How well does population density predict U.S. voting outcomes?
beta.observablehq.com
beta.observablehq.com
I wish "difference from trend" maps were more popular, and more prevalent in the media -- this would be a tremendous asset in the classroom as well when teaching statistics.
Kudos!
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Tennessee counties clearly stand out.
Not trying to be difficult, just curious what you see.
Let me know if you have any questions; I'll try my best to answer them.
Obviously, it's just one factor among many, but I think heavy social safety nets and regulations make a lot more sense to people in very populated locations and a lot of interactions and anonymity than they do out in the countryside, who would prefer to be left to themselves with no one else's hand in their wallet.
It looks like your data is by county. I wonder to what extent it would be clearer if it were down to the city level. A large, mostly empty county with a dense city in it is going to skew the data differently than a small county with city.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiological_density
https://ggwash.org/view/65370/median-versus-average-populati...
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/10/americas-truly-denses...
?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/opinion/urban-rural-unite...
Interesting that it seems to have the reverse trend -- Anchorage and Fairbanks went for Trump while much of the unorganized borough went to Clinton.
[1] - https://townhall.com/election/2016/president/ak/county [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
Alaska's "county equivalents", as the U.S. Census calls them, are known as Census Areas, Municipalities, and Boroughs. But again, there are no election data reported at those levels.
See here for more detail: https://github.com/tonmcg/US_County_Level_Election_Results_0...
Also, how good is "county-level" at correlating to population density? Some huge cities are their own counties, but are there many counties that have an urban seat and also outlying areas, with a significant split into two sections of similar population, but very different population density?
Maybe you find a database of brain volumina to cross-correlate, too. Now that'd be real interesting, phrenology-wise.
A white, suburban dwelling American, typically married with kids, making about $33,000 per year per parent and spending every dime of it on housing, transport, food, clothes and entertainment. This person is not particularly securely employed and not particularly financially secure, thus harbors a great deal of resentment for people that don't have a similar lifestyle and consumption pattern.
https://overflow.solutions/special-projects/each-congression...
Something that I've wondered as part of this idea is why states after the original thirteen colonies became geographically larger in size. In hindsight, it seems much harder to have common interests across a numerically large group of people spread over a larger physical area.
Afterthought: I forgot to mention that the parts that are urban, and the parts that rural would have to be re-evaluated over time to see if that classification still holds or merits changing.
Naw, would never last.
(Counties don't mater, because they don't possess any sovereignty - they only have such political power as the legislature of the respective state gives them.)
At this point, we should redraw all state lines, and raise the number of elected officials in the House and Senate.
The impact of individual votes is called "voter power," and in US presidential elections is mostly related to how evenly matched a state is -- which means it tends not to correlate to things you think it would, like small states vs. large states.
In simple terms, voters in swing states have more impact, which is why people try harder to win their votes. In mathematical terms, voter power is the probability that a given voter's vote will decide the election. You can measure a given state's voter power by asking, "what is the smallest coalition of voters, including voters from this state, who could have changed their minds to change the outcome of the election?" The smallest coalition that includes Texas voters is a lot bigger than the smallest coalition that includes Florida voters, so Florida voters have more voter power.
There are some measures of voter power based on polling from before the election, but I don't know if there's a post-election calculation around:
https://wallethub.com/edu/how-much-is-your-vote-worth/7932/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/...
It's not obvious that denser or less dense states would be more evenly matched, and thus have more voter power. But maybe there's some other effect involved that would create a correlation?
Those are not conservative values, those are libertarian values, we might call them 'liberal' in the rest of the world (well, kind of, using that phraseology like 'leave me alone, i leave you alone' is kind of a American colloquial/populist or crude way of expressing it - in fact it doesn't describe classical Liberalism very well at all, but nevertheless someone with that ethos would definitely fall under this camp, and not Conservatism)
Classically Conservative 'values' (though not necessarily politics) are more: family, community, responsibility towards community, faith, tradition, duty etc..
Conservative and Libertarian values clash distinctly in the are of 'community' - one is individualist, one is instinctively though often not obviously community oriented.
'Duty' is generally a conservative concept you don't hear much in the Libertarian leaning crowd.
But it's moot as far as this article is concerned: The data in this article is highly problematic due to the fact that most newcomers move to the cities, and so it entirely skews the data.
It's not an argument of 'disperse vs. dense' - it's really just a proxy for ethnography.
From the link in the comment above [1]: "population density and percent black will do a lot to obliterate many a suggestively-patterned map of the United States. Those two variables aren’t explanations of anything in isolation, but if it turns out it’s more useful to know one or both of them instead of the thing you’re plotting, you probably want to reconsider your theory."
[1] https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2015/06/12/americas-ur...
