Absolutely Outstanding Analysis of Fairfax County

I pointed him in the right direction, but the rest is all Kenton...

Comments

[change]

In a nutshell, democrats that work for a living will likely to want to keep some of their hard earned money. Great analysis.

[Not A Rich Voter]

Kenton's analysis is pretty with all of its colors, but it's hardly scientific to take a "ham fisted" method, couple it with a statistic that has about 10 other strong statistical relationships, and extrapolate a conclusion across 230+ precincts. It might be pretty, but it's not scientific.

For example, there is probably a stronger correlation with non-white voters than income.

The concentrations of "high" income parts of the County are Great Falls, Oakton, and Clifton. Many of the "high" income areas a solidly middle class, but markedly less diverse.

Kenton's maps simply demonstrate that Barack Obama blew it out in the more diverse precincts in the County and the other precincts generally held back a bit - because there weren't any voters to register and GOTV.

There are probably other "correlations" as well besides income such as precincts with lots of graduate level degrees. The title of that chart could have as easily been The White "Democrat" or The "Educated" Democrat.

The extrapolations also aren't accurate. Here are the 2000 Census statistics for the delegate seats Kenton cited ranked by race.

District-%White-Median Income-% Graduate Degrees
34th-81.9%-$117,550-38.3%
35th-79.1%-$96,144-30.9%
67th-75.8%-$87,739-22.5%
40th-75.2%-$90,436-22.7%
42nd-67.8%-$81,312-21.8%
44th-63.0%-$60,614-19.2%

Kenton is drawing conclusions across districts that have median per capital incomes that vary by 100%. That's apples and oranges.

What is clear looking at the stats above - the more white a precinct is, the more educated it is, and the more money people make.

So Kenton's conclusion is that the voting patterns demostrated by the first black president had all to do with income and nothing to do with race?

Maybe in utopia, but not in Virginia.

What has been driving Fairfax County's margins for the last ten years is increased diversity, and to a lesser extent, young people. Income conveniently correlates with race (see the above chart).

Bottom line - pretty picture, wrong conclusion - and it's because of the INCREASED DIVERSITY in the 42nd that Albo has problems, the 44th with stays D, and 34th, 35th, & 67th could get interesting.

[VALoneRanger]

Not a Rich Voter seems to hit the nail on the head.

Kenton's assumption of "high-income"(white) voters going for Webb & McCain based on monetary concerns can also be cast in a far less charitable light.

The 44th isn't in any danger of going red. The low-income/minority precincts there are huge and Surovell can mobilize them. Werkheiser doesn't have an easy pickup in the 42nd, but he'll continue to outwork Albo and likely take it.

Moving to 34th, 35th & 67th though...interesting is one way to put it. Ugly is another.

[Not John S. Mosby]

The premise here - that people with money will default to the Republican Party unless social issues heavily outweigh financial issues - is fairly unsound. I lost 30% of my financial position under a Republican regime. So did everyone else. Republicans no longer have the high-ground when it comes to financial responsibility, so a lot of the educated wealthy will not go back to their Republican-leaning roots due to that.

Basically, Republicans blew up the economy, so why throw a vote to them to rebuild it?

[novamiddleman]

Taxes

Obama outmanueverd the Rs but most democrats are too dumb to replicate the strategy

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

The question I always have with the "What's the matter with Kansas" folks in the Democratic party is "What's the matter with Hollywood?"

Strictly looking at areas based solely on economic status ignores the depth of the political savvy of people in Northern Virginia.

So while I applaud Kenton for the hard work he obviously put into this, I don't know how valuable it really is.

[change]

Mosby,
You lost 30% under republicans??
You never go the memo that the democrats were passing the spending bills for the past few years???

Are you ignorant of politics or just following the “blame Bush” for everything playbook, whose edges are tattered and nobody wants to read anymore??

[Not John S. Mosby]

Change,

No, I and other Dems don't blame Bush 100%. We do blame Republicans 100%, because Bush is really too stupid to have done all of it on it's own.

[wow]

while this is great work - the shear numbers of absentee voters skewes any kind of real line up - In all Precincts and districts absentee voting was up @ least 50% over Webb year. so those voters are not reflected in the actual precinct numbers

[Not Michael Jackson]

I figured I'd shoot over here and comment after watching the comment stream on Kenton's blog.

Thank you Not A Rich Voter,for fulfilling and proving right the stereotype that Dems believe that anyone who voted against Obama is racist, and not focusing on the issues.