Obama's Silver Streak Through Elkhart: Will It Stimulate More Hoosier Dem Turnout?

President Obama had good reason to blow trough Elkhart, Indiana on his two-city barnstorming tour touting his stimulus plan. This small, once-oasis of a Rust Belt city is a savvy choice for a campaign-style backdrop, and a perfect place to refer to repeatedly in his first prime time White House press conference last night.

GF-R slapped together a thumbnail sketch of Elkhart for WaPo’s website, noting its economic slump as the capital of the scuttling RV industry. Elkhart’s staggering, and swelling, unemployment rate has been cited as the prime reason Obama advisors selected this recently struggling city as a backdrop, including Almanac of American Politics guru Michael Barone, even though he makes passing note of its recent stunning electoral shifts.

Economic factors pointed to this locale as a newsworthy whistle-stop on this tour, but ElectionDissection can’t resist investigating those very electoral shifts that Barone merely mentioned, electoral shifts that made Elkhart a “must stop” for Obama on a road show mapped out to shore up his political base as much as to push PR for this legislation.

Elkhart County was ground zero in the electoral upheavals that made Indiana an unexpected battle ground in Election ’08. This last reliably Republican redoubt in the Rust Belt – only Indiana rejected Bill Clinton for Bob Dole in this region in ’96 - offered up a nail biter in November, when Barack Obama became the first Democrat to carry the Hoosier State since LBJ’s ’64 landslide, albeit narrowly.

John McCain still managed to claim Elkhart, but at a drastically diminished majority from the overwhelming differential that George W. Bush scored over John Kerry in ’04. Even while ceding the county, Obama scored the highest Dem presidential raw vote total ever in Elkhart Co., and the nearly 14,000 more votes that Obama garnered than Kerry amounted to roughly half of Obama’s statewide margin of victory.

Elkhart was one of only nine out of Indiana’s 80 counties carried by Obama in this year’s primary when he gave Hillary Rodham Clinton a fright in a state that most pundits assumed was firmly in her column. Obama campaign organizers successfully harnessed the enthusiasm that spilled over from Obama’s comfortable 18 point victory over Hillary to maximize his general election vote in Elkhart, pushing him closer to capturing those 11 electoral votes.

Elkhart was once home to Miles Laboratories, the original makers of Alka-Seltzer. Miles has since been swallowed up by Bayer AG, the German pharma giant, but, like the millions of Americans nursed back to health to the sing-song of its celebrity cartoon spokescharacter Speedy Alka-Seltzer™, the previously perpetually-strong recreational vehicle and mobile home industries spared Elkhart much of the heartburn that ailed surrounding counties in Michiana, and the Rust Belt at-large. Elkhart has posted continual population increases at each decennial census, while the rest of Michiana stagnated.

At the outset of an economic downturn, it’s often recreational and other “non-essential” industries that take the first, and sharpest, hit as consumers tighten their belts. Elkhart’s troubles may well prove to be over-pronounced in the immediate term, and may yet rebound back to former fortitude once consumers regain confidence.

So, Elkhart doesn’t yet confound the pattern that ElectionDissection has been illuminating from our inception. Conventional Wisdom is insisting that Elkhart’s troubles spurred the spike in its Democratic vote in 2008 with traditionally Republican voters now demanding a more activist economic agenda. Demographic and electoral trends may not yet permit us to declare that “Elkhart is Obama-country,” but Elkhart does resemble on a more modest scale - with its relative historical economic strength and a more educated electorate, less susceptible to the siren call of economic populism of either the Democratic John Edwards stripe or the Mike Huckabee Republican variety - the thriving ‘burbs of North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia that have pushed those states from Ruby Red to Perplexed Purple.

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.