In 2004, John Kerry won 46.1% of the vote in Missouri. In 2008, Barack Obama won 49.24% of the vote in Missouri (number subject to amendment with provisionals)
So how did this play out on the map?
Obama’s performance relative to Kerry in Boone, Adair, and Nodaway can probably be credited to colleges. Cooper County has the 11th highest population of African-Americans. Pulaski County has Fort Leonard Wood (FLW CDP accounts for over half of African-Americans in the county). The reason for St. Louis County’s swing should be a bit obvious by now.
The next four counties with major pro-Obama swings are a bit of an odd foursome: Pettis (4.79%), Gasconade (4.46%), Johnson (4.43%), and Douglas (4.19%).
I can’t totally explain Pettis County. I will say that Johnson County had some nice surges in enthusiasm amongst locals and college students. Gasconade and Douglas are both staunchly Republican. And they will be seen as odder later on in the post.
During the Liberty Memorial rally, Micheal Mahoney got slightly bored and started asking me questions. One of which was about the impact of race on Obama in Missouri. I gave a lousy answer with no soundbites. The reality is that it’s a bit complex.
But what about the swings and race? (under the fold)
Now, I will put the following disclaimer on this part of the post.
I am not blaming Anti-Obama shifts purely on racism. The amount of lies and smears that Obama was the subject of would put a dent in the performance of many candidates.
30 Missouri counties have African-American populations of .2% and under. Obama won 35% in those counties. John Kerry won 34% in those counties. Obama won 30% in those counties in the February primary.
Four of the five counties with the lowest percentage of African-Americans swung against Obama. Ripley (0.04%, 6 African-Americans), Schuyler (0.05%, 2 African-Americans), Putnam (0.06%, 3 African-Americans), and Clark County (0.07%, 5 African-Americans). BUT, you would be deceived if I didn’t note that Obama still won 45% in Clark County (down from Kerry’s 48%).
18 of the 25 counties with the lowest African-American populations swung towards Obama. Those 25 include Douglas (0.11%, 14 African-Americans) and Gasconade (0.12%, 18 African-Americans) Counties, which had heavy pro-Obama swings. So obviously there were some very white counties that swung away from Obama, but more of them swung towards Obama.
But, Three of the Six counties with the highest African-American percentages swung away from Obama. Those three were New Madrid, Mississippi, and Pemiscot Counties. Obama won 42% in those counties, down from the 47% that John Kerry won. For the sake of comparison, Obama won 26% in those three counties in the February primary. Of course, STL County, STL City, and Jackson County are far different from the Boothill in regards to quite a few things.
Obama’s improvement over Kerry’s performance can be seen in counties that are heavily White, and a variety of other counties.
In an election that will likely end with a margin of under 5,000 votes, a wide variety of factors can be blamed for a loss by Obama. But we did pretty darn well here. (The preceding sentences will be retracted if provisionals go 7 to 1 and we win Missouri around November 27th).
In conclusion, some counties with lots of white people liked Kerry more than Obama, more of those counties liked Obama than Kerry. Some counties with lots of African-Americans liked Kerry more than Obama. But KC and St. Louis liked Obama a lot. Everybody else picked their own side either due to reasons we may or may not know, or due to awesome field organizers, good campaigns, or old loyalties to the Party of the People. Race is complex, people are complex, Missouri is complex.
There’ll be a ton of sociological, logical, and political looks into this election and race. I’d imagine quite a few of them will be a lot better than this post, and some of them will cause people to facepalm themselves.
But we can see some interesting trends in how the election turned from 2004 to 2008 statewide and in parts of our state. And we can see that there is not a completely conclusive swing in our state.
I’ll have to think about it – and truthfully my Missouri geography is so bad that I don’t know where a lot of those counties are and I’m too tired to google them.
All I can say right now is that I have family in Mississippi county and I’ve always found the people there (including my own family) to be unashamedly racist – no shame about it whatsoever. So it doesn’t surprise me in the least that Obama lost ground there. My city born and bred dad told me that when my mom first took him down there to visit when they were engaged (1958 or so) he thought he had stepped into another time. They were still growing cotton and it was still being picked by black folks. I’m not quite 50 and I can still remember the shanties without running water (and maybe without electricity) that lined the road into Charleston when I was a child. So the only thing that surprises me about Mississippi county is that he got over 40%.
