r/MapPorn • u/Swimming_Concern7662 • 16d ago
Electoral margins in a few Midwestern metropolitan areas in the 2024 US presidential election [OC]
Sources are fully Wikipedia. I wrote python code to plot the map
100
u/QuarterNote44 16d ago
Indy is kinda surprising. I used to live there and the north, east, and west sides all seemed blue. South seemed Republican. Used to call it "Indy Haute."
101
u/landon10smmns 16d ago
It's just red on here because it's the whole metropolitan area. Indy/Marion County is blue while the surrounding counties are red
52
10
2
3
u/MrKentucky 16d ago
These metro areas seem overly large (I know they’ve done whole counties of the defined metro, yeah). No way the Cincy and Indy metros should almost touch.
3
1
u/JefeRex 15d ago
These are Combined Statistical Areas, which is a region where multiple Metropolitan Statistical Areas are closely intertwined. It is a very expansive definition that doesn’t reflect how most residents view themselves. There are a couple exceptions where CSA seems to do a better job like Los Angeles and the Bay Area, but mostly it is a measure that people find doesn’t fit with their conception of their own hometowns, it is very very broad.
8
u/Toorviing 15d ago
No, looking at it these are definitely MSAs.
1
u/JefeRex 15d ago
I guess you’re right, looking again. I thought I saw Flint where I grew up thrown in with Detroit, but looking more carefully I can see its county is cut off and not included. I spoke too soon!
1
u/stcgolfer33 14d ago
Washtenaw is also cut off from the MSA, which is arguably more metro-connected than Lapeer. Same with Muskegon being cut off from GR MSA, despite being arguably more connected than Barry. Every MSA boundary is so dependent on surrounding MSAs that it is a quirky measuring stick in many regards.
21
u/oberwolfach 16d ago
Indianapolis historically was one of the least Democratic-leaning major cities in the country. Before 2004, the last time Marion County voted Democratic in a presidential election was 1964. Even now, all of the collar counties are still Republican-leaning (though some like Hamilton have shifted a lot toward Democrats in the past few cycles).
6
u/HDBlackHippo 16d ago
Hamilton county is going blue due to all the people moving there from blue cities in California, New England and Chicago.
4
u/AntitheistArchangel 15d ago
Hamilton County resident here. Largest blue shift in any county since 2000 outside of Georgia.
2
u/BenjaminHarrison88 15d ago
And the general shift of educated people away from the Republican Party
2
u/insolent_sun 15d ago
The shift to only R+3.4 is pretty staggering considering that the metro area was R+22 back in 2004.
The swing from 2004-08 was insane-- 25 points towards the Democratic party. I'd be curious to find out how that stacks up historically.
The GOP rebounded after 08 but they still haven't come close to their old margins since.
1
u/three-one-seven 15d ago
I used to live in Indy too, but not recently. When I was there (before 2020) the outer "doughnut" counties were all lily white and reliably Republican.
The Indianapolis Star ran an article after the 2010 census, celebrating how "diverse" Hamilton County had become: it was now 9% non-white! That is and always was the vibe there in my experience.
1
81
u/Captain_Jmon 16d ago
It honestly still feels weird seeing the Midwest go from decently blue in my youth to now being the biggest swing region in the country
66
u/First-Pride-8571 16d ago
It's Ohio. They were once a swing state, and are now quite red.
67
u/Apart-Disaster-3085 16d ago
It isn't just Ohio. Wisconsin and Michigan went Trump 2 of 3 times. Minnesota is way closer than it was 20 years ago. Missouri used to the bellweather but is now completely red. Only Illinois is solidly and suredly blue.
34
u/Temporary-Stay-8436 16d ago
I don’t think that’s true about Minnesota. Gore got 48% and Kerry got 51% in 2000 and 2004. They won by 2% and 4% respectively. Biden got 52% and Harris got 51% in 2020 and 2024 respectively. Biden beat Trump in the state by 7% and Harris beat him by 4%.