As a libertarian voter, in the USA, I find this kind of position to be juvenile. They are conservative values, that happen to overlap with libertarian goals. Libertarian values are neither fundamental (old enough to be the basis for any other system) nor complete enough to be considered a value system at all. They are just rough applied values (eg limiting government is a general preference, not an ideology). Trying to exaggerate libertarian values to mean something absolute shows a deep misunderstanding of the movement.
Americans often do not understand their own political ideologies, the basis for them, and use completely the wrong words in describing them.
Libertarianism is ultimately an American flavour of (Classical) Liberalism, which is quite an old political tradition.
'Freedom of expression' is absolutely not a conservative value, it's fundamentally Classicaly Liberal.
Capital 'C' Conservatives in the USA may be big on 1st amendment type things, but it's really not conservative at all.
Liberals would have wanted to abolish the relationship between Church and State, conservatives would generally not want that, historically.
Liberals pushed for centuries for certain people to be able to have certain rights, conservatives would have been generally opposed to such things on political grounds, less so on the basis of values. 'Values' based politics is a more modern thing.
Even free markets - this is not a conservative thing, it's a Classical Liberal / Libertarian thing, which is why the term 'neoliberalism' is sometimes used to describe super capitalist/free market types. None of that is conservative.
In terms of 'values' - 'freedom of choice/expression' is fundamentally at odds with communitarian values and it's more easily understood in issues like the draft: A conservative would believe that in the event of (legitimate) war, everyone should do their best, basically sign up to fight. The draft would be seen as the rational duty of citizens. A libertarian would never accept such a transgression of their rights - joining the Army under any circumstances would have to be a matter of conscience.
Angela Merkel is mostly conservative. In larges swaths of Europe they have compulsory military service even though they are politically more progressive - it's because they are culturally fairly conservative. Most European nations have state Churches, i.e. official religions.
In Europe, the 'free market / big business' folks are not called conservatives (because they aren't), they're called 'Liberals' - which is what they are. The left has Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism. The right usually has Christian/Agrarian Democracy and then maybe some kind of nationalist movement in there.
I admit though 'personal responsibility' is both a conservative and Libertarian value. To a conservative, personal responsibility is a community obligation, righteous members of the community are hearty, productive, and fyi generous. Christian Democrats ideals are fundamentally communitarian (charity with no expectation of return is a requirement) and are totally incompatible with this 'Ayn Rand' stuff about not necessarily having an obligation toward others. (There's a hint there: you absolutely cannot be a Christian and Objectivist at the same time, Christians 'serve God' by behaving morally and by building the community, possibly through self-sacrifice and charitable work, putting God and the 'greater god' above oneself, whereas Objectivists pursue their own happiness as a moral obligation - charity is a choice, not an obligation) Libertarian personal responsibility is more a matter of individual pragmatism: 'Take care of yourself nobody else will (or should)'.
It's obviously a weird paradox in America that some conservatives value community and duty (think boy scouts, military service) and at the same time this penchant for 'absolute freedom'. I believe this is reconciled if you consider 'democracy' really as the form of freedom they aspire for people of other nations and that Americans wish for this basic opportunity for all people - to the point wherein they are willing to fight/sacrifice themselves for that 'greater good'. And of course on the left, you have artists/creative types who on one hand talk about sexual liberation and being 'open minded' and yet who are in 2018 the vanguard of the very illiberal policing appropriate language, and controlling what is acceptable culturally (i.e. only transgender actors should play transgender roles), opposing academic views which are hostile to some ideas etc. etc.. It's definitely weird. Anyhow , in America, Liberals are often not very liberal, and Conservatives are often not very conservative at all.
"Ultimately" being a weasel word for redefining it again to meet a particular ideology.
This is not correct, nor is historical cherry picking a compelling argument for the viewpoint.
He goes off on yet another tangent after trying to justify the interpretation, through parallel interpretation. They will continue to be one of the many people who are convinced they are right, deriding others with more rational and moderate position, trying to get into arguments to try to justify their beliefs.
Now I'm being attacked again, with a non-factual personal slander.
Lovely.
My post is basically textbook politics, it's not my opinion. I think my examples are pretty reasonable.
'Libertarianism' is an extension of Classical Liberalism, it's not a conservative movement (in terms of political ideology) and there's no debate about that.
'Republicanism' is 100% a Liberal ideal by definition. There's no wiggle room there. To be a 'Republican' literally means to be against the Monarchy or even Constitutional Monarchy, which is right at the core of Liberalism.
'Pursuit of Liberty' is not a conservative objective, it's Liberal, i.e. 'Classically Liberal'.
The only debate is what some of those words have come to mean through the lens of pop culture media, and that's all pretty foggy.
'Republican', the party, has little to do anymore with 'Republicanism'.
