Geography of the GOP Primary (voters, campaign, Democrats, Republicans)

[tmsterp]

Very interesting blog post by 538 on the geography of the primary race.
In G.O.P. Nomination Race, Geography Has Been Destiny - NYTimes.com

Could it be that opposition to Romney has more likely to do with Geography than Demography?

Some key findings:
-All of the states Santorum won are contiguous. All (read: both) of the states Gingrich has won are contiguous. These are two geographic areas Romney struggles with
-Demographically similar Urban/Suburban counties have produced very different results depending on their location. ie - suburbs of Kansas City are no different demographically than many suburbs of Detroit. Yet Santorum defeated Romney in those Kansas suburbs, yet Romney won the suburbs in Michigan. There's a huge list of data on the blog post.
-Is Romney unpopular with "very conservative" voters? Well, he won them by 45 points in Massachusetts, and 17 points in New Hampshire. Very conservative voters are much fewer in those states, but they do exist.

Of course I can't force anyone to read the post, but I think our discussion will be much better if you take the time to do that. I don't think the implications serve to benefit or hurt any candidate, but I think it's sort of interesting to try to figure out why this race is shaping up the way it is.

[dixiegirl7]

Thanks for posting this. It is very interesting and contains a lot of things to think about. I had noticed the contiguous pattern of Santorum's wins before reading this and had wondered why that would be. Those states have some things in common, but really some of them...not so much. What I would say that is not being taken into account about his wins in those states is that the Romney campaign basically decided to skip most of them, which I have not agreed with. In Iowa, they didnt' even try to start campaigning there until the last month or so when they could see they were actually polling quite well. In TN, they didn't start working that really until the last two weeks. I know in a campaign this exhausting and costly, you can't focus on every state, but I just don't think skipping over states you could possibly win is good.

[nep321]

Romney is so obviously going to be the nominee. Come on. He has by far the most delegates, endorsements and state victories, with no signs of slowing down.

[tmsterp]

I agree that he will be the nominee. I wonder how this weakness/strength discrepancy will effect him in the general election. Below is the 2008 Democratic primary map (purple= Obama, yellow= Hillary)

By looking at this, it seems like Obama's strength within his party lies in the Great Plains region and in the South, the areas that Romney is weak in with his party. Obviously, we are talking about apples and oranges since one election is mostly Democrats and the other is mostly Republicans. But still something to think about.

Could this help Obama carry NC again? Will Mitt Romney win New Hampshire? Mitt Romney is strong in the west, could he win Nevada? Not that an "NC" for "NV+NH" is exactly a trade I would want to make. Will this benefit Obama, Romney, or make no difference? Keep in mind, most of the states that Romney is weak in will go Republican anyway, even if there is low enthusiasm and turnout. If the low Romney-enthusiasm has more to do with geography than demography, it may only have an impact in already deeply red states. And that impact will not change the allocation of electoral votes in those states.