Hi Miriam and fellow Blind Democracy folks,
Thanks for sharing this article because it points out the importance of
taking nowhere for granted. It also points out in my view the really unfair
issues of the electoral college. Yes, political entities such as States
ought to have representation in our national government and hence the U.S.
Senate, while the popular votes are also important and hence the House of
Representatives. Trying to combine these two classic political issues in
the Presidential election through the electoral college is a real problem
and I believe the popular vote in the matter of Presidential selection
should be the determination of the result.
Charlie Crawford.
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Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 9:40 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Forget Swing States: The Presidential Election
Will Be Determined by 20 Swing Counties in Linchpin States
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Forget Swing States: The Presidential Election Will Be Determined by
20 Swing Counties in Linchpin States
________________________________________
Forget Swing States: The Presidential Election Will Be Determined by 20
Swing Counties in Linchpin States
By Steven Rosenfeld [1] / AlterNet [2]
August 26, 2016
Americans have heard that the election of the next president will be
determined by a few battleground states, with Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania
as 2016's leading examples. But what if it's not simply a handful of swing
states but swing counties, with less than 500,000 swing voters, that truly
matters?
That's the provocative assessment from David Schultz, a professor of
political science at Hamline University in Minnesota and editor of the
Journal of Public Affairs Education. Schultz co-edited a book [3] on swing
states and now predicts fewer than 20 counties will tip the balance to pick
the next president.
Where are 2016's deciders? In Ohio, it's Hamilton County, home to
Cincinnati. In Pennsylvania, it's Bucks and Chester Counties, to the north
and south of Philadelphia. It's also Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties,
straddling Scranton and Wilkes Barre in its western interior. In Florida,
it's Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, surrounding Tampa and St.
Petersburg. In Wisconsin, it's Brown County, where Green Bay is; nearby
Winnebago County, further inland; and Racine County to the south near
Chicago suburbs. In Iowa, it's rural tiny Bremer County, and in New
Hampshire, it's Hillsborough township, inland on the Massachusetts border.
There are a few more: population epicenters such as Nevada's Clark County,
home of Las Vegas; Virginia's Prince William County, outside Washington
D.C., North Carolina's Wake County, with Raleigh and Durham; New Mexico's
Bernalillo County, containing Albuquerque; and surprisingly, Dona Ana County
near Las Cruces, which has a big state university.
"These seem to be the counties within the swing states where the candidates
go," said Schultz. "They view them as battlegrounds. They seem to be pretty
good bellwethers, in the sense of predictors of how that state is going to
vote. Even if they appear blue or red, there's a question of how great the
turnout will be."
These counties, which cast 2,485,793 votes for Barack Obama in 2012,
compared to 2,106,985 votes for Mitt Romney, seem to be their state's 2016
tipping points or bellwethers for a variety of reasons. They sit in between
red and blue belts. They're often suburban, experiencing major demographic
shifts, including young and better-educated people moving in, and some are
more racially diverse.
"What we are seeing in these counties, at least right now, is relatively
balanced, in terms of Republicans and Democrats," Schultz said. "We have a
small portion of the population of these counties that are going to be the
swing voter. When I say swing voter, I don't necessarily mean swinging from
Democrat to Republican. They might be swinging in to vote, or swinging out
from voting."
Swing States, Swing Counties
In a nation where 130 million people are expected to vote for president this
fall, it's disconcerting to think 96 percent of those ballots won't count as
much as those from swing states and a few key counties. But that's a result
of the Electoral College's hard math, which since 1988 has seen Republicans
likely to win 23 states with 191 electoral votes, and Democrats likely to
win 18 states and the District of Columbia, with 232 electoral votes. The
remaining 10 states have been considered the swing states-Colorado, Florida,
Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and
Wisconsin-with a total of 115 electoral votes.
As political scientists drill down into election results, they find swing
states are generally won by the next president-but by 5 percent or less of
the vote. They see states that have flipped between Democrat and Republican,
and where candidates have visited and spent big sums on advertising and
get-out-the-vote efforts. Needless to say, some swings states are more
critical than others-such as Florida and Ohio.
