Every Explanation Is Going To Be Too Simplistic, But It's Not So Much North/South...

[WillyT]

As it is urban/rural... and even that doesn't fully explain our political divides.

There's a bunch of blue in the deep south, and there's plenty of red in CA and NY.



:shrug:

[Rabblevox]

1. I agree every explanation will be too simplistic, but look at your map again...

Red areas in traditionally blue states are in their rural areas. I can only speak intelligently about the west coast, but California is almost a bright line running down the Coast Range. Central California is ag and rural and bible-belt. It's population is largely due to southern and midwestern refugees from the dust-bowl,who brought their prejudices and religious beliefs with them. (I grew up there)

Where as the coast is largely populated by free-thinkers trying to escape those beliefs.

It's not quite as extreme in Oregon and Washington, but the Cascade Range is a useful marker for predicting blue or red.

Personally, I think it would be interesting to match up the voting map with a map of religious practice. My guess is that most red counties would be heavily Baptist (or other fundamentalist stripes) , while blue counties would lean towards Unitarians, Episcopals, and agnostics. (But that's just a guess, I'm not making a case).

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Here you go

Not by county but...

http://religions.pewforum.org/maps

[Rabblevox]

3. That's brilliant. TY! /nt

[WillyT]

10. Cool Link... Thank You !!!

:hi:

[Divine Discontent]

20. good post

http://www.zazzle.com/republicans_2012_keeping_millions_out_of_work_bumper_sticker-128002960205017719

[Fumesucker]

5. No, that blue band through SC, GA, AL and on into MS and LA is largely rural..

I think I know why it exists though..

[Hosnon]

9. Why is that? I've never heard an explanation.

And you can pick out the major population centers in GA pretty easily (Atlanta, Columbus, Augusta, Savannah).

[jpljr77]

14. That's right. You can see the larger towns in Georgia

and in Alabama (Montgomery) by color.

Although many of those counties are urban(ish), the main reason they are reliably blue is population demographics (majority black). Don't believe me? Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Belt_%28U.S._region%29|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Belt_%28U.S._region%29>

[Hosnon]

15. I've always assumed that's what it was. nt.

[Fumesucker]

16. Not to put too fine a point on it.. Race..

The blue areas in the South tend to have a large proportion of African Americans.

[dawg]

17. It's a band of communities that are heavily African-American.

I would guess that most of those counties are anywhere from 40% black to majority black.

I don't know why it's that way. Maybe that was the cotton belt or something, I don't know.

[roguevalley]

18. It really isn't as RED! as it seems. Lots of the red are sparsely

populated places. Lots of the BLUE! are urban areas of dense population.

[Pab Sungenis]

23. Another major factor in higher populated areas being more liberal

is that you have a greater diversity in those areas, and people are brought up more tolerant when they interact with people different from who/how they are.

Rural areas are more homogeneous with ideas, thoughts, opinions being amplified by contact only with people who think alike. This leads to conservative (not said in a derogatory manner either) opinions.

[hfojvt]

4. it's only urban/rural

if you define every city with less than 100,000 people as "rural".

Plus, I would note a few contradictions to that. Pennington County, SD with 98,000 people and the 2nd largest city in SD - Rapid City - 65,000+ went for McCain. Apparently Shannon County with 13,000 people - most of it Pine Ridge Reservation, went for Obama.

[hfojvt]

7. and even there, large cities like Topeka, Wichita, OKC, SLC all voted McCain

and there are probably other examples as well. Those are just a few I can quickly see.

[Pab Sungenis]

24. Not going to comment on the Kansas or Oklahoma cities

(still hoping to get the job I've been discussing with a radio station there and don't want to jinx it) but SLC is certainly an exception to the rural/blue rule for one simple reason.

As I said elsewhere in this thread, diversity (which is more common in urban areas) leads to liberal tendencies because of exposure to many different ideas. Homogeneity leads to conservative tendencies.

While SLC is an urban area, it's a Mormon city. It was founded by Brigham Young and has been dominated by the Mormons since the beginning. This leads to it being a homogeneous area and thus more likely to be conservative. (And this has nothing to do with Mormon beliefs or principles, just the fact that the area is not as diverse as many other urban areas).

[hfojvt]

26. when I lived in Utah in the mid 1980s

I found it to be more hispanic than my home town.

However, I looked things up in the City/County databook.

Cook County, Illinois (Chicago) is 66.6% white, 26.4% black, 5.5% Asian and 22.2% hispanic

Salt Lake County is 92.0% white, 1.3% black, 2.9% Asian and 14.7% hispanic.

Much less diverse than Chicago.

However, Minnehaha County (Sioux Falls) South Dakota voted for Obama and it is 93.4% white, 2.0% black, 1.0% Asian, and only 3.2% hispanic. Much less diverse than SLC, but still went for Obama.

The Mormon religion very much leans conservative, although I found the Ogden area to be loaded with non-Mormons and Jack-Mormons (as a former Mormon referred to himself). Among other things, Mormons are very much against smoking. So when I went to Van Halen's 5150 tour concert in SLC, I thought there would be no smoking. I was wrong. The place filled up with smoke. Ruined the whole concert for me. Anyway, the area did not seem completely dominated by Mormons. And the economics department at the University of Utah was known to be dominated by Marxists. At least back in the 1990s when I was a graduate student at Nebraska.

[markpkessinger]

6. It would be interesting to see . . .

. . . how many of the blue enclaves in otherwise red states are comprised of college/university towns, many of which might not qualify as "urban."

[hfojvt]

11. I can see where some of that does apply

Clay County, SD - home of USD
Brookings County, SD - home of SDSU
Crawford County, Ks - home of Pittsburg State
Douglas County, Ks - home of KU (but I would consider Lawrence an Urban area)

but then counter-examples would seem to be
Manhattan/Riley, Ks - home of KSU
Hayes, Ks - home of FHSU

[loyalsister]

21. Boone County

Tiny blue island in the middle of MO.

[Demeter]

8. Now You Need One with Education (or IQ)

[Pab Sungenis]

12. I remember Wanda Sykes doing commentary on the map in 2000

on the Chris Rock Show.

Chris pointed out the huge red area and Wanda said "don't nobody live there!"

The spread out nature of rural areas make the red vote look bigger on maps like these.

[Nye Bevan]

19. Yes, it's interesting to look at the map rescaled according to population density (a "cartogram")

Interesting discussion here:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

13. It's Thinking/Non-Thinking

Nothing more.

[Pab Sungenis]

22. Is there a correlation between rural vs. urban

and level of education?

A few generations back there really was because kids left school early to work on the family farm (I have my grandfather's 8th Grade diploma hanging on our game room wall; it was as high as he'd gotten until on a whim he got his GED at the age of 75) which meant a lower average education in those regions.

Today I don't think there's an excuse that simple, but if there is a lower level of education in rural areas today, it might go a ways toward explaining the red/rural linkage.

[seabeyond]

25. yup. nt