The chart below shows how the two leading Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have been faring in our 10 Regions of US Politics. The figures include all primaries (including Florida and Michigan) and all caucuses that provide county-by-county results. I will be tweaking this as more returns come in (and replacing the Florida and Michigan data with any re-vote that might occur in those states).
Clinton and Obama are pretty close in most of the regions, but Clinton has a big lead in El Norte (the most Latino region), and Obama has a sizable lead in Mega-Chicago (not just because of his home state of Illinois but because of strong showings in places like Columbus, Ohio, and St. Louis, Missouri).
More striking is how different the results are in counties that went in different directions in the 2004 general election. Clinton is cleaning up in counties where George W. Bush improved his vote share by at least 5 points when he ran for re-election. Among states that votes last week, these include Hidalgo, Nueces, and Cameron counties in Texas (all heavily Hispanic, including the city of Brownsville); and Shelby, Darke, and Mercer counties in Ohio (all rural counties near the Indiana border). But Obama is handily winning in counties where Bush lost ground in 2004, long before his national poll numbers began heading toward the 30s. These include the counties for Dallas and Houston in Texas, and for Columbus and Cleveland in Ohio. Perhaps Obama has more appeal where Bush has long been unpopular, and voters are optimistic about winning in November. Meanwhile, Clinton has more appeal where Bush made the most inroads in 2004 — and where there’s fear that the same tactics could help the GOP this fall.
Download 2008Dprimariesbyregion.pdf
| Total vote | Clinton | Obama | Other | Clinton | Obama | Other | ||
| NORTHEAST CORRIDOR | 3,308,496 | 1,653,406 | 1,588,795 | 66,295 | 50.0% | 48.0% | 2.0% | |
| SOUTH COAST | 2,463,349 | 964,646 | 1,264,003 | 234,700 | 39.2% | 51.3% | 9.5% | |
| EL NORTE | 3,319,911 | 1,833,575 | 1,334,280 | 152,056 | 55.2% | 40.2% | 4.6% | |
| UPPER COASTS | 3,274,646 | 1,665,215 | 1,458,841 | 150,590 | 50.9% | 44.5% | 4.6% | |
| CHIPPEWA | 2,368,841 | 1,219,902 | 1,091,676 | 57,263 | 51.5% | 46.1% | 2.4% | |
| COMANCHE | 3,346,513 | 1,604,989 | 1,599,519 | 142,005 | 48.0% | 47.8% | 4.2% | |
| CUMBERLAND | 1,312,321 | 680,379 | 593,499 | 38,443 | 51.8% | 45.2% | 2.9% | |
| MEGA-CHICAGO | 3,513,037 | 1,389,273 | 1,862,636 | 261,128 | 39.5% | 53.0% | 7.4% | |
| SOUTHERN INLAND | 2,944,761 | 1,267,315 | 1,455,380 | 222,066 | 43.0% | 49.4% | 7.5% | |
| FRONTIER | 1,270,197 | 601,490 | 579,441 | 89,266 | 47.4% | 45.6% | 7.0% | |
| US TOTAL | 27,122,072 | 12,880,190 | 12,828,070 | 1,119,548 | 47.5% | 47.3% | 4.1% | |
| >10 point gain for GOP in 2004 | 273,158 | 175,303 | 80,985 | 16,870 | 64.2% | 29.6% | 6.2% | |
| 5-10 point gain for GOP in 2004 | 4,730,893 | 2,693,675 | 1,758,822 | 278,396 | 56.9% | 37.2% | 5.9% | |
| <5 point gain for GOP in 2004 | 16,931,889 | 8,021,015 | 7,985,675 | 925,199 | 47.4% | 47.2% | 5.5% | |
| Loss for GOP in 2004 | 5,184,883 | 1,989,777 | 3,001,771 | 193,335 | 38.4% | 57.9% | 3.7% |