Schultz said the next stage in this analysis, identifying the tipping point
counties, is a bit of a frontier for academics. There isn't good current
polling available. But that's not to say there aren't reams of other data.
Take the two swing counties surrounding Denver, Arapahoe and Jefferson. The
U.S. Census reports they mirror national demographics, with slightly more
than three-quarters white and about 20 percent Latino. Forty percent of
residents have college degrees, which is higher than the national average.
The average home value, $235,600, is higher than the national average of
$175,700, and the median income of $62,213 is higher than the national
median of $53,482.
One would think these statistics would show the Denver suburbs as being the
increasingly blue core of that state's purple political identity. But
Schultz says not so fast, because even though Colorado has growing numbers
of well-educated young people, as reflected in those figures, it remains to
be seen what their voter turnout will be this fall. "Sometimes it is
deciding to vote or deciding not to vote," Schultz explains. That's part of
what's critical here. How well they're mobilized, how well they are
motivated to vote."
Take another set of swing counties, Pinellas and Hillsborough, in Florida,
which is where Tampa and St. Petersburg are on the state's central west
coast. The Census reports [4] that its residents are not as well off
financially as in Denver, with median household incomes just under the
national average, and home values also below the national average. They are
slightly less white than the national average, and have a larger black
population, about 18 percent, compared to the national average of 13
percent.
Schultz explained why these counties are the fulcrum for the Florida
presidential vote. "Florida is interesting because you have southeastern
Florida, which is a liberal Democratic haven, and you have the panhandle,
which is solidly Republican," he said. "One thing we found in all the swing
states, by the way, was that they had multiple regions-strong bastions for
Republicans, strong bastions for Democrats-and then you had these fuzzy
areas, where you don't seem to have clear domination by one or two parties,
and it gets very competitive at the sub-state and congressional level."
"Republicans have mobilized; they have gotten all the votes they can get out
of the panhandle," he continued. "Democrats have gotten everything out of
Miami-Dade they can. It's relatively evenly balanced at this point. The
fight is now to get those marginal additional votes. Let's say we'll have
roughly 10 percent of the vote where they're not sure what will happen;
that's all about mobilization and that's what's going on there."
Schultz said some of the swing counties he identified-such as small rural
ones in Iowa and New Hampshire-were sites of candidate visits and seemed to
be bellwether predictors, which is not as pivotal as the role likely played
by Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in Florida this fall. But other
unlikely picks, such as Dona Ana County in New Mexico, where Las Cruces is
located, is home to a big university and a potentially large but mercurial
student voting block. Many of those students are non-white, and that too
becomes a significant factor, he said.
The four Pennsylvania counties he cited are split between the Philadelphia
suburbs and in the western region where the cities of Scranton and Wilkes
Barre are located. Speaking of Luzerne and Lackawanna counties, Schultz
said, "these are old-line New Deal Democrats, from the FDR era, but
potentially though, they are very flippable. And it's very Catholic there."
He said that he included them in his list of swing counties because Donald
Trump predicted winning Scranton, and Hillary Clinton has also repeatedly
visited the area.
What's revealing about Schultz's list of swing counties is that it pinpoints
the fulcrums or likely tipping points in states that drive presidential
candidates to Electoral College victories. That is not the same as the
national popular vote, needless to say. Indeed, when Schultz identified
these swing counties, he looked at their 2012 votes, and realized that had
Mitt Romney been a little more successful in various combinations of these
locales, he would have been elected.
"People don't realize that the Romney-Obama race was actually far closer
than most people think," Schultz said. "There was an Electoral College
blow-out, but if you had a shift of just a few hundred thousand votes across
a few states, Romney would be running for re-election this year. We're
really looking at no more than a half-million votes shifting, depending on
how you actually define it, and that's a very small number of votes."
Of course, everyone still needs to vote in the November election. But after
tens of millions of ballots are tallied nationwide, the behavior of
thousands of swing voters in the swing counties Schultz identified may make
the difference between a President Trump or President Clinton.
Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including
America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and
elections. He is the author of "Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting"
(AlterNet Books, 2008).
Share on Facebook Share
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Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [5]
[6]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/forget-swing-states-presidential-elect
ion-will-be-determined-20-swing-counties
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/steven-rosenfeld
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
https://www.amazon.com/Presidential-Swing-States-Only-Matter/dp/0739195247/?
tag=alternorg08-20
[4] http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/12057,00
[5] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Forget Swing States: The
Presidential Election Will Be Determined by 20 Swing Counties in Linchpin
States
[6] http://www.alternet.org/
[7] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Forget Swing States: The Presidential Election Will Be Determined by
20 Swing Counties in Linchpin States
Forget Swing States: The Presidential Election Will Be Determined by 20
Swing Counties in Linchpin States
By Steven Rosenfeld [1] / AlterNet [2]
August 26, 2016
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Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to Google+Share to MoreShare to Email
Americans have heard that the election of the next president will be
determined by a few battleground states, with Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania
as 2016's leading examples. But what if it's not simply a handful of swing
states but swing counties, with less than 500,000 swing voters, that truly
matters?
That's the provocative assessment from David Schultz, a professor of
political science at Hamline University in Minnesota and editor of the
Journal of Public Affairs Education. Schultz co-edited a book [3] on swing
states and now predicts fewer than 20 counties will tip the balance to pick
the next president.
Where are 2016's deciders? In Ohio, it's Hamilton County, home to
Cincinnati. In Pennsylvania, it's Bucks and Chester Counties, to the north
and south of Philadelphia. It's also Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties,
straddling Scranton and Wilkes Barre in its western interior. In Florida,
it's Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, surrounding Tampa and St.
Petersburg. In Wisconsin, it's Brown County, where Green Bay is; nearby
Winnebago County, further inland; and Racine County to the south near
Chicago suburbs. In Iowa, it's rural tiny Bremer County, and in New
Hampshire, it's Hillsborough township, inland on the Massachusetts border.
There are a few more: population epicenters such as Nevada's Clark County,
home of Las Vegas; Virginia's Prince William County, outside Washington
D.C., North Carolina's Wake County, with Raleigh and Durham; New Mexico's
Bernalillo County, containing Albuquerque; and surprisingly, Dona Ana County
near Las Cruces, which has a big state university.
"These seem to be the counties within the swing states where the candidates
go," said Schultz. "They view them as battlegrounds. They seem to be pretty
good bellwethers, in the sense of predictors of how that state is going to
vote. Even if they appear blue or red, there's a question of how great the
turnout will be."
These counties, which cast 2,485,793 votes for Barack Obama in 2012,
compared to 2,106,985 votes for Mitt Romney, seem to be their state's 2016
tipping points or bellwethers for a variety of reasons. They sit in between
red and blue belts. They're often suburban, experiencing major demographic
shifts, including young and better-educated people moving in, and some are
more racially diverse.
"What we are seeing in these counties, at least right now, is relatively
balanced, in terms of Republicans and Democrats," Schultz said. "We have a
small portion of the population of these counties that are going to be the
swing voter. When I say swing voter, I don't necessarily mean swinging from
Democrat to Republican. They might be swinging in to vote, or swinging out
from voting."
Swing States, Swing Counties
In a nation where 130 million people are expected to vote for president this
fall, it's disconcerting to think 96 percent of those ballots won't count as
much as those from swing states and a few key counties. But that's a result
of the Electoral College's hard math, which since 1988 has seen Republicans
likely to win 23 states with 191 electoral votes, and Democrats likely to
win 18 states and the District of Columbia, with 232 electoral votes. The
remaining 10 states have been considered the swing states-Colorado, Florida,
Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and
Wisconsin-with a total of 115 electoral votes.
As political scientists drill down into election results, they find swing
states are generally won by the next president-but by 5 percent or less of
the vote. They see states that have flipped between Democrat and Republican,
and where candidates have visited and spent big sums on advertising and
get-out-the-vote efforts. Needless to say, some swings states are more
critical than others-such as Florida and Ohio.
Schultz said the next stage in this analysis, identifying the tipping point
counties, is a bit of a frontier for academics. There isn't good current
polling available. But that's not to say there aren't reams of other data.
Take the two swing counties surrounding Denver, Arapahoe and Jefferson. The
U.S. Census reports they mirror national demographics, with slightly more
than three-quarters white and about 20 percent Latino. Forty percent of
residents have college degrees, which is higher than the national average.