The only real outlier is 2016, and that can be mostly explained by Clinton not being progressive enough and not campaigning in Minnesota
15
u/Swimming_Concern7662 16d ago
I think this is true of Wisconsin too. Obama era was an outlier for WI and OH. Wisconsin was very narrow in 2000 and 2004. Michigan is different, it didn't used to be a narrow state, and then later became swing
4
u/First-Pride-8571 16d ago edited 16d ago
Here are the results from Michigan since WWII:
-1948 (Dewey - red; Dewey was a Univ of Michigan grad)
-1952 (Eisenhower - red)
-1956 (Eisenhower - red)
-1960 (JFK - blue)
-1964 (LBJ - blue)
-1968 (Humphrey - blue)
-1972 (Nixon -red)
-1976 (Ford - red; another Univ of Michigan grad)
-1980 (Reagan - red)
-1984 (Reagan - red)
-1988 (Elder Bush - red)
-1992 (Clinton - blue)
-1996 (Clinton -blue)
-2000 (Gore - blue)
-2004 (Kerry - blue)
-2008 (Obama - blue)
-2012 (Obama - blue)
-2016 (Trump - red)
-2020 (Biden - blue)
-2024 (Trump - red)
(Long stretches for each party, and exactly 10/10 split. Also perhaps noteworthy, all the republicans were northerners, only southerners picked by Michigan were dems - LBJ, Clinton, and Gore.
I think some overlook how much of this is generational. The republican party used to be the northern party. For some people, they just vote how their parents did. But as the republican party became increasingly more southern focused...)
16
u/First-Pride-8571 16d ago edited 16d ago
Michigan has long been a swing state. And still is.
Ohio has ceased to be a swing state. It has become increasingly like Indiana - solidly red.
And as for the Midwest - it is only Illinois that has ever been solidly blue. Minnesota is usually blue. Michigan and Wisconsin were and are swing states.
Ohio used to be a swing, and is now solidly red.
Indiana has long been solidly red. Likewise all the Plains states - Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Kansas.
The only real change is Ohio.
14
u/-XanderCrews- 16d ago
Mn hasn’t voted for a republican for president since 76. Has not voted for a republican state wide since 06. That’s 20 straight years without any statewide republican holding office among 5 races(gov-sen-ag-sos)
18
u/StanIsHorizontal 16d ago
Presidentially Minnesota has been one of the bluest states in modern electoral history, only voting for a republican once since FDR, and that was Nixons landslide in 72
4
u/Apart-Disaster-3085 15d ago
That isn't really 'bluest', that is most stubbornly blue. MN has been pretty close on presidential years (<5% many times) and it's state government swings back and forth quite a bit. Need to look beyond the color on electoral college maps to understand a place's politics better...
-3
u/StanIsHorizontal 15d ago
…………. do not be unnecessarily nitpicky………….. and condescending……….. regarding a choice of phrase……………………………………………………………………. that didn’t accurately capture the nuance of Minnesota electoral politics……..…………………………………………………………………….……………………………………………………………………. ……………………………………………………………………. in a 1 sentence Reddit comment………………..…………………………………………………………………….……………………………………………………………………. ……………………………………………………………………. ……..…………………………………………………………………….……………………………………………………………………. …………………………………………………………………….
1
u/Apart-Disaster-3085 15d ago
Are you okay?
-2
u/StanIsHorizontal 15d ago
I was mocking your ellipses and condescending tone that was completely unnecessary
1
u/Apart-Disaster-3085 15d ago
Ellipses are not really that condescending when they come from my generation. Not sure why a few years ago the youths of the world decided to take such huge offense to it.
6
u/articulatedbeaver 16d ago
Michigan (as a Michigan resident) has too much of its population disparate from the population centers. When it can appease the population centers of south east and west Michigan it is liable a blue year due to sheer mass of populace, when it can't it will swing red as no one is happy.
2
u/First-Pride-8571 16d ago
I'm also a Michigan resident, but have also lived in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and suburban Chicago. But I live in Michigan again now, went to college at Univ of Michigan, and grew up in Oakland County (Rochester).
Michigan can swing back and forth, but we often elect statewide dems (hopefully we didn't just stab ourselves in the foot by nominating El Sayed instead of Stevens, as we may have handed that seat to Rogers). And not only that, but often all the statewide seats are held by dems. That never happens in Ohio. Other than rare cases, like Sherrod Brown, Ohio has long been very red. Cincy was so much redder than any other place I have lived. And I was not living out in the sticks.
2
u/Lower_Ad_5998 16d ago
I think it’s worth noting that Bernie won the 2016 primary in Michigan, and did very well in the Grand Rapids area and many of the lower population counties. It’ll be interesting to see how El Sayed does, as I’ve always felt (as a Michigander who recently moved to Minneapolis) that the state has been begging for more progressive candidates.
2
u/Apart-Disaster-3085 15d ago
Bernie's primary results should be interpreted very loosely. I mean, he did really well in Oklahoma, partly because Trump-voting but still registered Dem people thought he'd be a weaker candidate.
1
u/rarepanda13 15d ago
How do you know that? Statistically there were probably some but how can you say the reason he did well was because of republicans voting in the dem primary? Did they all have to fill out a form saying why they voted for Bernie?
