Fun With Maps--Are Democratic States More "Developed"???

This comparison may not mean much but let's consider it. I just came across a map (and companion article) of the U.S. that breaks down states based on their respective Human Development Index (HDI) measure. The HDI was created by the United Nations to gauge a country's level of development. It incorporates measures of educational attainment, life expectancy, and income to create a continuum along which a country (or now state) can be placed. As a result, one can make comparisons between countries, and do so over time, to track growth and progress. When I saw the map I immediately thought that there was something familiar about it--it resembles pretty closely the results of the 2008 election.

For example, of the 21 states that have the highest HDI (.95 and above), Barack Obama won all of them except Alaska. Of the 8 lowest scoring states--HDI of .849 and below, McCain won them all. For the 15 states in the second highest cohort (.900 to .949), Obama won 6. Of the 6 states in the middle of the continuum, Obama only won Florida. What we see is a strong correlation between a state's HDI and Obama's success there. All of his electoral votes came from states at the upper end of the continuum with the exception of Florida. McCain was only able to capture 3 electoral votes from the most developed states, aided by Sarah Palin's Alaska roots.

Mere coincidence??? Perhaps, but if we look at the recent trends we shouldn't be so surprised by this. Exit polling conducted on election day (and indeed during the primaries as well) showed that Obama and other Democrats had begun to make in-roads among those at the top of the economic ladder. We've similarly seen great movement away from the Republicans among the most highly educated. Thus, whereas traditionally it had been thought that the Republican base was among the high income/high education chunk of the electorate, this no longer seems true.

For more on this question of how class, education, and other variables are affecting voting trends, see Andrew Gelman's work.

***Update: Speaking of which, Gelman critiques and tweaks the numbers a bit here.

***Further update: After some more data critiquing, a re-scaling of the data and the following map. The electoral correlations I suggest still largely hold although Obama does better on the low, but not lowest, part of the continuum.

What Do We Know About White People???

I’ve been meaning to do some number crunching on the role of race in the presidential election, given how much discussion and coverage it received during the campaign. While I wrote about this subject a bunch prior to the election, I haven’t done much in depth analysis in the aftermath so let’s return to the topic. For this post I want to focus pretty much exclusively on the “white vote.” We know that among African American voters, not only was Barack Obama’s vote overwhelming (about 95%) but also that there wasn’t much variance across regions or states. While some of the states with high African American populations moved into the Democratic camp this year (North Carolina, Virginia) others did not (Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, etc.). It is this latter group of states that was the focus of the oft cited (and discussed here) “Schaller Effect”—the tendency of southern states with large black populations to have white electorates that vote overwhelmingly Republican. Essentially, Schaller argues, the politics of these states have become so defined by the issue of race over the decades that white voters, regardless of class, education, religion, etc., tilt Republican. With an African American on the ballot this year we got a chance to test this theory like never before.

To look at how white voters cast their ballots this year, and to determine whether any underlying patterns exist, I gathered the exit poll data compiled by CNN. The resulting spreadsheet is available here. Nationwide, Obama won 43% of the white vote. When we look at the vote preference based on race, we see that Obama won a majority of the white vote in 18 states, plus the District of Columbia. The map at left highlights those states and shows a pretty clear geographic clustering in the northeast, upper Midwest, and Pacific states with the exception of Colorado--a new battleground between the parties. If the electorate was 100% white he would have received 222 electoral votes, not enough to win the presidency. Thus, we look to those states where he lost the white vote (to varying degrees), but found a large enough minority electorate (black, Latino, Asian, etc.) to overcome his poorer showing among whites. This netted him an additional 10 states (FL, IN, MD, NV, NJ, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA) and provided him the solid electoral college victory that propelled him to the presidency. While there’s probably not anything overly surprising here—Democrats have for years had to rely on a multi-racial coalition to win the White House—looking at the raw numbers is instructive.

Conversely, if we look at the McCain vote among whites, we see a strong geographical dimension to his support. Nationwide, McCain received 55% of the white vote. The map left highlights those states where his white support was the highest--over 10% above his national average. Thus, in a cluster of mostly southern states the Republican nominee got 2/3 or more of the white vote.