It also doesn’t surprise me that his improvement is in counties that are heavily white – remember during the primaries, the discussion about how he did fine in states that were all white but when he got to states like Kentucky with a big AA minority he did poorly? Seems like the same principal to me.
I’m glad to see where he improved on Kerry. But truthfully, I’m ashamed of Missouri.
I don’t thing the word “swing” is the best way to describe this. Yes, the change in numbers cited shows an uptick toward Obama in the cases mentioned, a “swing” if you will.
But as someone who lives in the midst of these counties, that uptick was the result of dampened Repup turnout and enthusiasm for McPOW and Governor Gidget rather than any true movement toward a national Democratic candidate.
Now, admitedly, any candidate should have done mildly better than Kerry who cut and ran from this state practically the day after he was nominated. Obama at least worked the state about as hard as he could, I mean the man stopped in Union. That’s never happened before and will probably never happen again.
And yet, here we are, still behind. Not by much but still, after all the campaign’s efforts and having a Dem governor take 60% of the vote, we’re at this point.
It should show everybody that this is a red state nationally, McCaskill’s bleating to the contrary nothwithstanding.
If Obama does what I think he will do the first four years, we might see more movement next time.
But it’s my understanding that the campaign had operations in place in a lot of other locations.
The Campaign had two RFOs in Dunklin County for some reason, along with three Jackson County offices (KC, Indep., and Lee’s Summit), five STL City offices, and five STL County offices.
Ripley – Southeastern MO (south of Carter, west of Butler, west of Poplar Bluff)
Schuyler – East of Putnam County, West of Scotland County, north of Kirksville
Clark – Northeasternmost county in the state, seat: Kahoka
Douglas is east of Christian County in SW MO. Gasconade is east of Osage County in Eastern MO.
And the improvement in Scott County (Sikeston) was from 34.715% in 2004 to 34.717% in 2008.
I don’t know how many Boothill offices were run by the Obama campaign. I know that they had operations in places not listed on their website. But they have Sikeston and Kennett offices, but no listed New Madrid office.
Although the only places with an RFO where Obama failed to top Kerry’s percentage were Dunklin (Kennett) and Pike (Louisiana, MO) counties.
I tried to get this divided by town to the best of my ability, although parts of the county are not in any incorporated down. But this should give you a good enough sense of the county.
Levasy: 72/28 Bush (41-16)
Greenwood: 63/36 Bush (1424-824)
Lone Jack: 63/36 Bush (191-108)
Unincorporated EJC: 61/38 Bush (6054-3755)
Lee’s Summit: 61/38 Bush (24815-15507)
Lake Lotawana: 60/39 Bush (1132-734)
Blue Springs: 60/40 Bush (14865-9953)
Grain Valley: 57/42 Bush (1617-1182)
Oak Grove: 56/43 Bush (1561-1192)
Lake Tapawingo: 56/44 Bush (305-241)
Sibley: 55/45 Bush (89-72)
Buckner: 54/45 Bush (609-501)
Independence: 50/49 Kerry (25221-24939)
Raytown: 53/46 Kerry (7559-6527)
Sugar Creek: 58/41 Kerry (884-618)
Grandview: 62/37 Kerry (6168-3666)
Unity Village: 72/28 Kerry (93-37)
Blue Sub 1-18: 79/21 Kerry (37-10) [JCEB doesn’t want to classify it as being in Independence, and I don’t know if unincorporated Blue Summit is in the KCEB sphere or JCEB]
Sorry, no results for River Bend (population 10) since they vote in Independence.
So we’ll see in a few weeks which cities shifted (to make a 9 point loss into a 1 point loss) and which ones didn’t.
While it is interesting to see where he outperformed Kerry and try to figure out why, he outperformed Kerry nationally by a certain percent – I don’t know what that average is but you probably do 🙂
I wonder where he performed as well or better than his national improvement average and worse. In other words was his performance in counties where he outperformed Kerry as good as his average national improvement or worse?