The average home value, $235,600, is higher than the national average of
$175,700, and the median income of $62,213 is higher than the national
median of $53,482.
One would think these statistics would show the Denver suburbs as being the
increasingly blue core of that state's purple political identity. But
Schultz says not so fast, because even though Colorado has growing numbers
of well-educated young people, as reflected in those figures, it remains to
be seen what their voter turnout will be this fall. "Sometimes it is
deciding to vote or deciding not to vote," Schultz explains. That's part of
what's critical here. How well they're mobilized, how well they are
motivated to vote."
Take another set of swing counties, Pinellas and Hillsborough, in Florida,
which is where Tampa and St. Petersburg are on the state's central west
coast. The Census reports [4] that its residents are not as well off
financially as in Denver, with median household incomes just under the
national average, and home values also below the national average. They are
slightly less white than the national average, and have a larger black
population, about 18 percent, compared to the national average of 13
percent.
Schultz explained why these counties are the fulcrum for the Florida
presidential vote. "Florida is interesting because you have southeastern
Florida, which is a liberal Democratic haven, and you have the panhandle,
which is solidly Republican," he said. "One thing we found in all the swing
states, by the way, was that they had multiple regions-strong bastions for
Republicans, strong bastions for Democrats-and then you had these fuzzy
areas, where you don't seem to have clear domination by one or two parties,
and it gets very competitive at the sub-state and congressional level."
"Republicans have mobilized; they have gotten all the votes they can get out
of the panhandle," he continued. "Democrats have gotten everything out of
Miami-Dade they can. It's relatively evenly balanced at this point. The
fight is now to get those marginal additional votes. Let's say we'll have
roughly 10 percent of the vote where they're not sure what will happen;
that's all about mobilization and that's what's going on there."
Schultz said some of the swing counties he identified-such as small rural
ones in Iowa and New Hampshire-were sites of candidate visits and seemed to
be bellwether predictors, which is not as pivotal as the role likely played
by Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in Florida this fall. But other
unlikely picks, such as Dona Ana County in New Mexico, where Las Cruces is
located, is home to a big university and a potentially large but mercurial
student voting block. Many of those students are non-white, and that too
becomes a significant factor, he said.
The four Pennsylvania counties he cited are split between the Philadelphia
suburbs and in the western region where the cities of Scranton and Wilkes
Barre are located. Speaking of Luzerne and Lackawanna counties, Schultz
said, "these are old-line New Deal Democrats, from the FDR era, but
potentially though, they are very flippable. And it's very Catholic there."
He said that he included them in his list of swing counties because Donald
Trump predicted winning Scranton, and Hillary Clinton has also repeatedly
visited the area.
What's revealing about Schultz's list of swing counties is that it pinpoints
the fulcrums or likely tipping points in states that drive presidential
candidates to Electoral College victories. That is not the same as the
national popular vote, needless to say. Indeed, when Schultz identified
these swing counties, he looked at their 2012 votes, and realized that had
Mitt Romney been a little more successful in various combinations of these
locales, he would have been elected.
"People don't realize that the Romney-Obama race was actually far closer
than most people think," Schultz said. "There was an Electoral College
blow-out, but if you had a shift of just a few hundred thousand votes across
a few states, Romney would be running for re-election this year. We're
really looking at no more than a half-million votes shifting, depending on
how you actually define it, and that's a very small number of votes."
Of course, everyone still needs to vote in the November election. But after
tens of millions of ballots are tallied nationwide, the behavior of
thousands of swing voters in the swing counties Schultz identified may make
the difference between a President Trump or President Clinton.
Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including
America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and
elections. He is the author of "Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting"
(AlterNet Books, 2008).
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [5]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[6]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/forget-swing-states-presidential-elect
ion-will-be-determined-20-swing-counties
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/steven-rosenfeld
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
https://www.amazon.com/Presidential-Swing-States-Only-Matter/dp/0739195247/?
tag=alternorg08-20
[4] http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/12057,00
[5] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Forget Swing States: The
Presidential Election Will Be Determined by 20 Swing Counties in Linchpin
States
[6] http://www.alternet.org/
[7] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