Another way we might approach these numbers is to go to those states with the largest black populations relative to the state as a whole. Here we get to the phenomenon described by Schaller—how does Obama do among whites in the “blackest” states?? At left is a chart showing his performance among whites in the 15 states with the most significant black electorates. Overall, he won 8 of these states. However, with the exception of Washington, DC, Obama received a majority of the white vote in only 3 (Joe Biden’s Delaware, his home state of Illinois, and New York). He received more than his national average (43%) in only one additional state—Maryland. When we look at his performance in the Deep South states we seem to see evidence of the white backlash Schaller talked about with his extremely poor showing among whites in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina standing out. These states have large black populations but saw whites vote strongly Republican, a point noted in the map above as well.

What happens when we look at the inverse of these states—i.e. the “least black” ones?? Does McCain do as well as he did in the Deep South or did we see, conversely, Obama do really well? If McCain does equally well we might conclude that northern and southern whites aren’t really that different. If there is a geographical difference, maybe there is something to the hypothesis of racialized voting in the South. At left is a chart showing the 15 “least black” states in the country and Obama’s % of the white vote in each. Here his performance is much better. He won 8 of these states overall and in 7 of these 8 (with the exception of New Mexico) he not only got higher than his national average among whites, he won a majority of white voters. In fact, had some states in this group had a sizable enough minority population—Montana, the Dakotas—he may have added their electoral votes to his total as well. Clearly, it seems, there is a difference among white voters based on geography.

From this, can we conclude that white southerners voted against Obama because he was black?? Not necessarily. An alternative hypothesis is that these voters voted against Obama not because he’s black, but because he’s a Democrat. To get a better sense of what happened in November we need to go back further in time. Let’s look at 2004 when you had two white candidates on the ballot. If the results among white voters are quite similar to what we saw in 2008, our conclusions might need a bit more nuance. By looking at 2004 we can also get a sense of what changes might be taking place across the electorate and whether there is a geographic pattern. Thus, I also gathered the statewide CNN exit polls from the Bush/Kerry contest. What do we see?? Nationwide there wasn’t much difference between the support Obama and Kerry received among whites. In fact, Obama did better, getting 43% of the white vote to Kerry’s 41%.

Looking at the results state by state, we see that in all but 7 states, Obama did better among white voters than Kerry. In 8 states the performance of the two Democrats was identical. In the remaining 35 states, plus DC, Obama did better among whites than Kerry. If you look at the 18 states where Obama’s gains were the greatest (5% or more), he won 13. Four of these states voted Republican in 2004 (Indiana, Colorado, North Carolina, and Virginia). Thus, while the black and Hispanic vote was crucial in helping bring these states over to Obama’s side, we can’t ignore his increased performance among white voters as well.

Whereas Obama won 8 of the blackest states, Kerry only won 5. In these states, Kerry received below his national average among white voters (41%) in 8. Aided partially by increased support among African American voters (and also changes in turnout among whites and Republicans, plus greater support among Hispanics), Obama was able to outperform Kerry electorally. Narrowing further in on the white vote (and getting at the Schaller Effect) we see that in these states, Obama’s performance was worse than Kerry’s in four (Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana). Given that 2008 was a much better environment for Democrats than 2004 this is quite interesting. With a faltering economy, an unpopular president leaving office, and unprecedented national organization and fundraising, he did worse among some whites than did a candidate that, while white, was hardly a “good ‘ol boy.” Kerry, portrayed as elite, effete, “French,” and the epitome of northeastern liberalism outperformed Obama in much of the old Confederacy. Plus, given Bush’s cultural affinity with the South, his evangelical faith, and his political rearing in Texas, you’d have expected him to have high levels of support among southern whites. That McCain did better among some states’ white voters lends credence to Schaller’s argument, it seems.

So where does that leave us? With the low level of support Obama received among white voters in some states--relative to John Kerry and in an extremely favorable electoral environment--its hard to discount the assertion that race played some role in the vote. While some of these states have been heavily Republican, we saw Obama outperform Kerry among whites in equally Republican states in other parts of the country. We've also seen many of these states elect Democrats to other offices. The fact that white voters behaved differently in various parts of the country suggests that race is an issue that cuts across the electorate in a multitude of ways. Because race has been intertwined with politics in some places, and completely absent in others, we shouldn't make sweeping assertions about how important this cleavage is. Rather, we should approach the issue with nuance, an appreciation for historical context, and a willingness to explore multiple explanations for the outcomes we've observed. Given that we've had only one election to test our hypotheses, we should hold off on definitive statements until there's more data to parse.

