Super Tuesday CT cartography

population (0.00 / 0)

Obama did much better in the northern Hartford suburbs (Bloomfield, Windsor)

I would guess because of the large African American population in these towns

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by: mikect @ Sun Feb 10, 2008 at 12:43:04 PM UTC

Mayor Destefano,Susan Voight (New Haven Dem Chair) (4.00 / 3)

and the Dem Machine along with a huge bunch of Yale students and community activists  gave Obama a close to 6000 vote win in New Haven and won this state for Obama.

They all deserve a huge applause for their outstanding GOTV effort.

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by: ctkeith @ Sun Feb 10, 2008 at 16:40:33 PM UTC

Outstanding (0.00 / 0)

Absolutely they do deserve a huge applause.

On the flip side of New Haven, what do you think went poorly in Bridgeport? I can think of several hypotheses (ineffective turnout machine, lack of large liberal university, Clinton-endorsing mayor seeking to tamp down turnout in Obama-leaning city, fewer registered Democrats, failure of Obama campaign to target the city, etc.), but don't have evidence to support any.

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by: bschak @ Sun Feb 10, 2008 at 19:47:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks for this! (4.00 / 1)

This is fascinating.  Thank you for all the work of putting the map together.  It looks like Clinton did better in working class areas, while Obama's strength is an interesting of mix of the rich (shoreline) voters and African-American (Hartford and north) voters.  Are these very broad generalizations useful?  

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by: noankdem @ Sun Feb 10, 2008 at 19:51:07 PM UTC

You Asked (0.00 / 0)

 Are these very broad generalizations useful?

I'd say ABSOLUTELY NOT!!

Why?

1 You'll find as many "working class" people in New Haven as you will in any Suburb or Rural town in Ct.

2)Assuming we Democrats on the shoreline are "rich" is another assumption that coming to one DTC meeting in my town would prove wrong.

3)Broad Generalizations are hardly ever useful.

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by: ctkeith @ Sun Feb 10, 2008 at 21:32:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

They are also not useful (4.00 / 1)

Because they are not correct.

Obama won the lowest 20% income towns in the state 53-47%.

Obama won the second lowest 20% of towns (second quintile) 51.5-48.5%.

Clinton won the middle 20% of towns (third quintile) 51.5-48.5%

Obama won the second highest 20% of towns (fourth quintile) 51.9-48.1%

Obama won the highest 20% income towns 54-46%.

Obamas victory among the lowest income towns accounted for 7,400 votes of his margin. Obama's victory among the weathiest towns accounted for 5,000 votes of his margin. (The middle three each had a margin of about 1000-1500 votes either way.)

The Clinton campaign has consistently argued that she represents and appeals to the "working class" more than Obama. It is not just instigating class war in our ranks, it also happens to be a lie.

–7.25 / –7.28 | http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tw...

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by: mattw @ Sun Feb 10, 2008 at 22:07:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I wonder (0.00 / 0)

I wonder what the interplay is between race and income and vote. Given the numbers you wrote down, I can think of two hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1:
A) does better among white voters with higher income than those with lower income;
B) does much better among black voters generally than among white voters.

Hypothesis 2:
Within each racial group, vote and income or relatively uncorrelated.

In Connecticut, the bottom income quintile towns have a wide range of racial composition (16% black overall, but many with over 90% white), while the upper income towns are heavily white (Windsor is the only one in quintiles 3-5 that's at least 25% black). My best guess is that Hypothesis 1 is correct, but only very weakly: 1B is certainly true, and 1A is probably true to a slight extent, but is not explanatory enough to make a fuss about.

As for broad generalizations, I'll make the generalization that broad generalizations can be very powerful for certain purposes when they are correct and have compelling evidence behind them.

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by: bschak @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 01:11:01 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks for sharing (0.00 / 0)

the map...and to echo other's comments from earlier, Clinton definitely did better in the areas with working class folks, and Obama not only scored well w/ the African American vote, but very surprisingly (in my eyes, anyway) among folks in the suburbs/affluent areas.  I'm still in shock that my town overall went for Obama....but as I've been saying after the primary last week, the voters came out in force, and how they voted spoke volumes!

