Tag: Democrats

This is the final part of three posts analyzing the congressional districts President Barack Obama underperformed in. It will focus on the movement in Appalachia and the South Central United States. The previous parts can be found starting here.



The 2010 Midterms

Let’s take one last look at those districts in which Mr. Obama did worse than Senator John Kerry:

One sees again, as clear as ever, the diagonal pattern of Republican movement in South Central America and the Appalachians.

These districts differ from the northeastern and Florida-based regions examined in the previous post. Unlike those congressional districts, the districts in South Central and Appalachia vote strongly Republican.

More below.

Many of them were never much loyal to the Democrats in the first place; those that did vote Democratic generally stopped doing so after President Bill Clinton left the ticket.

Nevertheless, a number of these South Central and Appalachian districts are still represented by Democratic congressmen. This is readily apparent if one looks at a list of congressional districts in which Mr. Obama underperformed Mr. Kerry:

There are a surprisingly high number of Democrats on this list.  As one might expect, the Democratic-voting districts all elect Democrats (except, ironically, for the most Democratic one). Yet more than half of the Republican-voting districts on the list also are represented by Democrats.

That is actually an amazing statistic. These are places in Appalachia and South Central which are already voting Republican, which are fast becoming even more Republican, and which are electing Democratic congressmen.

For Democrats, congressional districts like these constitute ticking time bombs. They will be the first to fall in a Republican wave. There is literally no way the party can continue holding the majority of seats in Arkansas, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

And 2010 looks like a Republican wave year. Democratic-controlled districts in Appalachia and South Central are in deep trouble already:

In congressional districts that vote Republican and are becoming Republican, only half the Democratic incumbents are running again. The open seats will likely elect Republican representatives this fall, even in the best forseeable Democratic environment.

There is good news, however, judging from the PA-12 election results. On May 18th Pennsylvania held a special election for a new representative of the 12th congressional district, after incumbent John Murtha’s death:

Like many Democratic representatives in South Central and Appalachia, Mr. Murtha had constituted a relic of an earlier time – when southwest Pennsylvania voted Democratic. His continued re-elections were due to his personal popularity and the power of incumbency, even as his district moved more and more Republican.

It was a minor miracle that Democratic candidate Mark Critz won. Until then, no Democratic candidate had ever done better than Mr. Obama since his election. Mr. Critz did just that, given that the president lost PA-12 (the only seat in the nation to support Kerry and the McCain). In a district with double-digit disapproval ratings of Mr. Obama, this constituted an arduous task.

It is the same task that awaits more than a dozen Democrats in Appalachia and South Central America come November 2010.

      The Alabama legislature has been known to be one of the conservative legislatures in the nation. The democrats have maintained control of both chambers continuously for over a century. That said while these democrats tend to be pretty conservative they still tend to be more populist and left leaning on certain economic issues compared to their Republican counterparts. For a state that has only voted for one democratic president(Carter) in the last 50 years, it is amazing to see the local level under so much democratic control

   It looks like it will be real battle to hold both of these chambers this year. For the longest time I thought it was a miracle that this legislature has remained in democratic hands for so long. That was until I noticed  that 60% of the democrats were first  elected over 15 years ago some as much 30 years ago in the senate. The house is slightly better with only 40% of the dems first elected over 15 years ago.

    The senate right now is barely on the Dem turf. A couple years ago back in 2007, when there were more dems in the chamber, there was a coalition of Republicans and disaffected Democrats to elect leadership that would be more favorable to Republican Gov. Riley. The coalition was barely defeated 18-17! But it showed that democrats could still muster an offensive against the republicans even in a state like Alabama. This was a decisive win for the interesting power play that had been going on in the state. The lieutenant governor serves as the president of the senate. When a republican was elected to this position the Democrats in the senate moved to transfer most of that power to their Senate president Pro-temp(who was elected by their caucus).

    In the following 2008 elections (plus the special elections) Republicans continued to eat away at the Dem majority in the senate. But Jim Folsom Jr., a democrat, was elected to the position of lieutenant governor. The democrats in the senate then tried to restore much of the power back to the Lieutenant Governor (I don’t know if they were successful).The move made sense as I’m sure there enough republicans and disaffected Democrats to elect a leadership more favorable to Governor Riley this time around.