In particular, 'Liberal' has come to mean 'Left Wing' and 'conservative' usually 'right wing'. And since there are only two parties in America (and they are both more or less Liberal), and because party allegiances have changed, and because Americans don't ever learn political theory in school, and because the American press confuses the issue even further - it's a mess.
It's nuance, but it's not that complicated.
European political parties especially their naming - are generally more consistent and clear. When you look at the European political landscape for a bit, things are easier to grasp. Things start to make more sense.
Anti letting women choose to get an abortion, anti gay marriage, anti marijuana, anti separation of religion and government (via tax exemptions and taxpayer funding of religious schools) , subsidizing specific businesses with taxpayer funds, pro warrantless surveillance, pro police state, etc.
There are moderates who approve of plan b and who understand that the latter case is unjust.
Now for the rest of us we have to decide on a month/week/day or development milestone to figure out exactly when it no longer becomes ok to abort. Who has any right to decide the precise step in development process where it becomes unethical to abort. Yet we must draw a line.
Personally on this issue I am surprised people can feel so confident about what the right thing is to do.
I saw a comment below where the author said the data didn't have demographics. That's understandable. But what about population change?
This was interesting.
So on the one hand, you need more data over more elections to see if there's correlation, but then that adds noise. At a national level, the parties have sub-parties within them where in consensual democracies they'd be separate parties, it's not a strictly two party system like you see in majoritarian democracies. And this is always in flux.
Another source of noise is just the nature of the 2016 presidential election. Possibly a better source to reduce noise? U.S. senate races. They're statewide like a presidential race, the term is 6 years, but the lack of national media hype involved in the campaigns makes them less emotional and the data might be more stable. The incumbency problem might make it useless.
Hoover, Eisenhower, and Teddy still seem like Republicans.
The idea that the parties "switched" is little more than a notion with which Democrats try to distance themselves from the awful parts of their past.
Ya know, like Strom.
If you don't think it's kind of obvious which party currently has more members that think it's fun to race bait or worse, well whatever.
> And then the parties have flipped ideologies substantially
Strom Thurmond was one of three Southern segregationists who switched parties. The rest of the segregationists remained Democrats, including such famous names as George Wallace and Robert Byrd.
And the Civil Rights Act had more support from Republicans than from Democrats.
That's why I put the word "distancing" in front of the word "claim".
Does that 3 count include an exhaustive survey of voting Republicans or is it just sophistry to get people reading the remark to focus on prominent individuals?
Unless you have an exhaustive survey of individuals who switched parties, let's avoid unfounded (and likely partisan) speculation about what such a survey might say.
In 1976, after the South supposedly supposedly switched allegiance, shortly after LBJ's (reported) claim that he'd "lost the South for a generation", all the Southern states except Virginia voted for Carter, a Democrat.
(Apparently there's some doubt about whether LBJ actually said that. The media may have lied to us again.)
That Ford was closely associated with Nixon and had pardoned him? Why would the South have cared more about that than the rest of the country? Despite the pardon, Ford won 27 states, including California, and 48% of the popular vote.
In 68 much of the South voted for Wallace, a Democrat running as an independent, and Texas voted for the Democrat ticket. In 72 every state save MA and DC voted for Nixon, so the South doesn't stand out there. Then in 76 the South voted for the Democrat, Carter.
It's not until Reagan that we see the South reliably voting Republican.
I mean, Nancy's "respectable Republican cloth coat".
The Democratic party had something of a flirtation with the left side of the spectrum in FDR, but it wasn't anything like a defining characteristic of the party back then, and JFK went pretty much in the other direction. The Republican party had Presidents like Coolidge, who would definitely be on the right side of the spectrum, but also Nixon, who gave us price controls and proposed single-payer health care.
It's all a bit of a mishmash with a few salient exponents of somewhat-consistent ideology here and there, like Presidents Teddy Roosevelt (a progressive of sorts), FDR, Reagan, and now Trump. Things do seem to be clarifying in recent times, but even so, it's still not always all very clear. The fact is that the individual candidates have more going for or against them than just party affiliation or ideology.
That one is a bit more interesting, since in the modern day there are populist-economic wings of both major parties, though with very different approaches to implementing their ideas, surrounding a more laissez-faire "center".
My intuition is that it did not, and thus it doesn't predict much.
This is why I'm dubious about polls as a way of guiding campaigns.
Something I’ve always wondered though is whether it’s cause or effect. In other words, does living in high density areas make liberal causes more important to a person, or is a liberal person more drawn to high density (big cities). And the inverse for conservatives.
Even with the swing in Macomb county of Obama Democrats voting for Trump that was much discussed by the national media it still could have been overcome with a 2012 turnout level in Detroit. I'd be curious if that was replicated in other states.
Just a hypothesis, of course, I have no data to back that up.
How well does the number of Pumpkin Spice lattes sold per capita predict US voting outcomes?