2020 Presidential Election Results by Top 50 MSA

[dc_denizen]

A younger 6 foot 3 inch tall Bernie , ferociously anti free trade and anti-woke while ambivalent on abortion would have destroyed trump in Ohio

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Yeah, this is a good point. I think Bernie would have won most of those long-blue rustbelt areas that flipped for Trump in 2016.

Right, I think this is likely. Bernie could have won OH, and the margins in PA would have been greater. But, at the same time, he would have fared worse in exurban America and in Rockefeller Republican-type areas. He would have lost GA, NC wouldn't have been close, and his margins in places like CT and NJ would be less.

[BG918]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

the battle between red and blue is primarily fought out in the burbs, not the cafe & art gallery districts down in the city.

Best quote on this thread. The cities will stay blue and the rural areas will stay red, that isn’t changing. What can change are the suburbs and that is what will be interesting to watch in future elections. So many macro factors that make up suburbs:
1) inner core that likely more closely mirror their more urban counterparts
2) outer core that are skew more fundamentalist Christian and thus more conservative
3) bland subdivisions with progressive soccer moms/dads that skew left
4) working class families priced out of urban cores that feel left behind and are attracted to populism
5) similarly immigrants who were attracted to Trump’s blend of machismo and America First rhetoric but may reject future Republican candidates who don’t share those same attributes

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Right, I think this is likely. Bernie could have won OH, and the margins in PA would have been greater. But, at the same time, he would have fared worse in exurban America and in Rockefeller Republican-type areas. He would have lost GA, NC wouldn't have been close, and his margins in places like CT and NJ would be less.

I was thinking in terms of the 2016 election, i.e., those Democratic strongholds would not have flipped for Trump, had Bernie been the Dem nominee, and thus would have likely won the presidency (if indeed the white, blue-collar vote was the deciding factor in 2016). Bernie spoke to that group in a very different, but similarly-appealing, way like Trump did... and he wasn't Hillary.

But yeah, this year would have been a different story if Bernie were the nominee instead of Biden. Biden seemed to win enough of that vote back, while being the totally reasonable, steady choice for the suburban middle and upper-middle.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I still think there's a distinction, even if we agree that Trumpism now = 2020 conservatism.

For example, Bernie would have done well in Youngstown. AOC too. I think both could win Youngstown. Yet Trump won Youngstown fairly easily. Issues like Medicare for all and trade protectionism play well in Youngstown, but poorly in Raleigh. So is Youngstown more "liberal" than Raleigh?

I don't think AOC would play well in Youngstown. South Florida isn't the only place that the socialist label was weaponized against the Democratic Party. There was plenty of ridiculous hand-wringing about "socialism" in the Industrial Belt too. Bernie, and especially AOC as a woman and racial minority, would've had even more problems trying to sell white Rust Belt Baby Boomers on "socialism", even if that group really likes socialist policies.

[Docere]

PA Lt. Governor John Fetterman looks like the kind of Dem that could appeal to rust belt Trump voters.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Docere

PA Lt. Governor John Fetterman looks like the kind of Dem that could appeal to rust belt Trump voters.

He'll be running for US Senate with Pat Toomey retiring.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Docere

PA Lt. Governor John Fetterman looks like the kind of Dem that could appeal to rust belt Trump voters.

Apparently the MAGAs in PA aren't very fond of his Brazilian wife.

[dc_denizen]

like the guy too. Fetterman for president!

[pj3000]

He's an interesting sort of guy. Totally no nonsense, he's a rich kid who's a more moderate Bernie in a 6'8" 300-lb, shaved head-goateed-and-tattooed body.

[Docere]

He seems like a sane version of Jesse Ventura. Though I don't follow PA state politics.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Docere

He seems like a sane version of Jesse Ventura. Though I don't follow PA state politics.

Yeah, that's probably not too far off. There's a certain "liberal libertarianism" to him. As mayor of a dead and crime-infested steel town just outside of Pittsburgh, he often eschewed outside state and federal help and influence that was not in line with what was best for the citizens of Braddock, PA, in exchange for a "we'll get it done ourselves" attitude.


A good watch and read:

Big John Fetterman Can Save the Democratic Party — if the Democrats Let Him
Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor on why Democrats must embrace legal weed, what he thinks about fracking, and why Trump has a clear lane to running in 2024

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...ocrat-1089672/

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

A curiosity I didn't catch before now was that Kansas City (MSA) voted more Democratic than St. Louis! I'd be curious to crunch the MSA numbers for the past handful of cycles and see if St. Louis has been trending redder while Kansas City has been trending bluer.

My impression was that St. Louis was the southwestern most of the deep blue cores, while Kansas City was on the conservative side for a big city. Perhaps St. Louis is just so shrunken it can no longer overwhelm its own suburbs, or maybe St. Louis has more of the deep red Ozark influence than I expected.

I crunched the numbers for the current MSAs back to 2004:

St. Louis MSA
2020 - Biden +3.27%
2016 - Trump +0.72%
2012 - Obama +6.90%
2008 - Obama +16.22%
2004 - Kerry +7.80%

Kansas City MSA
2020 - Biden +4.51%
2016 - Trump +1.59%
2012 - Romney +2.32%
2008 - Obama +5.56%
2004 - Bush +3.33%

[Steely Dan]

^ awesome data!

I love your commitment to the number crunching.

It's profoundly more interesting to me than the relentless "but who's gonna run in 2024?" chatter.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ awesome data!

I love your commitment to the number crunching.

It's profoundly more interesting to me than the relentless "but who's gonna run in 2024?" chatter.

Thanks! I'm on Thanksgiving Break with no travel plans, so I have time.

Kansas City being redder for Romney than 2016 Trump was surprising. A big part of that is Johnson County, Kansas - the suburban swath that is the type turning against Trump, to where Biden was the first Dem to win Johnson County since Woodrow Wilson!

Another data set I'd like to calculate is Who was the last Republican to win the NYC/SF/Chicago/DC MSAs? My gut feeling is Reagan in '84 or maybe Bush Senior in '88, although the San Francisco MSA might be blue since Nixon obliterated McGovern in "72. That will take some time though. Maybe over this weekend.

[craigs]

For SF, it's important to remember that the entire Bay Area was an MSA (or equivalent) when Reagan won the 9 county region in 1980. Today's version of the MSA doesn't include Santa Clara County, though, so that would change the outcome from a Republican win to a Democratic win.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by craigs

For SF, it's important to remember that the entire Bay Area was an MSA (or equivalent) when Reagan won the 9 county region in 1980. Today's version of the MSA doesn't include Santa Clara County, though, so that would change the outcome from a Republican win to a Democratic win.

Good point. I'll try to use the MSA definitions at the time for elections that far back.

ETA: Found them. I was thinking Metro Boston might have been blue since Eisenhower since McGovern took Mass in '72 and Reagan barely carried Mass both times. But New Hampshire was blood red in '84 -- Reagan's strongest state east of the Great Plains! -- which probably tips Greater Boston red in '84 as well.

[Grego43]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Apparently the MAGAs in PA aren't very fond of his Brazilian wife.

But those same MAGAs wholeheartedly embrace trump's Slovenian, former hooker wife.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Right, I think this is likely. Bernie could have won OH, and the margins in PA would have been greater. But, at the same time, he would have fared worse in exurban America and in Rockefeller Republican-type areas. He would have lost GA, NC wouldn't have been close, and his margins in places like CT and NJ would be less.

Bernie might have won Ohio, but then GA/FL/NC/TX were guaranteed Trump's (Biden on the other hand at a shot at each), and AZ and even maybe VA could have gone red with Bernie on the ballot.

All in all, not a good trade for the Dems IMO.

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by Docere

Paul Krugman remarked that Sanders was offering the model of Denmark, and Trump Hungary. Pretty apt assessment, I think.

I've never really understood the Denmark comparison for Sanders. Denmark certainly has a large welfare state and the like, but it's also one of the biggest advocates of free trade and just broadly "capitalist" policies out there. If you take all policies together, Sanders seems much more French (or at least British) than Danish in his desired policies.