2020 Presidential Election Results by Top 50 MSA

[Omaharocks]

Thanks for running those numbers.

Well, certainly Madison has no connection with Beloit and Janesville. At all. So these MSA and CSA things are all a bit strange.

And I guess Santa Fe must be part of Albuquerque's CSA despite the 6o miles of nothing in between.

And Burlington? Who knows...

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Omaharocks

Thanks for running those numbers.

Well, certainly Madison has no connection with Beloit and Janesville. At all. So these MSA and CSA things are all a bit strange.

And I guess Santa Fe must be part of Albuquerque's CSA despite the 6o miles of nothing in between.

And Burlington? Who knows...

Burlington is the 207th largest MSA, with about 220,000 people. And Santa Fe is #280, but its 150,000 people are included in Albuquerque's CSA as you noted.

[Steely Dan]

Well, my original supposition was that madison, with a +45.0 margin for biden over trump, might be the bluest MSA >500K in the interior of the nation this election cycle.

I made no distinction about whether the MSA was or was not part of a larger CSA, just that it be >500K people and not located on or near the east or west coasts.

I can't think of any non-coastal MSAs >500K people that would have a biden margin larger than +45.0.

The next highest biden margin for a non-coastal MSA >500K that I can think of off the top of my head would be chicago's with a +32.2.

but I welcome being corrected.

[Omaharocks]

No, I'm not especially challenging that, I'm just pointing out that there's no reason to distinguish between coastal and interior, since Madison is likely the most blue metro area in its size category in the U.S.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Well, my original supposition was that madison, with a +45.0 margin for biden over trump, might be the bluest MSA >500K in the interior of the nation this election cycle.

I made no distinction about whether the MSA was or was not part of a larger CSA, just that it be >500K people and not located on or near the east or west coasts.

I can't think of any non-coastal MSAs >500K people that would have a biden margin larger than +45.0.

The next highest biden margin for a non-coastal MSA >500K that I can think of off the top of my head would be chicago's with a +32.2.

but I welcome being corrected.

I'm not finding anything that can surpass Madison aside from the coasts.

A few smaller inland metros for comparison:

Boulder, CO: Biden +56.6%
Santa Fe, NM: Biden +53.3%
Ann Arbor, MI: Biden +46.5%
Burlington, VT: Biden +43.8%
Iowa City, IA: Biden +35.3%

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Omaharocks

I'm just pointing out that there's no reason to distinguish between coastal and interior, since Madison is likely the most blue metro area in its size category in the U.S.

oh ok, now i got you.

you're saying that madison is the bluest MSA between 500K and 1M.

that might very well be true.


i wasn't thinking of putting a ceiling on it, and since we know the SF, SJ, & DC (at a minimum) are all bluer and larger than madison, that's why i added the "non-coastal" qualifier.

[iheartthed]

Durham-Chapel Hill, NC MSA is about +47 Biden if my math is correct.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by craigs

That map is whack. There is no "California" watershed--there's the Sacramento River watershed, the Klamath, the Trinity, the Eel, etc.

No, it's not "whack"... not whack at all... not even wiggity-wiggity whack.

It's based on USGS determination of large watershed regions of the US.

One could literally name thousands of watersheds throughout the nation, depending on the level of detail desired.

The California watershed is VERY VERY VERY simple in comparison to regions in the eastern US.

Originally Posted by badrunner

The map shows an appropriate level of detail. If it showed every single waterway it would be too busy and it would actually be less useful for illustrative purposes.

Shows how the Allegheny River drains most of the country (the light purple).

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yeah, I feel Buffalo and Rochester have a Midwest/Great Lakes vibe. Once you get to Syracuse and Finger Lakes, the vibe is more NE, or at least Northeast Corridor-adjunct. It's just much older and more rooted.

There are some subtle differences I guess, but I get a pretty solid rustbelt upstate NY vibe in Syracuse. Still feels much more similar and connected to central and western NY than it does to any NE corridor ideal to me. Same with the Finger Lakes. And I would not say Syracuse and the Finger Lakes are much older or "more rooted"... I don't think those places are really all that old, and certainly were not highly populated in relative terms early on.

I know people there like to think that they're a bit more "east coast" somehow... but it's just not.

That's all put to rest when natives open their mouths and their nasally hard A comes out, the sun hasn't appeared in two months, and the Bills are on TV more than the Giants are.

And... with regard to the topic of this thread, voting patterns fall right in line with rustbelt NY, and not points east.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

Unfortunately Ohio is getting poorer and the white working class population share is GROWING. Younger blacks in the state are moving down south to cities like Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston. Ohio also doesn't get much immigration because their cities aren't exactly booming. Columbus is doing okay, but the other two major cities are not. Cincinnati is the new Oklahoma City in terms of being a conservative metro. Good luck ever being a hip city.

I really do wonder why states like Ohio, WV, Indiana, Iowa have not been able to modernize their economies like GA, TN, and NC has. Is there a lack of will?

This is a really dumb take. Do you have any numbers to prove that the white working class population is growing? You say younger blacks are moving to Atlanta and Texas, but where is the data to back this up? Ohio's black population is growing, both in absolute numbers and as a percent of the state. Black people now account for 14% of the state's population in 2019- up from 12% in 2010.

What has Georgia done, specifically, to modernize its economy and grow? Actually, how many companies has Georgia poached from Ohio? NCR, a large company started in Dayton in 1894 packed up and moved to Atlanta in 2010, taking thousands of high paying tech jobs with it. That's just one of many such stories. Face it, the growth of the South and Sunbelt has largely come at the expense of places like Ohio and Michigan. Their brain drain is the sunbelt's gain.

