Perhaps it's become tiresome to argue because it's flawed?
Do the math and look at data comparing Raleigh (Wake) with Richmond and its two surrounding counties and look at the pattern unfolding in the vote. Given that Wake is massive in population compared to anything in the Richmond area, I am also including next-door Durham for a more apples to apples population comparison. FWIW, the NC counties don't have McMullen or Stein in the numbers.
Wake County, NC (1,024,198 people) and 68.7% White alone voted Clinton 58.4% to Trump's 37.9%
Chesterfield County, VA (335,687 people) and 69.4% White alone voted Trump 48.5% to Clinton's 46.2%
Durham County, NC (300,952 people) and 53.1% White alone voted Clinton 78.9% to Trump's 18.5%
Henrico County, VA (325,155 people) and 58.9% White alone voted Clinton 57.8% to Trump's 36.8%
Richmond City, VA (220,289 people) and 45.1% White alone voted Clinton 78.8% to Trump's 15%
Takeaways:
- Raleigh's massive county filled with suburbs around its core city is more white than Henrico by almost 10 percentage points yet it outperformed Henrico's Clinton numbers.
- Durham County and Richmond City had almost the exact Clinton support despite the fact that Durham County White only population is 8 points higher than Richmond's.
- Wake and Chesterfield are demographically similar in White alone population yet Wake went for Clinton by over 20 points while she lost to Trump by 2 in Chesterfield.
In the end, you cannot carve out a small urban part of a metro and hold it up for comparison while ignoring parts of the metro immediately around it.
Neither Metro Richmond nor NC's Triangle are conservative places. Both are progressive. My point is that one cannot just claim that Richmond is more akin to the NE and use voting numbers to hammer the point home when the data doesn't tell the story about how Richmond is actually that different from a metro to its south.
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