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.

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.

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.

Population Stability and Polarized Voting in the Deep South

The above map, via Strange Maps, overlays the 2008 election returns(Obama counties blue, McCain counties red) with 19th century data on cotton production. The resulting image is striking. We know from exit polling that the white vote in the Deep South was strongly skewed to McCain (Whites in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina gave McCain 88%, 88%, 84%, 76%, 73%, and 64% respectively) and that the black vote was even more overwhelmingly pro-Obama. Beyond that, though, what we also see quite clearly is the degree to which the African American population in the south is largely concentrated in the same areas it was over a century ago. This is something that I noticed during the primary season as well (see posts here and here).

Thus, while the Great Migration (see post here) of the early and mid 20th century saw millions of southern blacks leave the Deep South for northern cities like Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, many millions also stayed. Also, many narratives of the Great Migration note that it was not unusual for individuals or families to return to south, either because the opportunities up north were not as bountiful as they believed or because the strong ties of family, community, and familiarity beckoned them home.

On a similar note, I highlighted recent Census data on mobility a while back (see post here). One thing that you note about several of the states in this region--especially Alabama and Mississippi--is that they have seen relatively little inward and outward movement of their populations.

Over at Pollster.com, Charles Franklin does an excellent analysis of the state by state change in Obama's support among whites vis a vis Kerry's 2004 performance. He notes not only the decline in white support for the Democratic nominee in the Deep South states, but also points out the improvement Obama made in Virginia and North Carolina. Ed Kilgore over at the Democratic Strategist also comments on this dynamic.

The Obama Bounce Down Ballott

Yesterday's Politico has a nice article on the role of the heavy pro-Obama black turnout on a number of congressional races. Among the 20 Democratic House pickups were several propelled by the black vote. Many of these gains were in districts that have been quite Republican over the past several cycles.

What we've seen in many states' redistricting processes has been an effort to take a black population (oftentimes relatively small) and subsume it within a surrounding area that is more Republican leaning, essentially diluting the power of their votes. Under normal circumstances--i.e. black turnout significantly lower than white turnout; low levels of black mobilization; no coordinated voter registration efforts--the black vote, although heavily Democratic, isn't able to sway electoral outcomes. This year, however, was not a "normal" election year. With the Republican brand in tatters, underlying economic uncertainty, and higher black turnout, mobilization, and registration, the black vote was able to tip a number of districts. To wit:



Virginia 5. Republican incumbent Virgil Goode was defeated, by less than 1000 votes, by Democratic challenger Tom Perriello in a district that includes heavily African American "southside" Virginia. The district is 24% African American. In his past four re-elections, Goode had received 59%, 64%, 63%, and 67%.


Virginia 2. Not far from Goode, Thelma Drake got bounced by 4 points by Democratic challenger Glenn Nye. Encompassing much of the Hampton Roads area, the district is 21% African American.


Connecticut 4. Here, the last House Republican from New England, Chris Shays, was finally taken down after a series of close calls. Unlike the Virginia districts cited above, the black population in this district is only 11% (Hispanic population is 13%) and largely concentrated in the city of Bridgeport. Whereas in previous years black turnout was relatively low, this year's upturn was enough to elect challenger Jim Himes.

Ohio 1. This Cincinnati centered district saw the defeat of Rep. Steve Chabot to challenger Steve Driehaus in a constituency that is 27% black.

Maryland 1. In this House race, just recently called in the past few days, Democrat Frank Kratovil defeated Andy Harris, who defeated incumbent Rep. Wayne Gilchrest in an ugly primary earlier this year. In a district that is 11% black and was once a hotbed of support for George Wallace in his '68 and '72 presidential runs, Kratovil won by roughly 2000 votes.

Alabama 2. The retirement of incumbent Republican Terry Everett created an open seat few would normally think competitive. A Republican has held this seat since 1965. However, the 30% of the district that is African American contributed to Democrat Bobby Bright's upset win. Despite the drubbing that Obama took statewide and the exit polling that showed only 20% of white Alabamans voting for the president elect, the black vote, ironically, seems responsible for Bright's ultimate triumph.