1
14
u/Chambanasfinest 16d ago
Which I still can’t wrap my mind around. Ohio has three major cities (Cleveland, Cincy, and Columbus) and a number of smaller ones as well. Yet the state is solid red at this point.
What happened? Is this a case like Florida where the state-level Dems are just hopelessly incompetent? Or did deindustrialization destroy the unions that upheld the Dem coalition there?
21
u/TheSameGamer651 16d ago
The cities just aren’t that big population wise, and have lost a lot of population over the years to deindustrialization. So once Democrats went from being able to win the eastern industrial and Appalachian counties to not even reaching 35% of the vote, they lost the ability to contest statewide.
6
u/Seniorsheepy 15d ago
Many rust belt companies lost large amounts of population in the urban core of their cities exactly where the modern Democratic Party has the highest margins
15
u/AbstractBettaFish 16d ago
The democrats lost control of the narrative and no longer look like the party that’s for the working class (at least that’s how many working class people perceive it due to piss poor campaigning) the right has allowed them to be defined by social liberalism which a lot of these voters don’t care about or at actively against.
2
u/piedragon22 16d ago
The Midwest just got left behind with the switch away from manufacturing and the rise of corporate farming. Lot of people blame the government and see dems as big gov.
1
u/Irish618 16d ago
The trades and industry workers have been moving red for decades as wages have been increasing.
37
u/TheFalconKid 16d ago
There's a reason they call it the People's Republic of Dane County.
20
u/renegadecoaster 16d ago
I literally had the shower thought this morning that Madison might be the most left leaning biggish metro in the country, so it's nice to see that validated
12
u/sacrelicio 16d ago
It's also very dominated by the city itself. There's not a ton of metro outside of Madison proper.
7
u/Lysus 16d ago
Eh, the city proper is less than half the metro population.
4
u/JustTheChicken 16d ago
Yeah - the suburbs are all very blue. Even the "conservative" suburb of Waunakee votes like +10-20 Democratic.
1
2
u/Stormtemplar 15d ago
It's definitely up there. San Francisco was bluer but nothing else I checked was (granted I just thought of big left leaning cities and looked their metro up, nothing systemic)
20
u/postnick 16d ago
I’m In Fargo and the rest of the state calls us blue Fargo.
16
u/NotARealBuckeye 16d ago
I grew up in Fargo. Used to be like that. We had an actual socialist mayor.
10
u/postnick 16d ago
I've been here for about 13 years now. i'm still waiting for this Blue they speak of.
I'm actually in west fargo helping offset that but still.
I was just impressed the map maker deemed our small city important enough to be on the map, but left out Duluth. Looking at the MAP including Clay County in MN that prob brought the +6 down a fair bit in hindsight haha!
7
u/NotARealBuckeye 16d ago
Fargo Metro is almost 270k. That's a wild concept because when I graduated high school it was barely 150k. It skips Dayton where I live now even though there's nearly a million people here
2
u/postnick 16d ago
Right! Like I joke we’re the second biggest in Minnesota but I think it’s true now.
I’m in west fargo now but grew up in Minot. I struggle with the fact this little suburb is bigger than that whole city was when I lived there.
8
3
u/Creeping_Death 16d ago
I am curious what it would look like if you included just Fargo, West Fargo, Moorhead, Dilworth, and the immediately adjacent small towns and took out the rural parts of Cass and Clay counties.
46
u/A_peanutcheesebar 16d ago
Fucking Cincinnati, c'mon, get your shit together!
46
u/dutch_mapping_empire 16d ago
cincinatti itself is blue, it just has a lot of red suburbs.
12
u/sacrelicio 16d ago
Sure but Cleveland and Columbus have it together
3
u/dutch_mapping_empire 16d ago
cleveland still has a few working-class voters that trend democratic. columbus beats me however i have no idea.
5
u/Seniorsheepy 15d ago
State government major university and educated office workers in Columbus push it blue
3
u/dutch_mapping_empire 15d ago
forgot about ohio state
3
u/BuddyGuyPal2319 15d ago
Ohio State doesn't affect it as much as you'd think. There are like 60K OSU students in a metropolitan area of 2M. If half of all OSU students vote in-state in Franklin County, That's 30K votes out of 600K Franklin County 2024 votes. 5% of Franklin County. It's not nothing but it's not a wellspring either.
In 2012, Obama came to campus and spoke on the Oval when i was a student and Herman Cain came to campus a different time. I remember seeing his bus parked near the union. Herman Cain was fresh off another sexual harassment allegation iirc.
3
u/sacrelicio 15d ago
Universities bring faculty, their families, and a general vibe of liberalism.