Democrats chances of holding  the senate look bleak when you look at the numbers. Dems control the chamber 20-15.  A mere 3 seats are all it takes to switch control.  That’s not to say that the Dems can’t pick up seats.  Parker Griffith for example won seat by defeating an incumbent Republican 66-34 which was an impressive result in the south( Where Dems tend to bleed more seats than win them; on top of the fact that the few seats we win, tend to be open/or have an incumbent immersed in a scandal). Griffith then resigned t o run for congress and his senate seat reverted back to republican just as his affiliation would later in the house). There seems to be a theme of a popular conservative Dems  winning against republicans only to make the switch later down the road. The same thing happened with Dick Shelby( who was the last democrat to defeat a sitting republican senator). It will really come down to which incumbent democrats chose retire and the year they were first elected. The more recent they incumbent was first elected (such as mid 2000’s) the better the chance we can hold these seats.

   The state house looks slightly more favorable to hold. Looking at the numbers the Dems control the chamber with a 60-45 advantage. It takes 8 seat pick-up for the Republicans to win control of this chamber.  There are quite a few open seats for Democrats to defend including the current Speaker who was elected in the late 1970s.  The Tennessee state house also had similar margin of control prior to the 2008 election. So nothing can be taken for granted. This chamber is as most pundits have said tossup at best.

    Now why do I feel this chamber is important to control? Well mainly because the Alabama dems in the legislatures are the only thing standing between governor Riley/the republican party from having the trifecta in this state. These races along with the open governor’s race are what control the redistricting map for the next 10 years. If Bobby Bright does survive his tough race this year his next race will ultimately depend which party is in power in this state.

It ‘s only a matter of time when the republicans take over both chambers as many of the Dem legislators who were first elected in the 1970s finally retire (much like the NY Senate in reverse). A lot on who controls the chambers will depend on how well Ron sparks does in his governor’s race.  His coattails could be the difference between Republican controlled of the legislature and one controlled by the Democrats. Tensions have also been high in this chamber as just a couple years ago there was a little fist fight in the senate.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

This is my first real diary. Feel free to comment and let me know  if there are any discrepancies

Cross-posted at Politics and other Random Topics and Daily Kos

Before starting this little rant, I'd like to say that as a progressive Democrat, I would've preferred that Lt. Gov. Bill Halter win his primary challenge to Sen. Blanche Lincoln (and, in fact, it was my prediction that Lincoln would lose the run-off). Having said that, the progressives who really think that Halter was going to be able to defeat Republican congressman John Boozman need a reality check, and should reflect a little on what happened here before getting so bummed out by the events of the Arkansas race.

This is Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas:

The GOP establishment tries to nominate electable candidates, and gets sabotaged by the teabaggers. We're trying to nominate electable candidates, and we get sabotaged by the Democratic Party establishment. We won in Pennsylvania, lost in Arkansas. You can't win them all. But make no mistake — we made the politically smart move.

Unfortunately, the smart political move lost. So say hello to Sen. John Boozman, the next senator from the great state of Arkansas. It's the political reality. No need to sugarcoat it.

How much do you think the Chamber of Commerce and its corporatist allies will spend on behalf of Blanche Lincoln through the fall? Zero. Suddenly, you're going to see Lincoln quite friendless

Those evil “out of state” unions and progressive groups sure won't lift a finger to help her. The only question is how much the DSCC wastes on the losing effort.

I've long since quit being impressed by moral victories. In this case, we forced Blanche to dramatically improve the financial reform bill, and it may be too late to strip out her derivatives reform language. And we delivered the kind of pain that no other incumbent wants to suffer. So congressional Democrats have two options — they can either shape up and be spared primary pain (I'd be happy focusing solely on Joe Lieberman in 2012), or they can be Blanched

It's much easier to keep your job if you don't have to fight for it twice in a single year.