You guys flip blue one time and all of a sudden you think Georgia is the new California. Where was this energy in 2008 and 2012 when Georgia, a state that's 30+% black, didn't vote for Obama, but rusty old gross Ohio did? Georgia's state government is as backward as it gets, and there was just recently a large campaign to move entertainment business out of Georgia due to Republican foolishness as it relates to something-- gay rights, abortion, whatever. How did Atlanta ever become a hip city in such a conservative environment?

The reality is, once you leave the core counties of most US cities, you're in conservative territory. Cincinnati is no exception here. The city of Cincinnati voted like 78% for Biden. The wealthy, educated suburbs went for Biden too, just like they did elsewhere. The less educated/wealthy suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas went for Trump. This was largely the same experience in places like Nashville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Columbus...almost everywhere outside of California and the NE Corridor.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by edale

The reality is, once you leave the core counties of most US cities, you're in conservative territory. Cincinnati is no exception here. The city of Cincinnati voted like 78% for Biden. The wealthy, educated suburbs went for Biden too, just like they did elsewhere. The less educated/wealthy suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas went for Trump. This was largely the same experience in places like Nashville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Columbus...

yes the overall patterns are generally pretty similar from metro to metro (blue urban core, shifting to purple burbs, shifting to red hinterlands), but the results that grow out of that framework can vary quite a bit. proportion matters.

i mean, i don't think we can fairly say that metro cincy and metro milwaukee basically had the same election experience when the outcomes between them were so very different.


Milwaukee MSA: +10.0

Cincinnati MSA: +14.4


a margin swing of 24.4 points is not a negligible difference.

[The North One]

Cincinnati swinging so hard red is definitely strange and worth a closer look. Pretty much every other Midwest metro did the opposite.

[edale]

Originally Posted by The North One

Cincinnati swinging so hard red is definitely strange and worth a closer look. Pretty much every other Midwest metro did the opposite.

Did it swing red? I haven't seen the metro data from previous elections, but I wouldn't be surprised if it actually has become slightly less red over the past 15 years. Hamilton County didn't become a blue county until 2008, and it has gotten bluer with each subsequent election. The collar counties have always been deep red for somewhat different reasons, but I think the two largest suburban counties actually shifted a little to the left in 2016 and again in 2020. They're still very lopsided in favor of republicans, but there has not been movement to the right there like there has been in the suburban counties around Cleveland, for example.

If you look at old election maps, much of Northeast Ohio used to be reliably blue. Now, only the urban counties of Cuyahoga (Cleveland) and Summit (Akron) are blue. All the suburban, and even urban counties (Mahoning/Youngstown) (Stark/Canton) have become red. There has been a pronounced shift to the right in the traditional democratic heart of the state. SW Ohio has always been red, with Hamilton County (Cincinnati) being the blue dot in the sea of red since '08.

Ohio 2008


2020

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

Cincinnati swinging so hard red is definitely strange and worth a closer look. Pretty much every other Midwest metro did the opposite.

here's how the midwest's 11 MSAs over 1M people voted:

Chicago: +32.2
Twin Cities: +19.8
Cleveland: +14.5
Detroit: +13.4
Milwaukee: +10.0
Columbus: +8.0
Kansas City: +4.6
St. Louis: +3.1

Indianapolis: +2.4
Grand Rapids: +6.2
Cincinnati: +14.4


and some of other larger midwest MSAs in that 500K - 1M range might've gone red as well (dayton? wichita? youngstown? toledo? i'm looking at you), but i don't have time to check them.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yes the overall patterns are generally pretty similar from metro to metro (blue urban core, shifting to purple burbs, shifting to red hinterlands), but the results that grow out of that framework can vary quite a bit. proportion matters.

i mean, i don't think we can fairly say that metro cincy and metro milwaukee basically had the same election experience when the outcomes between them were so very different.


Milwaukee MSA: +10.0

Cincinnati MSA: +14.4


a margin swing of 24.4 points is not a negligible difference.

The city of Milwaukee is roughly twice as large as the City of Cincinnati. The trend of the blue, urban county surrounded by deep red collar counties is the same in both metros. But Milwaukee has a larger city and core county population, and Cincy's MSA is more decentralized, with larger suburban counties than MKE. Add in the rural differences described in this thread between northerners and Appalachians, and voila.

[homebucket]

According to Manitopiaaa's spreadsheets, Cincinnati MSA went from -18.97 to -14.38, a change of 4.59% from 2016 to 2020 in favor of blue.

[iheartthed]

Cincinnati has been redder than the average Midwest city for as long as I can remember. Without it Ohio would be a blue wall state.

The 2004 presidential election was the first that I really paid attention to, and I recall that Karl Rove's Ohio strategy was to run up the score around Cincinnati and hold down the losses around Cleveland.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by edale

The trend of the blue, urban county surrounded by deep red collar counties is the same in both metros.

i fully agreed that that overall pattern of how US metro areas tend to vote is generally similar (blue urban core, shifting to purple burbs, shifting to red hinterlands), but the results those similar patterns produce can be quite drastically different because proportion matters.

metro cincy and metro milwaukee demonstrate just how different those results can be even though the patterns are similar.

[The North One]

Yeah Indianapolis and Grand Rapids are not a surprise.

Also some of you acting like a city's blue vote (or lack of) is an indication of a city's hipness are hilarious. As if the Democratic ticket this year was just so progressive and forward thinking and not establishment status-quo at all.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

Also some of you acting like a city's blue vote (or lack of) is an indication of a city's hipness are hilarious.

yeah, that's certainly a pretty silly stretch.

any US city of a certain size is gonna have its hipper, more urban areas that are reliably blue.

but we're talking MSA here, a MASSIVE scale. this has relatively little to do with blue urban hipness (in and of itself) and much more to do with the make-up and proportion of a given metro areas suburban voters.

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