Stagnance unto Death
Posted on November 11, 2008 by David
A few fascinating data points on the Times’s demographic comparison of counties that went deeper red vs counties that went deeper blue in 2008 vs 2004. (Please click on the Voter Shift Multimedia Graphic for a frame of reference.)
Not surprising that the strip of deeper red is in the white rural south, but a number of demographic areas really stood out sharply:
* The direct correlation between college degree and depth of blue and indirect correlation with depth of red, to the point where the citzens of the deepest blue counties were 2.5 times more likely to have college degrees than the deepest red.
* Similar correlations on population density, with reverse trends on income under $30,000 and Southern Baptist proportion.
* Perhaps starkest of all is an old favorite of mine, population growth: only the deepest red were, on average, stagnant from a growth perspective.
The depth of color on the chart is only change vs 2004–it was already understood that population density correlates to democrats along with wealth and education–but what this data means is, when the vast and overwhelming majority of American counties trended toward a Black man and away from Bush’s failed policies, there is a silent and increasingly irrelevant minority of poor, white, rural, Southern, Christian, undereducated voters in isolated stagnant counties who strongly resist such change.
This could mean that rather than asking “what’s the matter with Kansas?” future democrats may well be able to ask, “so what?”
» Filed Under Politics, Power Rankings, Race
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