As the article notes, most importantly, the interesting dynamic to be watched will be how these new members act upon their swearing in come January. Owing their victory, largely, to a sizable minority in their district can create complications for a new member. Because these districts have been consistently Republican, these newly minted members will have targets on their backs from the get-go. Nonetheless, their relationship with this sliver of their constituency may prove to be the key to their fate in Congress. If they cast votes or push policy in line with the black electorate (as these voters will surely demand) they may find themselves out of step from the rest of their district. However, should they shun their black constituents, they may find themselves just short of the number of votes they need to secure re-election. Figuring out how to navigate this tricky dynamic will be the first order of business for these new members.

Obama's the Big Ten and McCain's the SEC But the Key to the Presidency Might Be the ACC

Rather than spend all of my time on the more traditional number crunching and map making, I thought I’d take a different approach to looking at last week’s election. One thing we know about American politics—and something I’ve written a lot about—is that it’s very regional. Different parts of the country tend to have different types of politics—driven by different demographics, economies, cultures, etc. Another part of American life that is heavily regional is sports. Where we live, where we go to school, and where we were raised tend to affect not only which sports we tend to be interested in (if any) but also the teams to which we’re loyal.

Both candidates this year, we’re told, are rabid sports fans. Much has been written about Obama’s love of basketball and his election day ritual of starting his day with a pick-up game. McCain, from what I’ve read, is a rabid boxing fan. So, can we merge politics and sport—in other words, how might we use the lens of sports to view the returns? As the college football season is approaching its most crucial weeks and college basketball is just gearing up (Go Marquette!!), I thought I’d see there were any parallels to the regionalism of college sports and the election returns.

College athletics is organized around a series of regionally based conferences, the six largest of which are part of the BCS (Bowl Championship Series). These six conferences are the Big East, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Southeastern Conference (SEC), Big Twelve, Big Ten, and Pac Ten. The membership of each conference is as follows:

Big East: Cincinnati, Connecticut, DePaul, Georgetown, Louisville, Marquette, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Providence, Rutgers, Seton Hall, South Florida, St. John’s, Syracuse, Villanova, West Virginia

ACC: Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina, North Carolina St., Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest

SEC: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi St., South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Big 12: Baylor, Colorado, Iowa St., Kansas, Kansas St., Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech

Big Ten: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan St., Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio St., Penn St., Purdue, Wisconsin

Pac 10: Arizona, Arizona St., California, Oregon, Oregon St., Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington, Washington St.

These conferences cover the entire geographical breadth of the U.S. Thus, they represent the diversity of the American voting public. What I thought would be fun to do is look at how each conference voted last Tuesday. I took each school and looked at how its state and county (in which the school resides) voted. You see some pretty interesting things. The Big Ten, for example, is the most pro-Obama conference. All 8 states in which its schools reside voted for Obama, as did all 11 counties (there are 11 schools in the Big Ten since the addition of Penn St.). The Big Ten schools occupy the industrial Midwest from Pennsylvania to Iowa, the region of the country that Obama dominated, including his pickups of Indiana and Ohio.


The most pro-McCain conference?? Not surprisingly it’s the SEC. Encompassing the deep south, McCain’s base of support, McCain won 8 of the 9 SEC states (losing only Florida). At the county level, however, Obama actually did much better. He won 7 of the 12 counties in which these schools reside (Alachua—Florida; Athens-Clarke—Georgia; Fayette—Kentucky; Oktibbeha—Mississippi St.; Richland—South Carolina; and Davidson—Vanderbilt). Thus, we may see some evidence of the youth vote (which gave Obama 2/3 of their vote) coming through for the Democrat as well as all those liberal faculty members.

The most interesting conference—and the one that got me thinking about this question in the first place—is the ACC. Since the flip of North Carolina and Virginia from the Republican to the Democratic column, many are wondering if the “solid South” is beginning to disintegrate. Given that the ACC encompasses the border area of the east coast—part northern, part southern—its voting might reflect the bipolar nature of the region and whether it is now being pulled in one direction more than the other. Indeed, 5 of the 7 ACC states went to Obama (Clemson in South Carolina and Georgia Tech in Georgia went McCain). At the county level, Obama won 11 of the 12 ACC counties (losing only Pickens County South Carolina, home to Clemson). In most of these counties, the Obama margin was quite large. Only in Montgomery County Virginia (Virginia Tech) did he get less than 55%.