Kos seems to be arguing a few things here; one that the Democratic establishment (really, the White House) was being stupid by supporting Lincoln, that Bill Halter would've been able to win while Lincoln would not, and that this primary challenge will make conservative Democrats in congress somewhat more progressive.

The first thing, that the Democratic establishment should have thrown Lincoln out the door for Halter ignores one simple truth: political parties, at their core, are incumbent protection rackets, period. This is not an ironclad rule that can never be broken, but those circumstances usually involve some pretty bad scandals (for example, the Republican Governor's Association (the RGA) actively endorsed Brian Sandoval against incumbent Governor Jim Gibbons, mostly because of how scandal plagued he was). The Democrats had no business supporting incumbent Congressman Bill Jefferson in Louisiana's second district, and they should have been criticized heavily for it, as Jefferson was accused of and later convicted of bribery, but that was simply not the case for Lincoln. Political parties protect incumbents for good reason, they are the power-base of the party, without incumbent members in government, the party has no power (just look at the Green Party, the Constitution Party, the Libertarian Party, and many others) and if the party isn't going to go to the mat for its incumbents, then its incumbents will stop supporting the party, period. This isn't limited to the Democrats either, the Republicans support their incumbents as well, and Kos is, frankly, delusional if he thinks that any political party should abandon incumbents who aren't scandal-tainted (but for the record, it was pretty stupid of the White House aid to shoot his/her mouth off about the labor unions, though I suspect that he/she wasn't authorized by the White House to talk either).

On the second argument, electability, I'd find that view a lot more convincing if Bill Halter were either winning or were within range of John Boozman in polling, but the fact is, Boozman is beating Halter by double-digits too and there's no prize for only losing by 15 instead of losing by 20. To be clear, yes, I believe that Halter was more electable than Lincoln, but to pretend that Halter's chances of victory were really that much better than Lincoln's doesn't do progressives well in the credibility department.

On the final point, well, frankly, I know that Kos means well, but there's a case to be made that Lincoln's derivatives language isn't really that good an idea. Just because something sounds good on paper and looks like it's putting the screws to the banks and everything which is evil, doesn't mean that it actually is or that this has somehow created better policy. Frankly, it's even arguable that this was good politics for just the general election, as everyone hates the banks and appearing to be tough on them just looks good.  In addition there was a point made by a regular commenter on Swing State Project who goes by DCCyclone which I'd like to bring to light:

And, frankly, to a substantial extent it bothers me, because the singling out of Lincoln for demonization shows a big lack of perspective.  Lincoln is from a most conservative state and the strongest anti-Obama state of any Democratic Senator up for reelection this year.

I suppose this is about making an example out of her for the sake of doing so, and winning in politics does, ultimately, require demonizing the opponent.  That's just a fact of political life, I accept that.

But if Halter wins tonight and goes on to lose by 20 to Boozman, I don't think the left benefits.  ConservaDems don't feel pressured to be more responsive to the left, instead they just feel more tightly squeezed with a narrower needle to thread to win.  The only way the left wins politically out of this is for Halter to win not only tonight but to pull off the massive upset and win in November.  If that happens, then the intense emotional energy will have been fully vindicated, and I'll be proven a fucking moron.  But it's hard to see a “Senator Halter” getting sworn in in January.

DCCyclone's point is a good one, what if Halter had won the primary? Maybe there would have been a polling bounce for him, but I doubt he'd even get a lead in that situation (or even close to it) and he'd probably return to where he was, 10-15 points behind Boozman which is almost certainly what the final result would have been. If that would have happened (hypothetically), it could easily by Democratic operatives to argue “see, this is what happens when you primary incumbents, you lose seats, you're no better than the Club for Growth!” (not to say that their point would be all that good, but it'd be pretty easy to make it, and suddenly the progressive groups who supported the primary look stupid for being successful). And that's really the main point, a loss for the progressives who backed Halter was probably inevitable no matter what, whether it would've been now or in November is sort of beside the point.

