Unions and the Democratic Vote

First off, some housekeeping.  The posting here has been extremely light as of late.  The reason for this is that I've recently joined the ranks at the Washington Examiner's Opinion Zone blog.  Thus, much of what has been running through my head has been appearing over there.  I'm going to work hard to keep posting over here as well.

The big story of the past few weeks has been the debate about the role of unions, specificially public sector unions, in our political system.  As numerous states, most notably Wisconsin, try to fix budget deficits, public sector unions have been called upon to increase their contributions to health care, pension, and other benefit packages.  While Wisconsin unions have agreed to these concessions, legislation that would take away their collective bargaining rights have set off a firestorm, resulting in large scale protests and a crippled state government.

In the commentary surrounding this, the role of unions more broadly in our politics has gotten quite a bit of attention.  I've written about this here and here.  To summarize, unions have been a key component of the Democratic Party's electoral coalition even as their membership has been declining and has been becoming more public than private sector oriented.  To get a sense of this, I thought I'd run an experiment whereby I rank states according to their level of unionization and see if there is a rough correlation with their statewide vote in presidential contests.  Thanks to the good folks over at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one can get this data quite easily.

I've put together the following chart which looks at the past five presidential elections.  For each year I've ranked the 50 states plus DC according to the percentage of the population that belongs to a union--represented in the second column for each year.  I've then color coded the state for how it voted.

One thing to note is that while there is some variation as to the relative rankings of the states as to their level of unionization, by and large the state orderings remain constant.  High unionization states include New York, Hawaii, Michigan, Alaska, Washington, and California while low unionization states include the states of the deep south.  As you can clearly see, highly unionized states have tended to vote Democratic (and vice versa for low unionization states).  This obviously isn't a huge surprise but it is nice to be able to view the data this way.  Consider that in 2008, Barack Obama won 23 of the 27 most unionized states in the country.  He also, interestingly, won 2 of the 4 least unionized. 

As I was creating this chart, the Clinton elections of 1992 and 1996 jumped out as having seemingly less of a correlation between state unionization and the vote.  Clearly there was some regional appeal taking place with his wins in Georgia, Louisiana, and Arkansas (wins that no subsequent Democratic nominee has been able to replicate).  However, at the top of the scale, Clinton did just as well as Obama.  Thus, equating national or statewide electoral outcomes simply with union presence is a mistake.  There are a variety of other variables at play--a point made the other day by Nate Silver in an excellent post on the subject.  Especially when we have elections that verge on entering "landslide" territory, isolating one variable and assigning causality is likely to steer us in the wrong direction.

Nonetheless, it shouldn't surprise us that the proposals unleashed over the past weeks by Republican governors across the midwest--where presidential elections are ultimately decided--have set off the reaction they have.  Unions clearly see these bills not just as part of a debate about fiscal policy, but as a more fundamental attack on their role in society and politics. 

Big Blue Badger

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

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

Lots more Wisconsin analysis to come.

Maps courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Where They're Campaigning--Obama Along the Mississippi

Tomorrow the Obama campaign will hit La Crosse Wisconsin (see coverage here)—his fourth visit to the Badger state since the convention. La Crosse, population 52,000, sits along the Mississippi River, and is the hub of a region that I’ve argued is crucial to Democrats’ success in Wisconsin (see post here).

La Crosse county has voted Democratic in the past five presidential elections. Kerry received 53% in 2004 here. The county has also gone Democratic in the past two gubernatorial races. At the congressional level, La Crosse is the largest city in Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District, currently represented by Democrat Ron Kind. Kind, first elected in 1996, has been comfortably re-elected in all of his campaigns with vote totals in the neighborhood of 65%. Prior to Kind’s arrival, the district had a more Republican (albeit very moderate) bent, sending Steve Gunderson to the House for eight terms.

One component of this region’s demographics that is surely attractive to the Obama team is the fact that five campuses of the University of Wisconsin system fall within the 3rd district (UW La Crosse, Eau Claire, Platteville, River Falls, and Stout), thus providing a sizable youth vote. Many suggested that this vote was crucial to the Democrats’ ability to regain control of the Wisconsin State Senate in 2006 (see post here).

Another fact of note about the area is that this district also includes Wisconsin’s fastest growing county—St. Croix. About 150 miles north of La Crosse, St. Croix County has increasingly become exurban Minneapolis/St. Paul. In fact, this whole region in many ways has a dual identity as it is pulled between the Twin Cities and Wisconsin. The Minnesota counties that sit directly across the Mississippi River from La Crosse—Houston and Winona—are very competitive. Winona County has been decided by less than 2% for the past five elections (with the Democrats winning the past 4) while Houston County has been decided by less than 2% in each of the past six elections (with Republicans winning all except ’96). Thus, the Obama campaign may be hoping for some residual benefits of this visit to accrue across the river in another swing state.

Where They're Campaigning: McCain-Palin Hits Cedarburg

In their first stop following the Republican convention, the McCain-Palin ticket visited some very friendly turf in the swing state of Wisconsin. Clearly, the early strategy seems to be a series of rallies on favorable ground with enthusiastic crowds rather than jumping into the cauldron of swing and independent voters. Note that Colorado Springs is also on the itinerary.

Today, McCain and Palin visited the Wisconsin city of Cedarburg. Located about 20 miles due north of Milwaukee and with a population of about 11,000, Cedarburg is located right in the middle of Wisconsin's most Republican region comprising the three neighboring counties of Ozaukee (in which Cedarburg sits), Washington, and Waukesha.

To give you a sense of how Republican this area is, in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential races, these were the three most Republican counties in the state. The Republican share of the vote for each county in 2000 and 2004 respectively was:

Washington: 70% / 70%

Waukesha: 68% / 68%

Ozaukee: 68% / 66%

These three counties are also quite large in terms of how much of Wisconsin's vote they comprise. In 2004, Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee counties were the 3rd, 10th, and 15th largest counties in votes cast. Combined they provided about 12% of all the votes cast in the state.

Cedarburg itself is even more Republican. In 2004, President Bush received 73% while in 2000 he took home 71%. While many have suggested that there has been a "blue-ing" of many suburban areas transpiring in recent years (i.e. Northern Virginia, Montgomery County Pennsylvania, etc.) this trend has apparently not come to this part of the badger state.

Having written a lot about Wisconsin, including areas which may be trending Democratic (see here), I'd have to conclude that if the McCain campaign's goal was to rally the base, this wasn't a bad place to start. The visit will be covered throughout the Milwaukee media market, the state's largest, and will signal that--at least for now--the Republican ticket believes Wisconsin can be won.

For more indication of how competitive this area is, from the perspective of the campaigns' spending on television advertising, see this press release by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project. During the period covered in their recent study, the Milwaukee market was the 8th largest in the country in terms of number of ads aired.

*Photo courtesy of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Where the Race Will Be Won, Part 1

In the weeks leading up to the November vote, I want to periodically identify some places and regions whose performance, in my mind, will go a long way toward explaining the final outcome. While a discussion of “swing states” is commonplace, I want to go a bit deeper and into more detail by focusing on places whose demographics, history, socio-economic makeup, etc. make them illustrative of some of the larger dynamics playing out in the campaign. These areas will either be 1) extremely competitive or 2) crucial to one candidate’s base. In the former, both candidates will by vying to capture an electorate that’s up for grabs. In the latter, either McCain or Obama will be trying to maximize turnout, perhaps beyond that seen in previous contests. Some of these places will be in “swing states,” others may not be if they present a version of a much larger story.

I want to start with an area very close to where I grew up. Wisconsin has over the past several elections proven to be the mother of all swing states. Although it has voted Democratic from 1988 through 2004, the margins have always been quite slim. There are certain parts of the state where Democrats always do well (Milwaukee, Madison, and Mississippi River counties) and parts that are Republican strongholds (Milwaukee suburbs, Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington counties). At left is the 2004 presidential race results, with Democratic counties in red, Republican in blue.

There is one part that is becoming increasingly important, in my mind, for either party’s candidate. Essentially, the 30 miles that connect Appleton and Green Bay has become extremely competitive, based on recent contests and trends. Colloquially known as the “Fox Cities,” this region has historically been Republican territory although over the past few cycles it has been trending Democratic. I just did a large number crunch of the region so let me throw some data out to illustrate what I mean.

In the 2000 and 2004 presidential races, Bush won both Brown (Green Bay) and Outagamie (Appleton) Counties. Brown County went 51% and 55% in ’00 and ’04 respectively while Outagamie went 55% and 53% Republican. In the most recent Governor’s race, however, things tightened up a bit. This is of note because the Republican candidate in the ’06 race was the incumbent congressman, Mark Green, who represented the district since his election in 1998. Thus, we would have expected him to do extremely well in his backyard. Despite this, he narrowly won Brown County (50%/48%) while actually losing Outagamie by two points. Furthermore, 2006 saw the election of Democrat Steve Kagen to the House seat vacated by Green. Up until ’06, the 8th district had only been held by a Democrat for one term over the previous thirty years. Kagen’s victory, although very narrow (51%/49%) in my mind signaled that something might be changing in this part of the state—especially in its two largest cities. In the city of Appleton for example, Kagen beat his opponent, former Wisconsin Assembly Speaker John Gard, by 16 points. He also had a ten point margin of victory in Green Bay proper. The moderately sized city of Kaukauna, recently visited by Barack Obama (see this previous post), gave Kagen a 28 point margin of victory. Charlie Cook currently gives the 8th district a PVI rating of D+0. Thus, while this area is historically Republican, it seems to be very much in flux.

Demographically, this area is overwhelmingly white and very Catholic. It has both a strong streak of social conservatism while also a good dose of isolationism. There is a labor presence in Green Bay and a large paper making industry in the Kaukauna area. An old version of the “Almanac of American Politics” describes the area thusly:

This is a heavily German Catholic area; it went for John Kennedy in 1960 and came fairly close to going for Jimmy Carter in 1976. It seemed to react against the military policies of the Vietnam era and against the cultural liberalism of the Carter administration.

For Obama to win Wisconsin, he doesn’t necessarily need to win this area. Other Democrats have won Wisconsin by running up huge margins in Milwaukee and Madison and doing moderately well elsewhere. However, should he win these two counties, I’d expect him to win Wisconsin with a margin significantly larger than Kerry or Gore got. For McCain, though, he must win here. This string of cities traditionally sits at the northern tip of counties, running northward from the Milwaukee suburbs (and through Fond du Lac and Winnebago Counties) that are crucial for the Republicans’ success statewide. Should McCain under perform in this changing part of what I’d call Wisconsin’s “Republican Corridor”, he won’t win the state.