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Have you ever asked yourself why people have such strong aversion to Republicans? Could it just be things the party has done in the recent past and it's general intolerance of anything that isn't white, straight and evangelical protestant?
You choose to identify yourself with that leadership, their statements and stances....why are you surprised when people react to that?
Thank you for proving my point but to answer your questions here goes.
I am not an evangelical protestant, I do not even go to church but I do believe in God and I have researched other religions so I am better educated on them. In fact I have even practiced a few myself. And if people could see beyond me being a Republican, they could see that.
I have much more of a tolerance for things that are different as compaired to some democrats. In fact I pride myself on not following a craze, trend, idea or person(s) because someone tells me to. And for following my own set of rules. But if folks looked past the fact I am a Republican, they would see that.
And if the holier than thou attitude this town/county has taken on, then they would see a lot of the Republicans here do not fit the stereotype. In fact it has been stated by the OC Republican chairperson that if a conservative democrat ran, the party would campaign for them. If people would get past their prejudgements of Republicans, they would see that.
This county has always been strongly democratic and generally I do not give a flying fart in space what people think about me, my beliefs or my opinions. I say what is on my mind and I make zero apologies. But when a county commissioner PUBLICLY STATES that Republicans are not welcomed in their own hometown, that is where I get angry, draw the line and decide to leave the town/county that my family has been in for 300 years.
As I said before, so much for being nonjudgemental but to each his own right?
Also why should a person be silenced just because someone disagrees with their political views? Don't Republicans have just as much right to voice their opinions in Orange County as the Democrats do? Not like I would actually let someone silence me but yeah. And I am not surprised by any reaction towards Republicans in this county, I am use to it.
Now to get back somewhat on topic, while I was in the mountains before the election, it seems as if the outskirts of Boone and Asheville are more conservative. There is also a graphic somewhere out there in the world wide web that breaks down the votes county by county to see what colors turned blue or red. I will see if I can find it for the OP.
Last edited by HillsboroughNative; 11-28-2008 at 12:37 AM..
Now to get back somewhat on topic, while I was in the mountains before the election, it seems as if the outskirts of Boone and Asheville are more conservative. There is also a graphic somewhere out there in the world wide web that breaks down the votes county by county to see what colors turned blue or red. I will see if I can find it for the OP.
I went thru asheville 20+ yrs ago to visit my dads friend in Hendersonville, and I found AVL to be a quiet conservative community. What started the new age movement that brought in the 420 people?
Durham - (Durham) 78.9% Clinton, 18.5% Trump, 2.6% Johnson
Orange - (Chapel Hill/Carrboro) 74% Clinton, 23% Trump, 2.9% Johnson
Mecklenburg - (Charlotte) - 63.3% Clinton, 33.4% Trump, 3.3% Johnson
Wake - (Raleigh/Cary) - 58.4% Clinton, 37.9% Trump, 3.7% Johnson
Guilford - (Greensboro/High Point) - 58.7% Clinton, 38.7% Trump, 2.6% Johnson
Cumberland - (Fayetteville) 56.7% Clinton, 40.7% Trump, 2.6% Johnson
Buncombe - (Asheville) 55.7% Clinton, 41.1% Trump, 3.1% Johnson
Forsyth - (Winston-Salem) 53.6% Clinton, 43.4% Trump, 3% Johnson
Watauga - (Boone) 48.5% Clinton, 47% Trump, 4.5% Johnson
New Hanover - (Wilmington) - 46.2% Clinton, 50.3% Trump, 3.5% Johnson
This is just one election of course, but this pattern has pretty much remained consistent for the past 3 elections. Chapel Hill and Durham are by far the most liberal places in the state, and are some of the most liberal places in the US. These counties have gone blue every election since 1932.
Charlotte is actually quite liberal nowadays (Mecklenburg was a red county back in 2000 and prior), though less so than Chapel Hill and Durham. Since it has a small county all to itself, you can clearly see this.
Raleigh and Greensboro are pretty much the same as Charlotte, however they share larger counties with some of their conservative suburbs (High Point definitely would look red if it had its own county, and Wake Forest and Holly Springs cut into Wake's total), so their counties are a slightly lighter shade of blue, but still pretty solid, 20%.
Winston-Salem has always been more conservative than Greensboro, but has been reliably democratic in recent elections (~10%)
Fayetteville I would guess has a very high minority population in its county, as it has always gone to democrats but it's not known for being a particularly liberal place, as a military town.
Asheville and Boone although they have a crunchy reputation, are nearly canceled out by its conservative suburbs within their counties. In some years Boone's county goes red.
Wilmington has had a republican majority in recent years, although it was a swing county back in 2000. Lots of retirees probably.