Cross-posted at Politics and Other Random Topics

(Notes: My senate rankings can be found here and I recently updated my own rankings for the Senate on my website, so that's what I'm talking about with the changes to the senate rankings)

It's funny, in some ways this has been a bad few weeks for Democrats politically (Dino Rossi's entrance in Washington State against Patty Murray and the thing with Blumenthal in Connecticut) but at the same time, the Senate picture actually looks better for the Democrats.

My most recent changes are to move Connecticut back to Likely Democratic from Leans Democratic and to move Nevada from Leans Republican to Toss-up.

The Connecticut thing should be pretty obvious, the New York Times screwed up pretty bad on their several stories regarding Blumenthal (plus Linda McMahon's idiotic bragging about giving the Times the story basically killed any chance of it seriously damaging Blumenthal).

Nevada's an interesting one, because Harry Reid hasn't magically become more popular than he was, but his polling against all three challengers has definitely improved. While I had been classifying the race as Leans Republican for my purposes, I'd always believed that Harry Reid was the incumbent who was most likely to come back from the grave and win simply because his opposition is so weak and his war-chest is really nothing to sneeze at ($9 million Cash on Hand, compared to his opposition who have a combined Cash on Hand amount of about $400,000, with that coming largely from Lowden with $200,000).

Now then, with the official caveat that the election is still several months away and there are any number of things that could happen in the meantime, let me give you my first preliminary prediction for the Senate races:

Democrats take the following seats from the Republicans: Ohio, Missouri, and Florida (I think Charlie Crist wins and that he caucuses with the Democrats, thus I consider it a Democratic gain).

Republicans take the following seats from the Democrats: North Dakota, Delaware, and Arkansas.

Honestly, I think for all the hoopla about Democrats getting routed in the fall, there's a very good chance that the Democrats break even for Senate races (to get this out of the way, I believe that Democrats will hold Indiana, Colorado, and Illinois despite polling to the contrary).

The best-case scenario for the Democrats right now is probably keeping their seat losses limited to North Dakota and Delaware (some Democrats are holding out hope that New Castle County Executive Chris Coons can pull off an upset, but I doubt it) and somehow hold Arkansas (frankly, Arkansas is bordering on being a lost cause as well), and then taking Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, Kentucky, North Carolina (this one's definitely a sleeper for the Democrats), and maybe catch Chuck Grassley off-guard in Iowa (to be fair, this is a bit of a stretch, as Grassley, despite showing some slight weakness, is still a pretty damn popular incumbent who isn't likely to lose). This scenario gives Democrats somewhere between 61 and 63 seats with the Republicans at between 39 and 37 seats.

Conversely, the best-case scenario for the Republicans is to hold onto to their competitive open seats (Ohio, New Hampshire, Kentucky, and Missouri), protect North Carolina (which is probably going to be pretty easy if the Republicans hold all of their open seats), take all of the Democratic open seats (save for Connecticut), knock off Reid, Lincoln (or the open seat, depending on what happens in the run-off), and Bennet, and then beat Barbara Boxer in California (frankly, despite their candidate recruitment coup, I don't think the Republicans really have a prayer of defeating Patty Murray). This scenario gives the Republicans 50 seats (which basically means that Democrats will maintain control of the Senate unless Lieberman decides to screw the Democrats and switch, which I wouldn't put past him).

My current prediction might seem a bit optimistic for some, but it's still worth mentioning that even now, it's still reasonably possible that the Democrats can break even or even gain a seat or two in these senate elections.

(To reiterate, this is a preliminary prediction of the status of a series of elections that won't take place for another five months, so these predictions are very much subject to change).

This is the second part of three posts analyzing the congressional districts President Barack Obama underperformed in. It will focus on his relative weakness in the northeast. The third part can be found here.

The Northeast

In my previous post I created a map of congressional districts in which Mr. Obama performed worse than Senator John Kerry:

In this map the most obvious pattern is a roughly diagonal corridor of Republican-shifting congressional districts, stretching from Oklahoma and Louisiana through the Appalachians. This area has long been seen as a place in which the electorate is moving away from the Democratic Party.

The post then looked at the Northeast, another region in which Mr. Kerry did better than Mr. Obama.

More below.