"Waiting....waiting on the world to change"  --John Mayer

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by: tigergrrl74 @ Sun Feb 10, 2008 at 21:00:17 PM UTC

You're welcome (4.00 / 1)

It surprised me too! In general, the unrepresentative set of people I know in CT (young, upper-income, without much partisan loyalty, and fixated on the economy) seemed more comfortable with Hillary, whom they saw as a moderate. On the other hand, most of those people weren't voting in the Democratic primary -- I don't think I know of any Hillary leaner who actually made it to the polls.

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by: bschak @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 01:17:54 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I voted for Hillary (0.00 / 0)

in the primary, so now you know one :)

I've said it before and I'll say it again, whoever will be the official nominee for the Dems I will support....

"Waiting....waiting on the world to change"  --John Mayer

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by: tigergrrl74 @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 19:32:33 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Word (4.00 / 2)

The town-by-town (or "red state / blue state") maps always provide depressingly little information.

A bonus woot for not setting up arbitrary divisions for displaying the margins.

What tools are you using, out of curiosity?

–7.25 / –7.28 | http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tw...

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by: mattw @ Sun Feb 10, 2008 at 22:23:26 PM UTC

Mapresso (0.00 / 0)

http://www.mapresso.com/
Mapresso, a free Java-applet-based program funded by the Swiss government. It's not very well documented and is a little flaky, but from what I can tell so far it can do a lot of stuff for a free program.

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by: bschak @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 00:30:13 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

very cool (4.00 / 1)

That's a pretty informative way of presenting information, though it relies on the viewer being able to recognize the shape of each town (so I can see it wouldn't mean as much to you if you aren't from CT).

Just wondering, what is the histogram next to the color bar? Is it a histogram of towns, or precincts that bin to each percentile... or something else?

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." - Warren Buffet

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by: joesaho @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 15:29:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Histogram (3.00 / 1)

Regarding the histogram, your guess is as good as mine. It certainly represent towns, since that was the only data fed into the program. I don't know why it says it's centered at .51 since I told the program that white was to represent .50.  I also don't know what the gap at the bottom is.

Agreed that it relies on the viewer recognizing the shape of each town. I'm more looking forward to doing this sort of thing with U.S. states, since everybody recognizes those.

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by: bschak @ Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 04:17:35 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Hispanic voters (4.00 / 1)

According to news reports, Hispanic voters in California voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton.

Does anyone have any idea what is behind this? Why?  Why is Obama not doing as well among Hispanic voters?

It doesn't bode well for his prospects in Texas.  

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."--James Madison

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by: sufi @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 01:46:19 AM UTC

Institutional support, familiarity (4.00 / 1)

Obama will do just fine in Texas. He may lose slightly in the Hispanic vote but will more than make up for it elsewhere. Frankly, with the month the Clinton campaign has ahead of them I expect Obama to win Texas by 10pts.

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by: Scarce @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 04:22:35 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Bold prediction (4.00 / 1)

if it comes to pass, then Obama maybe unstoppable. As I see it, Obama needs to sweep (or win big during) the March 4 primaries of Ohio, Texas, Vermont and RI, thus extending his lead in delegates. When that happens, I would have no problems with the rest of superdelegates being pressured to rally behind Barack. I'm sure the Clinton camp may have big problems with this scenario though--and will probably fight tooth and nail to get MI & FL delegates seated at the convention.

The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice. --Martin Luther King, Jr.

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by: connecticutyankee @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 16:06:47 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

If Obama wins both TX and OH (4.00 / 1)

..with the rest of February there will be an effort made for the Clintons to withdraw.

In the meantime, Bill Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Mark Penn are really ratcheting up the pressure on so-called super delegates to get on board...or else.

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by: Scarce @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 17:10:58 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Are you aware of this? (4.00 / 2)

Those Super Delegates who have not committed as yet, in the state of Ct, include Nancy DiNardo and John Olsen.

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegates-who-havent-endorsed.html

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by: PamB @ Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 12:56:48 PM UTC