoff, Jones might be wondering - if he had crafted a more careful career – how he might have been able to cobble together an energized black Georgia electorate with just enough of a sliver of suburban Atlanta McCain voters still disaffected with the Bush Administration and Saxby Chambliss’ Congressional Republican cohorts to pull off a victory that might be just beyond the reach of the Democratic nominee, Jim Martin. 

County Flips, the Rural Vote, and Changes Out West

During the primary season, I came across the great site Daily Yonder which focuses on rural politics, economics, and society. The site is on outgrowth of the Center for Rural Strategies. In the aftermath of the election, Tim Murphy and Bill Bishop put together the above map that shows the counties that switched their vote between 2004 and 2008. The provide analysis here and here. While Obama's strength was certainly in the urban cores of the country, he did improve upon Kerry's performance in rural counties. Looking at the counties that flipped this year, the midwest was clearly Obama's strength. While his Illinois performance is unsurprising, the Wisconsin changes jumped out at me immediately after November 4 (see earlier post here). Also, as we know, Indiana (post here) and Iowa changed hands this year helping Obama solidify the entire region. I'm curious about the Democratic gains that took place in the string of counties running along the Minnesota/Dakotas borders. Finally, I'd note the Democrats' improved performance in the mountain west, a dynamic that has gotten a lot of play this year. A couple of points about the mountain west:

• Beyond the pickup of Colorado and New Mexico on the presidential level, Democrats gained Senate seats in both states.
• Democrats gained 5 seats in the House (2 in New Mexico, and 1 each in Idaho, Colorado, and Arizona). Democrats now have a majority in the House delegations of AZ, CO, and NM and split evenly with Republicans the Idaho delegation.
• Obama actually won Salt Lake County, Utah. While Utah's electoral votes won't change hands anytime soon, this flip was nonetheless pretty interesting.
• Note the rural county pickups in Montana. In the end, McCain ended up winning the state by only about 12,000 votes.

Godzilla for Senate 2008!!!???

Over 125 million votes were cast in this year's election. We tend to forget, in the midst of this big number, the fact that individual human beings have made choices based on their own beliefs, ideologies, and judgments. As we crunch the numbers and look for patterns, this individuality gets lost. Rarely do individual votes make much of a difference in the outcome. However, from time to time (Florida 2000) we actually get a chance to examine more closely these individual choices. Sometimes, small numbers matter. We have another case this year in the Minnesota Senate race, now in the midst of a recount. Like in the Florida 2000 case, the intent of the voter is open to interpretation when a ballot's markings are ambiguous. Minnesota Public Radio has provided some examples of what election officials are up against. Take a look and make your own determination here. My favorite disputed ballot is the one below:


This ballot comes from Beltrami County. Located in north central Minnesota, Beltrami County has a steady history of Democratic support. This year Obama won 54% to McCain's 44%. Other than going for George W. Bush in 2000, the county has voted Democratic in every election since 1976.


Apparently, however, the choices in this year's Senate matchup were unsatisfying for this particular voter. A quick internet search doesn't find much of a history of "lizard people" running for office in these parts. I haven't done research into how easy it is for third parties to get ballot access in Minnesota either.

Does this voter want Franken? Did he initially choose Franken but then cross him out and write in "Lizard People"? Does he think all of these candidates are "Lizard People"--perhaps an astute observation about the political class? Anyhow, the margin between Franken and Coleman now stands at 136 votes. I would love to watch these ballots be argued about and potentially litigated. God help the election officials. And keep an eye on Lake Superior for any disturbances.