Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Presidential Election 2008 Redux #06


FLPRESRACE08
Originally uploaded by Randuwa
I love analyzing this sort of data.

The 6th state in this series is the land of the "hanging chads" from 2000. And like Ohio, Florida is a symbolic victory for the Democratic Party.

This win is rooted in a cornucopia of constituencies. The Hispanic hegemony of Hialeah and southeastern Dade and Broward counties, the Jewish vote in both that region and greater Tampa Bay area; the youth vote in university cities like Gainesville (University of Florida) and Tallahassee (Florida State University). And who's to say how significant the elder-American vote was given the fall of value in retirement plans due to the economic crisis?

The interesting coloration on the map to me is how deeply Republican the northern teir appears to be; but even there, there were notable trends. In both Pensacola and even more especially Jacksonville, the Democratic vote surpressed the Republican margin of victory to the point that the numbers in counties like Gadsden, Allachua, Flagler, Volusia and Monroe made a greater impact on the outcome.

The margin of victory of 2.5% percent or 204,577 votes might not seem all that significant, but by comparison, it's only 12,500 votes less than the ENTIRE voting population of Alaska, dontcha know.

No comments: