DU Poll: Will the US eventually just be really solid red in the middle of the

[RKP5637]

country with just blue on the coasts. What I'm wondering is, do you think the US will become pretty much permanently geographically polarized for several decades. It seems divisions are growing more and more and much of it seems geographically based.

7 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes
	0 (0%)
	No
	4 (57%)
	Maybe
	1 (14%)
	Polls are fun!
	2 (29%)
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[The Magistrate]

1. It is A Little More Complex Than That, Sir: Navigable Water Seems To Be The Key

When broken down on a county by county basis, those along large rivers, by big lakes, go Democratic as well. There is much overlap here with urban centers, of course. Even in rural areas, the vote in towns tends to have a greater Democratic component than there is among the people who 'come to town'.

[RKP5637]

4. Interesting observation, Navigable Water. I had never heard that

analysis before, but it seems quite true!

[Bruce Wayne]

9. Maybe not. I'd look to population density instead.

When you have a lot of people suddenly stuck together trying to share a finite tract of land, you automatically have infrastructure issues needing to be resolved: pot holes, transportation, urban maintenance, tax issues, sewer & street systems, and a host of quality-of-life matters like safe school campuses, free public libraries, high social costs from nearby pollution and residential crowding. There's also matters of human resources.

Handling those crowd-realted problems involves having a proactive and activist government willing to take charge of public problems, evironmental decay, and other human resoure problems that show up. Being a Democrat means wanting to solve problems. Cities simply have more of them.

[The Magistrate]

13. There Is A Good Deal Of Over-Lap, Sir, Certainly

But certainly water navigation was once a chief criterion for whether you could have a high-density urban population in the first place, so where-ever settlement dates back more than few decades, you are likely to find navigable water. Those living along routes of trade are more likely to come into contact with strangers, people unlike themselves, and so tend to be less insular. This applies far more strongly to people resident urban centers, which necessarily are points of trade and receive inflows of population from many quarters. The defining characteristic of rural areas is not that they have no problems, but that people there seldom interact with people who are not pretty much just like themselves. This leads to a distrust of 'outsiders', and a dismissal of any concerns beyond those of their own locale.

[FarCenter]

12. Yes, a map of 2008 results by county is more instructive

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/election/uscounties.html

Only Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island were all Blue, and only Oklahoma was all Red.

Concentrations of blacks in the Southeast, Hispanics in the Southwest, and indian reservations in, e.g. South Dakota, are superimposed on the basic regional tendencies and the rural/urban split.

[RKP5637]

15. That's a very interesting map! Thanks! n/t

[CreekDog]

16. You know what? That map is wrong. Appears to be wayyy off.

For example:

map shows SF City/County giving Obama 168101 margin of victory, but he actually won SF by 269928.

map shows LA County giving Obama 1079562 margin of victory, but he actually won LA County by 1339428.

[FarCenter]

18. It looks like it was preliminary after they called the race and went to press?

Try this instead: http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

Click on the "County bubbles" button for an interesting presentation.

[CreekDog]

21. That map's off too...not as far off as WaPo but still far from final

The NY Times shows an 8.5 million vote margin nationally, but the final tally was 9.5 million.

The NY Times shows 12 million votes from CA but there were 13.5 million in the final tally.

The WaPo one is a great way to display how these elections play out, but with the numbers so vastly wrong, it's useless. Disappointing.

I might try to make one of my own with the real numbers, I like the method of presentation that much.

[CreekDog]

14. Almost every major metro area is following the pattern set by SF Bay Area decades ago

The Bay Area has been fairly liberal by national standards, even when many of San Francisco's suburbs were voting Republican.

But during the 1980's, when San Francisco's last Republican elected legislator switched parties (he was already very liberal), SF's suburbs were going blue, in a big way. So much so, that by the mid-90's nearly all 7 million in the Bay Area were represented at the State and Federal level by Democrats.

What's interesting is that this was true for most of the whiter areas and certainly true of the more diverse areas. Both populations (save the 3 or 4 towns that actually still have a Republican edge in registration any longer) have grown more liberal by national standards.

in LA, the city was and remains liberal, if not moreso than in the past, but the suburbs have grown more liberal too, even Orange County and the Inland Empire are basically purple now.

it used to be seen as a coast/inland divide, but no longer.

it used to be seen as a urban/rural divide, but that doesn't fit any longer, because now whole Metro areas are trending liberal, and suburbs aren't rural.