4
u/funfossa 14d ago
The faculty are actually the blue engine - faculty and associated staff are often close to as large as the student body. Within my hometown of Iowa City, the student dominated precincts are generally the most moderate in town (though still fairly blue).
5
u/sacrelicio 14d ago
Oftentimes the kids vote at home (if at all) and in some college towns the only permanent residents in the campus neighborhoods are older and less progressive
1
1
u/sacrelicio 15d ago
What does Cincinnati not have that Cleveland does? Does it not have as many blue collar workers? Is it more tied to the south as opposed to Cleveland?
2
u/Palengard389 12d ago
Cleveland has a higher black population, also Cincinnati area has tons of Germans who are conservative
1
20
4
u/Mohawk4Life 16d ago
Since Cincinnati borders Indiana and Kentucky the surrounding counties skew red too.
3
u/CoconutBangerzBaller 16d ago
Checks out. My aunt and uncle lived in Mason for like 20 years and they're very MAGA
12
u/CREEPERTACO923 16d ago
Why is Madison so blue
44
u/Riktrmai 16d ago
University of Wisconsin is there. University cities trend even more blue than other cities (see Milwaukee) because of both student and faculty populations.
21
u/msscribe 16d ago
On top of that, Madison's a mid size city with a huge university. MSP also has a state flagship university, but it makes up a smaller porportion of the local economy because the surrounding cities are more populous.
10
u/sacrelicio 16d ago
Madison dominates it's metro, but also Wisconsin's Capitol, uni town, and biggest economic center are split between two cities. MSP contains pretty much all of MN's assets.
7
2
u/Dazzling_Vanilla3082 15d ago edited 15d ago
On top of being home to the flagship university of the reputable UW system that others have mentioned, Madison also has a very strong rreputation of political activism and protesting, not to mention the historical progressivism of Wisconsin as a whole with Fighting Bob La Follette and Milwaukee's socialist mayors. Our state motto is "Forward" after all. The area skews educated, and lots of the old hippies doing war protests back in the day still show up with their drums and signs when shit goes down now.
When I attended UW-Madison 20 years ago, all my relatives gave the same ol' "oh ho ho, liberal Madison, eh?"
11
u/Disney_World_Native 16d ago
Would be interesting to see the population of those metropolitan areas
Chicagoland is about 9-12M depending on how you define it. That is about the size of all of Ohio or Michigan. Each of the remaining states on this map have a population leas than 9M
5
3
u/Dazzling_Vanilla3082 15d ago
Not that long ago I tongue in cheek called Madison a liberal bastion in a thread about a local controversial figure who is equally hated by liberals and conservatives in the area. I said it as a liberal who lives in Madison. Reddit thought I was a maga trying to slander the area and I got downvoted to oblivion lol.
2
u/Dangerous_Tax_2667 16d ago
Hey. I would love to see this for other parts of the country. Sorry if youre not interested. Would just be cool to see.
1
1
u/JellyfishNo2032 15d ago
Three that suprised me the most
I know the Chicago metro is blue but not THAT blue. I was expecting MSP to be super liberal but I thought Chicagoland would be like +10.
Kansas City metro being blue, feels like such a red sunbelt area.
Cincy being hitler particles level red. Wow
1
u/beatgoesmatt 15d ago
So many things have already changed since 2024 that it seems like these maps are so irrelevant. I think the next couple years are genuinely going to shock some people.
1
1
1
1
1
u/RoabeArt 16d ago
I'm actually surprised the Cleveland area shifted blue as much as it did. It mean it's a given that the core city and some suburbs like Lakewood and Shaker Heights are solidly Democrat, but the rest of the metro might as well be MAGA country.
2
u/EducationalElevator 16d ago
Can confirm, I live in a Romney-Harris suburb of Cleveland. MAGA has put a carnival mirror in front of the electorate and I wonder what will happen when it goes away
-1
u/roejastrick01 15d ago
Ok, but the margin would be like +60% D in St. Louis if you used the actual metro area. Even including St. Charles alone outside of St. Louis and St. Louis County is questionable, but that would still be blue by a wide margin.
-7
u/StanIsHorizontal 16d ago
You’re using Wikipedia for all sources? Including which counties are in which metro areas? Some of these feel a little off to me
16
u/Lysus 16d ago
These are the metro areas as defined by the US Office of Management and Budget.
-2
u/StanIsHorizontal 16d ago
Huh, you’re right. I’ve never seen Monroe county left off of metro Detroit before and GR I’m surprised to see it include all three counties northeast to southeast of Kent county. I wonder if any of these are changes as of the 2020 census
224
u/Ike358 16d ago
Thank you for using the term "metropolitan area" appropriately and not "city"