Unlike Applachia and the Mississippi Delta, the conventional wisdom characterizes the Northeast as a stable Democratic stronghold. Yet, as the map below indicates, six northeastern congressional districts shifted Republican in 2008:

Much of the movement in Massachusetts, of course, occurs due to the loss of Mr. Kerry’s home-state advantage. Yet the districts in Massachusetts (MA-4, MA-6, MA-7, MA-9, and MA-10) also share a number of commonalities. All are quite suburban, quite wealthy, and quite white. Unlike the Appalachian districts above, these places vote substantially Democratic. Neither Mr. McCain nor former President George W. Bush came within single-digits in any of these districts (I suspect 1988 was the last time a Republican presidential candidate did so). Yet this is also Scott Brown territory; the Republican candidate won four of these  districts.

Notice, too, the highlighted New York district (NY-9). Like those in Massachusetts, this district is inhabited mainly by middle-class, Democratic-voting whites. The effect of 9/11, which convinced many New Yorkers to vote Republican, was particularly strong in places like these (in fact, it was probably greater here than anywhere else in the nation). Orthodox  Jews, an increasingly Republican demographic heavily represented in this district, have shifted strongly Republican since then.

Indeed, Long Island as a whole was relatively lukewarm towards Obama. Apart from the fighting ninth, Republicans did respectably in NY-3 and NY-5, holding Obama’s improvement to less than 1% in both districts. Like NY-9, these places are wealthy and suburban.

One wonders whether this change is merely a temporary blip or the start of something more worrisome for Democrats.  The case of Florida is probably not reassuring:

This is Florida’s Gold Coast – a Democratic stronghold – and three districts here (FL-19, FL-20, FL-22) voted more Republican than in 2004. Mr. McCain’s age probably helped him along here; the large population of retirees may have empathized with one of their own.

Ironically, a large number of these retirees probably came from NY-9 or eastern Massachusetts. Like both areas, these districts vote Democratic but have been slowly moving Republican. FL-22 is the exception, having been not very Democratic to begin with. In FL-19 and FL-20, on the other hand, Democratic candidate Al Gore did substantially better than both Obama and Kerry. This was a function of the substantial Jewish population in these districts; Jews strongly supported Joe Lieberman, his Jewish nominee for Vice President.

Fortunately for Democrats, almost none of the Florida or northeast districts represent a 2010 pick-up opportunity for Republicans. Except for FL-22, all have voted Democratic by double-digits for at least three consecutive presidential elections. A few weeks ago a special election in FL-19 resulted in a 27% Democratic margin victory. It is the long-term that is worth concern for Democrats.

In the short term, Democrats must worry about Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta. There Democrats are in deep, deep trouble for 2010. There are a surprising amount of Democratic representatives in these Appalachian seats where Mr. McCain did better than Mr. Bush. Their predicament will be the subject of the next post.

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

On Tuesday night Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district held a special election, pitting Democratic candidate Mark Critz against Republican Tim Burns.

Mr. Critz won solidly: a nine percent margin of victory off 53.4% of the vote. Several polls had predicted a very close, photo-finish election; this result contradicted that assumption.

This victory constitutes good – very good – news for Democrats.

More below.

His district, PA-12, was one of the few countrywide that voted more Republican from 2004 to 2008, as the rest of the nation shifted substantially left. Districts such as these are prime targets for Republicans in 2010.

Indeed, PA-12 constituted the only seat in the entire nation that supported Senator John Kerry and then switched its vote to Senator John McCain. For reasons such as this, I wrote a week ago that:

It will be a minor miracle if Democratic candidate Mark Critz wins.  [Almost] no Democratic candidate has ever done better than Mr. Obama since his  election. Mr. Critz will have to do that, given that the president lost  PA-12 (the only seat in the nation to support Kerry and the McCain). In a  district with double-digit disapproval ratings of Mr. Obama, this  constitutes an arduous task.

As it turned out, Mr. Critz did far better than Mr. Obama. Indeed, his victory constitutes the first time a Democratic candidate has improved on the president’s performance since December of 2008, when Democrat Paul Carmouche barely lost LA-4 to Congressman John Fleming.

Mr. Critz won by appealing to local issues, emphasizing his independence from the president, and sounding like a fiscally liberal, socially conservative Democrat – the type of Democrat places like PA-12 have traditionally voted for.

This is a strategy that Democrats have long used, to great success, in winning congressional districts that they should not be winning. It is how both Mississippi and Arkansas elect three Democratic versus one Republican congressional representative, and how Texas elected more Democratic than Republican congressman right until 2004. It is partly how the party won such great congressional victories in 2006 and 2008.

There has been much fear amongst Democrats that, in light of Mr. Obama’s presidency, this strategy will no longer work. State Senator Creigh Deeds tried running a rural-style candidacy for Virginia’s governorship; he failed quite miserably.

Mark Critz, on the other hand, succeeded where many – including this individual – thought for sure he would fail. His performance certainly does not mean that Democrats are in for an easy time come November, but it does give the party something to work with in the tough days ahead.

Now that the dust has settled and I’ve had time to reflect, I wanted to post a quick analysis of what happened in Arkansas last night, from a progressive Arkie’s perspective.  Keep in mind, this is only meant to be an analysis of last night, and of nothing that’s to come.  I don’t think it’s a perfect analysis, but it is my take.

First, let’s start with the biggie, the AR-Sen race.

Dem primary-Obviously, it was a big night for Halter supporters like myself.  Bill cleaned up in places I never imagined-dominating southwest Arkansas and picking up counties in Lincoln’s home turf-Cross, St. Francis, Greene, Poinsett, etc.  What was odd was the fact that Lincoln won a few places where Halter was thought to be running strong in, namely Pulaski County, where Halter is from.  There’s an interesting explanation for this, and I wouldn’t have thought of it myself if one of my associates on Blue Arkansas hadn’t pointed it out.  Halter is running an anti-establishment campaign.  You don’t get more establishment in Arkansas Democratic politics than Pulaski County.  There has been a charge put out there that Halter drew in “GOP good ol’ boys”.  It’s true that Halter did do better in rural, more conservative areas (which should put the electability suggestion Lincoln is trying to peddle to rest).  However, I don’t think these count as Republican voters per se.  They are socially conservative, but they don’t necessarily think government doesn’t work.  They just think it’s not working for them.  Halter’s populist message, I think, is resonating.

GOPer primary-With all the excitement on the Dem side, John Boozman was able to quietly walk to victory.  Gilbert Baker’s campaign flamed out as he got more desperate for attention, becoming incredibly ridiculous.  (Go to youtube and type in “sexy Arkansas cheerleader politician”.)  The real drama, if there was any, was waiting to see if Jim Holt pulled into a runoff.  If that had happened, Boozman could have been the next Trey Grayson.  Sadly, it wasn’t to be.

AR-01:

Dems-former state senator Tim Wooldridge and Berry CoS Chad Causey have advanced to the runoff.  We at Blue Arkansas were backing State Representative David Cook, a more progressive, populist style candidate, but he ended up placing third, the cash advantage being the problem.  Wooldridge made it to this runoff by virtue of his name recognition from his Lt. Gov race against Halter.  Causey by his connections to Berry.

GOP-Rick Crawford easily beat my old high school classmate Princella Smith.  How many Republicans in Arkansas do you think really were enthusiastic about voting for a black woman?

AR-02:

Dems-State senator Joyce Elliott (a progressive hero in the state) surged to an incredibly high total in the initial primary that no one had expected.  State house speaker Robbie Wills won everywhere outside Pulaski County, but not by impressive margins.  High African American and progressive turnout was responsible for the Elliott surge.

GOP-Tim Griffin easily raised/spent far more money than his opponent, who did have some significan endorsements from folks like Mike Huckabee, the cash advantage carrying him over.

AR-03:

GOP primary-Weird dynamics in this one.  Steve Womack (Rogers mayor) has been labeled as a RINO in the primary.  Keep in mind, this is a man who’s so nutty on immigration George Bush said he was an extremist.  Cecile Bledsoe managed to inch past Gunner Delay to challenge Womack in the runoff.

Statewide offices:

Two statewide office races were particularly noteworthy, the Secretary of State race and the Land Commissioner’s race.  In both races, young, more progressive minded candidate running on ideas (Pulaski county clerk Pat O’Brien and businessman L.J. Bryant respectively) both surged to face establishment candidates in the Dem runoff (current Land Comm. Mark Wilcox in the SoS race and state rep. Monty Davenport in the Land Commissioner’s race).  This is a big deal, as these offices are usually where Arkansas sends old politicians to retire, as in the case of our former Land Commissioner, current Sec. of State, and future Auditor Charlie Daniels.  The fact that more issues oriented progressive policy wonks did so well last night is a huge deal for the state.

State legislature-Nothing dramatic on the state legislative front, except for maybe two things.  The large black turnout in Pulaski county lead to the defeat of state representative Richard Carroll, the former Green turned Democrat, at the hands of state senator Tracy Steele.  The saddest blow was this-Jay Barth, a great progressive running to be the first openly gay man elected to the state senate, was defeated after his opponent Linda Poindexter Chesterfield, ran an ad raising his sexual orientation and accusing him of racism for questioning her missed votes as a state rep.  (Chesterfield is black and said that doing so amounted to playing to the stereotype of blacks as lazy.)  For me, that was the lowest moment of the night.  However, there was one good moment as Fayetteville sent a true progressive to the legislature, Greg Leding.

This is the first part of three posts analyzing the congressional districts President Barack Obama underperformed in.

Congressional Districts

By most accounts, Senator Barack Obama dominated the 2008 presidential  election. He won an electoral landslide, winning Republican-leaning states such as Indiana and North Carolina which his campaign targeted. Compared to 2004, the nation shifted almost ten points more Democratic.

Mr. Obama improved from Senator John Kerry’s performance almost everywhere. More than 90% of congressional districts voted more Democratic than in 2004. Yet this means that at least several dozen congressional districts were more friendly to Mr. Kerry than the Illinois Senator. I have mapped these districts below:

More below.

(Click here for a much better view of the map).

There is a clear pattern here: Republican-shifting congressional districts are found along a diagonal line stretching from Louisiana and Oklahoma to southeastern Pennsylvania, roughly along the Appalachian mountains. This is not exactly startling news; ever since the primaries, Mr. Obama’s weakness in these regions has been well-noted. The five states that shifted Republican from 2004 – Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia – are all located here.

The exceptions to this pattern, however, constitute items of considerable interest. Some of these have fairly simple explanations. Arizona’s 1st district voted more Republican, for instance, mainly because Arizona was Senator John McCain’s home state.

Other districts, however, go against commonly-held political wisdom. Take LA-2: a black-majority, inner-city district located in New Orleans (represented, ironically, by Republican congressman Joseph Cao). While LA-2 strongly supported Mr. Obama, black depopulation in the aftermath of Katrina made this support less than that in 2004.

Another example can be found in the northeast:

Republicans do better in five Massachusetts districts and one New York district.

This movement stands in contrast to the narrative of Democratic dominance in the northeast. Most in the beltway have ignored this trend, or dismissed it as simply the loss of Mr. Kerry’s home-state advantage. Whether this is true or not, there is quite a lot of interesting stuff to be said on these districts. The next post will be devoted solely to exploring this pattern.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

In the aftermath of the 2008 presidential election, the New York Times famously posted a map depicting county-by-county changes from the 2004 election. A different version of this map is below:

What is remarkable about this map is the evenness of the Democratic movement – a 9.72% shift to them from 2004. With the exception of a diagonal patch of Appalachia, President Barack Obama improved throughout the country. It did not matter if a county was located in Utah or California, whether it belonged to a dense city or a thinly populated farm, or whether it was poor or rich – almost every county still voted more Democratic than it did in 2004.

If one moves to a statewide basis, the shift is still fairly uniform.

Compared to the county-by-county map, this map lends itself more easily to analysis.

More maps below.

Once again, Mr. Obama does well everywhere except for Appalachia. His improvement, however, is noticeably less in the traditionally Democratic Northeast. The South is strangely divided between the friendly Atlantic coast and the hostile inland states (with the exception of Texas). There is also a fairly apparent split between east and west: in the latter, Obama’s improvements are almost uniformly strong. The movement east is far more variable.

In addition, the color of several states can be explained through local factors. Clinton-loving Arkansas appears dark red, while Senator John McCain’s home state Arizona stands out amidst its dark blue neighbors. Obama’s home states Hawaii and Illinois also appear dark blue, but Governor Sarah Palin’s Alaska stays more Republican. Massachusetts, home state of Senator John Kerry, does not shift Democratic by much; Indiana, where Obama’s campaign led a massive turn-out effort, shifts massively.

In playing around with these maps I also took a look at the 1988 presidential election. In that election, Democratic candidate Mike Dukakis lost by 7.73% to Vice President George W. Bush. Because Mr. Obama won by 7.26%, the nation voted 14.99% more Democratic than in 1988. Here is Obama’s performance compared to that of Mr. Dukakis:

What this map reveals is far less uniformity. Compared to the previous ones, this is much more a depiction of structural political changes.

Perhaps most obviously, much of South Central America swings against Obama, illustrating the decades-long Republican shift of this region. Dukakis still was able to win a number of white Democratic counties in places like Louisiana and Oklahoma. Today those places have largely abandoned the party.

There are other patterns. A number of Plains states, such as Kansas and the Dakotas, have very little or no movement to Obama. He actually does worse in Iowa. This reflects a relatively strong Dukakis performance in rural America, which was in the midst of an agricultural crisis in 1988.

Most interestingly, one can see the 2008 electoral map in the map; the dark blue states almost all voted Democratic in 2008. Democratic-voting states today tended to shift most to Obama; Republican-voting states today tended to move less. Only two states that voted for Obama haven’t shifted strongly Democratic since 1988: Iowa and Minnesota. Out of all the states John McCain won, on the other hand, only Arizona, Georgia, and South Carolina shifted strongly Democratic – and Democrats came quite close in Georgia. A similar trend has been observed in previous posts.

I am not certain if this pattern suggests electoral polarization: Democrats improve greatly in a number of 1988 Republican-leaning states (such as New Jersey or North Carolina), and Republicans do the opposite in places like West Virginia or Iowa. Instead, it appears to make sense for a candidate to win a state he or she does best in. Thus, this pattern seems to illustrate the electoral coalition Democrats have carved since 1988.

The farther one looks back, it seems, the more a map reveals.

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

To follow up the series on Virginia, I’ve posted a few recent presidential elections in the state (courtesy of the New York Times). Each map comes with some brief analysis.

Capitalizing on a decade of Democratic movement, Senator Barack Obama becomes the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia since 1964. The Senator performs best in eastern Virginia, especially the fast-growing northern Virginia metropolis. Western Virginia is not as enamored; parts of it even vote more Republican.

More below.

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Nobody pays attention to Virginia in 2004, and for good reason: incumbent George W. Bush cruises along to a comfortable victory. Amid all the hoopla in Ohio, Republicans fail to notice a disquieting trend. Fairfax County, the populous heart of Northern Virginia, goes blue in the first time for decades.

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Governor George W. Bush sails to an 8% victory. He artfully weaves together a classic Republican coalition: wealthy suburbs combined with Republican-trending rural Virginia.

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Expecting to win the state, incumbent Bill Clinton is surprised to see Virginia slip from his grasp. He does better than in 1992 – performing well amongst Democratic constituencies in the Appalachian west, the black southeast, and the rich inner-core suburbs of Northern Virginia. But it’s not enough: a strong Republican vote in Richmond’s suburbs denies Mr. Clinton his victory.

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Another presidential election, another Republican victory in Virginia powered by suburbs and small towns. Yet Governor Bill Clinton does relatively well. Compared to the 20.5% beating George H.W. Bush gave to Democratic nominee Mike Dukakis in 1988, a 4.4% loss ain’t nothing.