To round out the remaining conferences, the Big 12 was McCain’s next strongest at the state level. This conference encompasses the central plains, another area of Republican strength. Of the seven total states McCain won 5 (losing Colorado and Iowa). Like with the SEC, however, things at the county level were more evenly matched as each candidate won 6 counties.

The Big East is the largest conference geographically (I’m using its expanded basketball membership rather than its 8 team football membership). Stretching from Rhode Island to Wisconsin (Go Marquette!!) and also having South Florida, it’s the least geographically distinct. Nonetheless, it was strongly in the Obama camp. He won 11 of the 13 Big East states (losing Kentucky and West Virginia). At the county level, though, he made a clean sweep of the 16 counties. Monongalia County West Virginia (Morgantown) gave Obama a slim win with 51% as did Hamilton County Ohio (Cincinnati) with 52% and Hillsborough County Florida (USF) with 53%.

Finally, the PAC 10 was strongly Obama and might have given him a clean sweep had it not been for Senator McCain’s presence on the balance. With the exception of Arizona, Obama won 3 of the conference’s 4 states. At the county level, he won 9 of 10, losing only Maricopa County Arizona (Arizona St.) where McCain got 55%.

So, what can we learn from this?? All in all this may not teach us much new but rather allow us to use a different lens through which to view our politics. The dominance of Obama at the county level—he won 89% of the counties surveyed (57 of 64) illustrates, it seems, not only the role of the youth vote but also something about areas that revolve around university life. Even in the Deep South, Obama did well in those areas that have universities in their midst. Beyond students, one is likely to find a populace in these cities and counties with a higher degree of education and income than in the surrounding parts. As the Democrats’ share of the vote among the high education/high income demographic continues to grow, we might begin to see more change at the state level. The concept of the “ideopolis” is key to “The Emerging Democratic Majority” thesis. What we saw last week in North Carolina and Virginia (home to 6 schools in this survey) might be a harbinger for things to come.

Tippecanoe and Obama Too

Perhaps the biggest surprise of last Tuesday was Indiana's move to the Democratic column. Not since LBJ's landslide 1964 victory had the Hoosier State gone blue. In looking at the returns we see that Obama was able to drastically improve upon the performance of past Democratic candidates. His vote share grew in every county versus Kerry's 2004 performance, as the map at left shows (for some coverage from the Indianapolis Star, see here). He was able to win 12 more counties than Kerry (15 total), and his performance in Marion County (Indianapolis) allowed him to generate a huge number of votes to help tilt the state. In 2004, Kerry beat Bush in Marion County by 2% (6,000 votes). This year, Obama beat McCain there by 28% (107,000 votes)!

As during the Democratic primary, Lake County was also crucial to Obama's success. Essentially a part of the Chicago metropolitan area, Lake County's Democratic share increased 6% over 2004 and gave Obama a 71,000 vote margin.

You might also look at the Indiana college population for part of this year's margin. Monroe County (Bloomington) is the home of Indiana University. In 2004, Kerry won the county by 8%. This year, Obama's margin was 32% (20,000 vote margin). Tippecanoe County (West Lafayette) in north east Indiana is home to Purdue. Whereas Bush won Tippecanoe by 20% in '04, Obama switched the county, winning it by 12% (8,000 vote margin). Finally, the University of Notre Dame resides in St. Joseph's County (South Bend). Here we saw another switch--whereas Bush won the county by 2% in '04, Obama enjoyed a 17% win (20,000 vote margin) this year.

For all the details on Indiana politics, see Howeypolitics.com.

The Appalachian Problem Returns

The above map has been getting a lot of attention over the past day. It shows the counties where McCain actually overperformed Bush '04. We see a very clearly defined geographical region--Appalachia, especially the southern stretch--as the source of McCain's strength. During the Democratic primary, there was much discussion of Obama's "Appalachia Problem." For a refresher, the map below illustrates how deep Clinton's support was there (the more blue, the more pro-Clinton).

