Largest Counties By Votes for Biden and Trump, 2020

[Docere]

Boston, remarkably, has more religious nones (33%) than self-identified Catholics (29%) now.

https://www.pewforum.org/religious-l...on-metro-area/

It's closer to the Bay Area than New York and Chicago in this respect.

[Docere]

Not huge, but I wonder what explains the NY/NJ difference. Are NY Italians and NJ Italians really that different? Maybe just statistical noise.

[Handro]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

As a K-12 catholic school kid who's now a Cathnostic, it confuses me too.

But then I was raised in a highly Jesuit-inluenced strain of american catholicism (Jesuits are the SJWs of the catholic church), so I wasn't exposed to as much of the "outlawing abortion is the ONLY thing that matters in the universe" version of american catholicism.






Thanks for finding the numbers.

So not terribly different in IL vs. NY.

But the complete vote split inversion in CA and MA from the others is somewhat head-scratchy to me.

Yes very interesting. My hunch was that it had something to do with level of education or maybe income differing between the states, but that doesn't really bear out according to Pew (I think; I only compared IL, NY, MA, and CA). Other than Catholics in MA having a slightly higher income than their counterparts in NY, IL and CA, the others follow mostly the same trends.

Here you can click a state on the map to see demographic breakdowns of Catholics in that state: https://www.pewforum.org/religious-l...tion/catholic/

EDIT: After looking a little more closely, maybe it can be explained by the fact that Catholics in CA tending to be younger and, as previously mentioned, Catholics in MA tend ot have a higher income. I think I recall seeing higher income households trending toward Biden this cycle. Could just be a couple of statistical anomalies in those states.

EDIT 2: And, duh, the majority of Catholics in CA are Latino, vs white everywhere else. Also, a not-insignificantly higher share of Catholics in MA are women.

Starting to make more sense.

[badrunner]

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-a...onomic-divide/

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by badrunner

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-a...onomic-divide/

Obviously cities generate the vast majority of GDP, but it's mostly a function of what address a head office is located at. A large number of people that fuel that GDP could live in suburbs that can easily go Republican, even if the GDP of their local retail business are miniscule in comparison.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Obviously cities generate the vast majority of GDP, but it's mostly a function of what address a head office is located at. A large number of people that fuel that GDP could live in suburbs that can easily go Republican, even if the GDP of their local retail business are miniscule in comparison.

but look at the suburban counties around the nation's biggest cities like NYC, LA, chicago, DC, bay area, boston, philly, miami, atlanta, detroit, seattle, minneapolis, denver, etc.

the vast majority of them are blue, albeit typically at smaller margins than their respective central city's county, but blue none-the-less.

the biggest exceptions to this pattern appear to be the two texas juggernauts.



trump beat hillary in the burbs last time, but biden won 'em back, which is a large reason why he won the election.

4 long years of trump-style crazy was simply too much for the moderate suburban middle to stomach.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Docere

Not huge, but I wonder what explains the NY/NJ difference. Are NY Italians and NJ Italians really that different? Maybe just statistical noise.

Trump is from New York plus he's loud and obnoxious...like a lot of New Yorkers and a lot of Italians who hang onto 'being Italian' are either blue collar types or Guidos. Or both. They have a Godfather, Goodfellas and/ or the Sopranos poster somewhere around. Catholicism actually plays a minor role. The Vinne-Bag-O-Donuts types aren't a religious bunch.

[BG918]

Originally Posted by JManc

Trump is from New York plus he's loud and obnoxious...like a lot of New Yorkers and a lot of Italians who hang onto 'being Italian' are either blue collar types or Guidos. Or both. They have a Godfather, Goodfellas and/ or the Sopranos poster somewhere around. Catholicism actually plays a minor role. The Vinne-Bag-O-Donuts types aren't a religious bunch.

Like many Hispanic males Italian guido-types identify with Trump's machismo much like the down-on-their-luck uneducated working class and Middle American suburban dads. I know a few bodybuilders here in Denver that also heavily support Trump for this reason, along with their girlfriends. I would imagine that community leaned heavily Republican even in liberal cities across the U.S.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Docere

Somewhat, but New England is practically at West Coast levels in terms of irreligiosity now. I suspect that has an impact on the overall culture.

It's different, from what I've experienced.

You'll get way more Cathnostics or "lower-case catholics" in New England among the "irreligious" than you will in CA, where people's beliefs seem to be more aligned with actual agnosticism or atheism. My whole New England Catholic extended family falls into this group. Now that all the grandparents have passed, there's no one left who takes it seriously, but we all still go to Mass at least a few times a year outside the normal Christmas/Easter services. It's cultural comfort food, nothing less, but also nothing more.

My Cathnostic brother had my niece Baptized and will be sending her to CCD, and I'll likely do the same with mine. Despite me being about as lapsed as even a lower-case cultural catholic can get. It comes with being Irish. There are more pronounced cultural attachments to Old Country traditions among Catholic ethnic groups in the Northeast than on the West Coast, I feel (Hispanics being the exception).

I will say that machismo is something Irish Northeasterners culturally look down on. You bust Sully's balls hard if he starts to act tough. Leave that shit for your short Italian friends. Or guys with small hands.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Shawn

My Cathnostic brother had my niece Baptized and will be sending her to CCD, and I'll likely do the same with mine.

My wife and I are both K-12 catholic school educated cathnostics. But we've both abandoned the church at this point. After the pedo scandals, I just can't be bothered to give that organization any more of my attention.