[RKP5637]

17. Interesting analysis! Thanks! n/t

[sufrommich]

28. Well, that's weird. I wonder what the

connection is to water? Oops, nevermind, just read your explanation.

[HereSince1628]

2. Well, I don't know what you think is 'the middle of the country'

but I don't think it is highly congruent with the cultural and political divisions of this nation.

I also am befuddled by how something that lasts for 4-5 presidential terms could be considered permanent.

So due to fundamental failures in my ability to grasp your poll, I can't respond.

[RKP5637]

7. Yep, it was rather vague, sorry. I was thinking of the middle of the

country similar to what SWTORFanatic said in post #3. Particularly in the last paragraph. "I don't think the upper midwest is going to stay as red as it is right now, in answer to your question. It may take another cycle or two to switch back. The south, the lower midwest, and rectangle and square shaped states will stay red, though."

[HereSince1628]

8. I think the agricultural regions of the middle are likely to go red

mostly because Dems are associated with cities vs rural areas.

I think that states like Michigan, Illinois and Ohio are always going to have strong presence of Democrats.

I think that states like Wisconsin, Minnesota Missouri which have a balance of urban and rural populations will be purple with pulses of blue and red

I think that without serious protections of domestic manufacturing states like Indiana, Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas are going to drift red.

[RKP5637]

10. Thanks!!! n/t

[SWTORFanatic]

3. Are you saying the upper midwest is going to go permanently red?

Because that's how things are right now.

The west coast, upper east coast, and upper midwest are the largest population areas. You also have Texas as a big population area (red) and Florida as a big population area (swing). The upper midwest has traditionally been somewhat blue (Illinois, Minnesota) to lean blue (Wisconsin) to swing to lean red (Michigan).

I don't think the upper midwest is going to stay as red as it is right now, in answer to your question. It may take another cycle or two to switch back. The south, the lower midwest, and rectangle and square shaped states will stay red, though.

[RKP5637]

5. Thanks for your analysis, which is pretty much what I think will

happen. "The south, the lower midwest, and rectangle and square shaped states will stay red, though."

[dimbear]

6. New Mexico will be an exception for the forseeable future.

Ethnicity.

[fizzgig]

24. nm and co are a little spot of blue in a big bunch of red

i love both places

[fizzgig]

22. we're pretty blue here in colorado

not a bastion of liberalism, but far more so than most of our neighbors

[butterfly77]

11. No.especially..

when they find out that what they thought was coming to us is coming to them too,sooner or later..

[NNN0LHI]

19. Too late

United States 1980 Presidential Election Results

[RKP5637]

23. Wow, absolutely wow! n/t

[Dash87]

26. 1980 was an exception: Here is the 2008 map of Obama vs. McCain

http://politicalmaps.org/maps-of-the-2008-us-presidential-election/

Also check out the winners by county, etc.

[NNN0LHI]

29. Yeah, an exception

Electoral College 1984

[Dash87]

30. Yeah - the 1980's

It went back to normal in 1992 w/ Clinton, though. It doesn't show, imo, that the US is getting any more red.

[NNN0LHI]

31. LOL. You think all those Reaganites have went somewhere?

Now a lot of them claim to be liberal independents. But they are still with us.

They are easy to spot. They are about my age(57), very anti-union(unless it is their union), say they got involved in politics in the past ten years or so, and criticize President Obama every chance they get. They stick out like a sore thumb.

Don

[RKP5637]

32. Yep, I know a number of them. n/t

[Kaleva]

20. Things change over time. The South used to be solid blue and California was red.

[w8liftinglady]

25. I think it may take one more generation

Texas is seeing the reddest of red now....

But we are also seeing a record number of high school dropouts, uninsured, minimum wage workers here.
Give it a generation that watches their kids go without while the Republicans continue to banter for more for the rich.
Remember 1929.

[RKP5637]

27. That's what I've been thinking too, that eventually this will

all backfire on the republicans.

The poverty rate in the US is now I believe about 50% if one includes those on the edge of poverty.

The only thing I can think of is the republicans think they will have such an iron grip on the country and questionable elections that they will prevail. ... but we've see how well that works in other countries.

Yep, people are eventually going to have had enough of the republican crap, will pay attention more the politics, and vote in their best interests.