In a further examination of this, Ben Smith at Politico brings forward the final map below that charts American's self-identified ancestry. The same pattern jumps out as this part of the country is dominated by people who identify their ancestry as "American." In short, this is a region in which large numbers have family ties that stretch back multiple generations--very low levels of movement in and out. Thus, unlike parts of the neighboring states of Virginia and North Carolina, which have seen a much more dynamic population flow (especially Northern Virginia and Research Triangle of N.C.), this interior is perhaps more isolated from the trends and changes that have affected some of their neighbors. Virginia and North Carolina (and seemingly Colorado out west following a similar track) may have thus crossed the threshhold necessary to vote for a Democrat for the White House.

The Day After

Today, mostly quick hits:

Florida. As I wrote about a few weeks back, the I-4 Corridor was indeed the key. Obama vastly outperformed Kerry, winning Pinellas (54%), Hillsborough (50.1%), and Orange (59%) Counties--the three biggest in the region.

Wisconsin. Huge Obama win--13 points. As expected big margins in Milwaukee and Dane Counties, but most impressive was the broad scope. McCain only won 13 of the state's 72 counties. In contrast, despite losing the state narrowly in '05, Bush won 45 counties. Outagamie and Brown Counties (see earlier post for more prescience) go Obama--54% each. Dems. also captured the State Assembly in Wisconsin.

The Republicans have 0 members of the House of Representatives from New England. See this to see how the region, once so solidly Republican, has been completely transformed. As I get the final House results, I'll update more fully, but increasingly the Republican House caucus is southern and rural.

Paging Dr. Schaller! Paging Dr. Schaller! Exit polls in Alabama show that 8 in 10 whites voted for McCain. In Mississippi, 88% of whites went for McCain.

Harold Washington, Barack Obama, and the Game Plan for Victory---Should We Have Seen This Coming??

A few months ago, in the midst of the primary season, I wrote a post wondering about how black turnout might affect the general election. Having done a lot of reading on Chicago politics over the past few years, I was becoming convinced that the Obama campaign was using a playbook that had proven successful in its own backyard, 25 years prior.

In 1983, Chicago elected its first African American mayor, Harold Washington. The election of Washington was an arduous two step process. First, the reformist Washington campaign had to win a bruising three way primary against incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne and Richard Daley, Jr., son of the deceased former mayor (and current mayor). With Byrne being the Democratic machine candidate and Daley the namesake of the city’s most dominant political family, Washington’s candidacy succeeded largely due to massive increases in black registration, mobilization, and turnout. For example, between the 1979 and 1983 mayoral races, registration in Chicago’s majority black wards increased 30% (as opposed to only a 4% increase in the rest of the city). The final tally gave Washington 37%, Byrne 33%, and Daley 30%. While the racial dimension of the campaign was evident in the primary, the general election brought a whole new level of rancor. Whereas the city was long dominated by the Democratic machine, giving Republicans few chances to win citywide office, Washington’s place at the top of the ticket led large swaths of Democratic voters to cross party lines and support Bernard Epton. Many of the city’s Democratic machine leaders agitated against Washington’s bid, using tactics and language that was anything but subtle in their racial overtones--Epton's campaign slogan was "Before It's Too Late." Again, Washington had to rely on black turnout and mobilization (coupled with support from high income, high education level whites). In the general, Washington narrowly won with 51.4% of the vote. Again, black turnout was huge—75%!!

Writing in the immediate aftermath of Washington’s victory, University of Maryland political scientist Ronald Walters wrote:

…the Washington campaign illustrated that a black candidacy could bring formerly politically inactive people into the electoral process and could make politics take on a relevance and urgency for those who had previously seen little connection between elections and their own lives. It also showed that participation by people who usually opt out of the system could change election outcomes (PS, Summer 1983; p. 492).

Thus, coming into this year’s election season, the Obama campaign surely realized that black turnout would be an important, although certainly not definitive, determinant of their success. While the Obama campaign’s financial juggernaut has been unprecedented and his appeal to young and upscale white voters has been crucial, one can’t ignore the degree to which the black vote has been the backbone of the campaign. Given the delegate allocation formula used by the Democrats, Obama was able to take advantage of his near universal support among black voters to ensure that Hillary Clinton was unable to gain ground quickly, despite her victories in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. With the early date of the South Carolina primary (with its large black electorate) Obama’s campaign was given a boost heading toward the Super Tuesday blockbuster of contests. These early victories also sent a signal to black voters, as described by Walters above, that their participation could indeed determine the outcome of the race.

One consequence of Obama’s success in the primaries, which I’ve also written about, is that it placed many established African American politicians in a difficult position. Long allies of the Clintons, these members of Congress, mayors, and Democratic insiders failed to see the oncoming Obama phenomenon. In fact, several faced (and may in the future face) primary challenges as a result of their initial snubbing of Obama. For many, Hillary Clinton was the safe, and rational, pick. Here again, some parallels to Harold Washington become apparent. In his campaign against the Chicago Democratic machine, Washington broke from a number of black Chicago leaders who, by providing the machine with scores of black votes, received patronage, neighborhood power, and electoral security over the years. Writing about this tension between insurgent and establishment politicians, the Brookings Institutions’ Paul Peterson wrote:

Black political leaders nationally have many of the same difficulties that the Washington candidacy posed for black aldermen and committeemen in Chicago. If they support the problematic candidacy of an insurgent, all the past ties and connections with leading white political figures, from which many identifiable benefits flowed, would be endangered. A black candidacy that achieved only modest success could leave them politically isolated. But if they decide not to support a black insurgent who succeeds at mobilizing the black community, the close connections with white leaders would only appear to black constituents to be still another example of having “sold out.” Even as many black aldermen lost their seats to Washington’s supporters, so black mayors and congressmen who fail to support one of their own brothers for president become vulnerable to local challengers. (PS, Fall 1983; p. 716).

Sound familiar???

To add another layer, I came across an

old article from Chicago Magazine, written in January 1993. The author discusses further increases in black mobilization in Chicago, this time focused on the election of the Clinton/Gore ticket and Illinois Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman ever elected to that position. The focus of the piece is Project Vote!, an organization formed to increase minority and low income voter registration. Whereas voter registration had normally been the purview of the Democratic Party machine in Chicago, Project Vote!’s efforts were conducted outside the party apparatus and were community based. For the 1992 campaign, the organization was successful in adding 150,000 black voters to the rolls. Bill Clinton’s win in Illinois and especially Moseley-Braun’s upset primary unseating of incumbent Senator Alan Dixon were aided by these new voters. Who was the Director of Project Vote!, you might wonder??? A 31 year old lawyer named Barack Obama. The article concludes with a young Obama being asked about his own political ambitions:

Obama shrugs off the possibility of running for office. “Who knows?” he says. “But probably not immediately.” He smiles. “Was that a sufficiently politic ‘maybe’? My sincere answer is, “I’ll run if I feel I can accomplish more that way than agitating from the outside. I don’t know if that’s true right now. Let’s wait and see what happens in 1993. If politicians in place now and the city and state levels respond to African-American voters’ needs, we’ll gladly work with and support them. If they don’t, we’ll work to replace them. That’s the message I want Project Vote! to have sent.”

So how might we gauge whether any of this emphasis on registration and mobilization, especially among African-Americans, is paying off??? Over the past few days we’ve started to receive some data on the early voting that is taking place across a number of states, including key battlegrounds like Florida and North Carolina (see this great site from GMU’s Michael McDonald). What seems to be taking place is tremendous, and unprecedented, black turnout. As Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com has pointed out, the states with the biggest increases in early voting, compared to 2004, are those with large black populations. We’re also seeing early voting spikes in counties in Ohio with large numbers of African-American voters. Thus, while we’re expecting to see higher than normal turnout among all voters nationwide, the more interesting question is what gap will exist between white and black voters. In 2004 white turnout was roughly 65% while black turnout was about 60%. What happens if black turnout not only grows (perhaps to parity with white turnout) but maybe even surpasses that of whites in some places? Should that happen, then the math starts to get really interesting, electoral votes start going red to blue, and what might normally be a close election starts to move toward landslide territory.

Thus, as we approach election day it’s hard not to think that the groundwork for the Obama campaign was put in place well before he announced his candidacy in early 2007 and before his famous address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Rather, much of what we’re seeing materialize has its roots in longstanding efforts begun back in Chicago. Many commentators have looked to previous elections for parallels to what we’re seeing this year—Is 2008 like 1992? 1980? 1932?