We went through the motions and got our two kids baptized, to appease their grandparents, but that's the only time they've ever been inside a church.

And they definitely won't be doing any CCD stuff.

My sister and her family are the same.

My parents still go to church from time to time.

They'll be the last of this particular german/irish catholic genetic line.

[Shawn]

Steely, I'm totally with you on not taking my moral ques from a bunch of pedo protectors/enablers. But my wife and I don't mind the idea of offloading some of the Golden Rule-type teachings to the Jesuits and our alma mater's CCD program. It's pretty light stuff, it's Japan. They do Catholicism differently here than down in the Philippines. We can always pull the kids if they come home some Saturday afternoon with Mel Gibson ideas.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Christ, no Catholic (and/or Cathnostic) should get Mel Gibson ideas. I grew up Catholic, haven't attended church in decades, but that's a whole other level of fuckery beyond the normal goofiness of Catholicism.

If the pro-Trump Catholics in Ohio are anything like the people who attend most of the parishes and high schools (provincial, insular) in the Cincinnati area, I'm not surprised he got the majority of the Catholic vote in that state.

[SIGSEGV]

Biden seems to have won every single county in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Hawaii. Trump won every county in Oklahoma and West Virginia.

Biden won all but one county in Vermont and Delaware (Delaware only has 3 counties though...).

Biden also won all but two counties in NH and Connecticut. Trump won all but two counties in Nevada, Nebraska, North Dakota and Kentucky and all but three counties in Utah and Idaho. Of course in a state like Nevada, practically the whole state lives in Clark and Washoe counties so those two counties (or even just Clark) is enough to win the whole state.

[ChiSoxRox]

Speaking of Idaho, Ada County (Boise) was won by Trump, but his 3.9% margin was a third of his 2016 margin. Ada County is tantalizingly close for a county that hasn't voted Democratic since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

[Will O' Wisp]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

but look at the suburban counties around the nation's biggest cities like NYC, LA, chicago, DC, bay area, boston, philly, miami, atlanta, detroit, seattle, minneapolis, denver, etc.

the vast majority of them are blue, albeit typically at smaller margins than their respective central city's county, but blue none-the-less.

the biggest exceptions to this pattern appear to be the two texas juggernauts.



trump beat hillary in the burbs last time, but biden won 'em back, which is a large reason why he won the election.

4 long years of trump-style crazy was simply too much for the moderate suburban middle to stomach.

While it's still too early to say for certain, early statistics seem to indicate relatively few voters have changed their minds since 2016 and the election was driven by increased turnout. Trump kept most of his supporters from his previous electoral victory, plus made further gains with the working class who don't typically vote (including, as has been noted, a good chunk of working class Latinos in Texas and Florida). But those gains were drowned out by an avalanche of new support for Biden from college graduates, young people, and minorities. Also the vast majority of third party voters from 2016 picked a major party candidate this time, probably because they realized the states of this election, and more often than not they tended towards Biden.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by PersonOfInterest

Post the voter turnout numbers. Lots of places had a spike of red after obama.

and...?

Places had spikes of blue after Trump won.

This is usually how American politics work.

[jtown,man]

I read an article that said one county in the Rio Grande Valley went from a 60+ Clinton win to only a 5+ Biden win.

They attributed it to a few interesting factors:
Trump's personality appealed to many Hispanic men
Corona lockdowns had a disproportionate impact on Hispanics.
They didn't feel the same about the "race war" basically. Living in South Texas afford hispanics little opportunity for racism, as it is 80-95% hispanic.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

I read an article that said one county in the Rio Grande Valley went from a 60+ Clinton win to only a 5+ Biden win.

They attributed it to a few interesting factors:
Trump's personality appealed to many Hispanic men
Corona lockdowns had a disproportionate impact on Hispanics.
They didn't feel the same about the "race war" basically. Living in South Texas afford hispanics little opportunity for racism, as it is 80-95% hispanic.

Populist/alt-right Right is on rise in several Latin American countries, regardless race or social class.

The US political analysts are so used to the local racialized politics (White=R), Non-White=D) while ignoring everything happening outside their country, that missed this phenomenon. It seems to me, Hispanics are more and more blended into the US mainstream and their vote pattern will be very similar to the US White.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Populist/alt-right Right is on rise in several Latin American countries, regardless race or social class.

Right, but Latin America, for the most part, doesn't have idealized democratic norms, it has a constant struggle between left- and right-wing populism.

Mexico, right now, has a very popular left-wing populist, especially popular among "brown folks". Notice that Trump and Amlo have been very close, and Amlo is one of the few foreign leaders who hasn't yet congratulated Biden. And the right wing populists in Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, etc. are very popular among the "white folks" and middle-upper classes. It's less the political ideology than the cultural connection. Bolsanero is super popular among the (upper middle class, white, Southern Brazilian) relatives of our Brazilian friends.

I suspect that increased Trump support among working class Mexican Americans is very much tied to their strong support of Amlo, who is supposedly "for the people" (but really a corrupt wanna-be autocrat).

And the U.S. usually misreads all this by putting leaders in Left/Right buckets, when the Left/Right is irrelevant. They're just different sides of the same coin, which is why Leftist Amlo and Rightist Trump are close, while Rightist Pena Nieto was at war with Rightist Trump. Pena Nieto wasn't a populist, and is generally loathed by working class, dark-skinned Mexicans.

[PersonOfInterest]

left/right mean very little with a dictator.