Should Obama win next Tuesday, my vote goes not for a presidential race in our past, but rather a mayoral one--1983. The fact that some of this year’s participants were either involved in or influenced by that campaign should, perhaps, have gotten a lot more attention by a lot more people.

Some Thoughts On the South

If you’ve been reading my posts over the course of the campaign, you know that the issue of race is something I’ve written a lot about. Well, in a week we’re going to get a lot of data that will clarify many of the questions I’ve been raising and obsessing over.

One of the big questions that has been posed is how Obama will fare in the south. Will the legacy of George Wallace be purged forever? Will black turnout be so high in some states, as to make their electoral votes attainable for the Democrats? Do white southern voters think and vote differently than white non-southern voters? Does the Bradley effect exist, and if so, does it exist everywhere or is it more regionalized?

However these questions get answered, one thing that can’t be ignored is the fact that by having a reason to ask these questions—the reality of the Obama candidacy—we have demonstrated progress. We’ll no longer have to ask ourselves “If an African American got nominated for President, would he win?” Now we’ll know. While race won’t be the only reason Obama wins or loses, it will be a variable that we can finally start to put some flesh on. As a political scientist, I can’t wait to start digging into the numbers.

In thinking about the historic nature of the Obama campaign, I came across on old Time magazine from 1971 focusing on the “New South.” Featuring the just elected Governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter, the issue looked at how the region was trying to move beyond its old, race dominated politics:

Throughout the South, there are signs that the region is abandoning the fateful uniqueness that has retarded its development and estranged its people. William Faulkner’s South—heavy with ghostly Spanish moss, penumbral myths and morbid attachment to the past—is giving way to a South that has discovered it does not need fable to shore up its pride or the past to cloud its future. Moreover, a generation after the process was largely completed in the rest of the U.S., the South is caught up in an economic expansion that is reshaping the social order. The South has become at last a region of investment, both human and economic.

Making history—not living in its vainglories and myths—is the challenge and promise of the South today. The Southern frontier closed in that awful moment when the first man came to the South in bondage, locking the Southern experience into its tragic course. Three and one-half centuries later, the thrall can be broken, the frontier reopened. The South can grown rich while there is still time to safeguard the land from despoliation. It can acquire once more the political power of the sons who helped articulate the nation’s independence. Above all, it has a chance to shed its old hatreds and show the U.S. the way to a truly integrated society.

A little too optimistic or premature?? Perhaps. But should the election returns coming out of places like Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and other states next Tuesday show high levels of support for Obama, and produce electoral votes, we should remember that these votes were not generated in an instant or in a vacuum. Southern voters, like all voters, have grown up, lived, and been politically socialized in a historical and social context. This context evolves and develops over time. Thus, it’s appropriate to appreciate the history of this evolution.

Of course it may turn out that the southern vote will continue to be the outlier in terms of willingness to support a black candidate. Here we return to the thesis of Thomas Schaller in “Whistling Past Dixie.” In short, Schaller believes that Democrats are unable to compete in these Deep South states because of how race clouds the vote choices of white voters. An ingrained racial backlash—especially heightened with a black candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket—works to the advantage of the Republicans. While I don’t normally focus much on polls in my posts, recently released polling suggests that this explanation for southern attitudes might not be pure fiction.

Some good test cases for the role of race in these states might be found down-ballot on Tuesday. In both Georgia and Mississippi, two U.S. Senate races have become highly competitive. In Mississippi, incumbent Republican Senator Roger Wicker (appointed upon the retirement of Trent Lott) finds himself in a tough race against former governor Ronnie Musgrove. In Georgia, Saxby Chambliss is seeking a second term against Democratic challenger Jim Martin in a race that few thought would be close. What I’m interested in comparing is the difference between the votes for Musgrove/Martin and Obama. If we assume that every African American in Georgia and Mississippi who votes for Obama will also vote for Musgrove or Martin (not a perfect but, it seems, pretty reasonable assumption), then the difference between the Senate votes and the Obama vote should show us, roughly (we also need to account for the Hispanic vote) whether white voters had different evaluations of the presidential and senatorial candidates. If the Senate candidates outperform Obama, then there would seem to be reason to suspect that race was a factor.

Whatever happens on Tuesday, we’re going to be in a better position to answer some of the most vexing questions that have infused our politics going back generations. Stay tuned for the analysis.