Note that this is just how many Democrats vs Republicans there are. To see how liberal those Democrats actually are (and how conservative the Republicans actually are), there are a handful of other things you can look at, like the 2016 primary vote (Asheville, Boone, and Chapel Hill had Bernie majorities, while the major cities all had a Clinton edge), and the Amendment 1 vote (Wake actually was the 3rd strongest to vote against by a decent margin. In my experience the conservatives in Wake tend to be more libertarian leaning, less big on the social issues).
good topic, despite its age of the original post, Vatnos brought it back with a fresh update. I wonder now, nearly 5 months later how people feel and would vote differently. But that's a whole other topic and not really a calm one either.. and not the intent of my comment.
I often wonder when someone says a county or town is more liberal or more conservative, what their parameters are. Without using data, but real life interactions with the local gov, the court system, the community, neighbors, etc. What is it that causes a place to be more tangibly different than another? I have my own theories but I'm curious, due to the unforeseen diverse cross section of social classes & cultures in WNC. It seems to me that if you are a nice person with manners on the roadways and in the supermarket you will be reciprocated the same level of respect. I was at the Riverfest in downtown Wilmington yesterday with some friends, I took a moment to watch just the people. All walks of life, all races, all demographics were there. No arguing, no politics, no division. Good people sharing the desire for a good afternoon of fun activities is what I saw, so when and where do these tangible red or blue sides come to life in the real world? or do they mostly exist in our governments, political views, homes and minds???
side note- I've lived all over the country, mountains, desert, both coasts, several cities and rural spots. I've interacted with all walks of life from the wealthy to the street people. So I'm leaning in from an open-minded point of view.
Durham - (Durham) 78.9% Clinton, 18.5% Trump, 2.6% Johnson
Orange - (Chapel Hill/Carrboro) 74% Clinton, 23% Trump, 2.9% Johnson
Mecklenburg - (Charlotte) - 63.3% Clinton, 33.4% Trump, 3.3% Johnson
Wake - (Raleigh/Cary) - 58.4% Clinton, 37.9% Trump, 3.7% Johnson
Guilford - (Greensboro/High Point) - 58.7% Clinton, 38.7% Trump, 2.6% Johnson
Cumberland - (Fayetteville) 56.7% Clinton, 40.7% Trump, 2.6% Johnson
Buncombe - (Asheville) 55.7% Clinton, 41.1% Trump, 3.1% Johnson
Forsyth - (Winston-Salem) 53.6% Clinton, 43.4% Trump, 3% Johnson
Watauga - (Boone) 48.5% Clinton, 47% Trump, 4.5% Johnson
New Hanover - (Wilmington) - 46.2% Clinton, 50.3% Trump, 3.5% Johnson
This is just one election of course, but this pattern has pretty much remained consistent for the past 3 elections. Chapel Hill and Durham are by far the most liberal places in the state, and are some of the most liberal places in the US. These counties have gone blue every election since 1932.
Charlotte is actually quite liberal nowadays (Mecklenburg was a red county back in 2000 and prior), though less so than Chapel Hill and Durham. Since it has a small county all to itself, you can clearly see this.
Raleigh and Greensboro are pretty much the same as Charlotte, however they share larger counties with some of their conservative suburbs (High Point definitely would look red if it had its own county, and Wake Forest and Holly Springs cut into Wake's total), so their counties are a slightly lighter shade of blue, but still pretty solid, 20%.
Winston-Salem has always been more conservative than Greensboro, but has been reliably democratic in recent elections (~10%)
Fayetteville I would guess has a very high minority population in its county, as it has always gone to democrats but it's not known for being a particularly liberal place, as a military town.
Asheville and Boone although they have a crunchy reputation, are nearly canceled out by its conservative suburbs within their counties. In some years Boone's county goes red.
Wilmington has had a republican majority in recent years, although it was a swing county back in 2000. Lots of retirees probably.
Note that this is just how many Democrats vs Republicans there are. To see how liberal those Democrats actually are (and how conservative the Republicans actually are), there are a handful of other things you can look at, like the 2016 primary vote (Asheville, Boone, and Chapel Hill had Bernie majorities, while the major cities all had a Clinton edge), and the Amendment 1 vote (Wake actually was the 3rd strongest to vote against by a decent margin. In my experience the conservatives in Wake tend to be more libertarian leaning, less big on the social issues).
I think that it's a mistake to presume liberal vs. conservative is measured simply in terms of presidential elections and percentages by county without context. What 2016 showed us is that race really does correlate to voting with white citizens across all age groups having voted for Trump in larger numbers than the general population at a national level. Given this information, one would presume that those counties with larger white populations would have voted for Trump in much higher numbers. If a county bucks trends significantly, I'd say that that is a pretty good indicator that an area is more liberal or conservative than the baseline. This is to say that highly white areas that over-performed national averages for Hillary may be a good indicator as being more liberal. Nationally, Whites were Trump +21pts while Blacks were Hillary +80pts and Hispanics were Hillary +36pts.
Since Wikipedia didn't give me a good comparative baseline for 2010 (or later) data, I fell back to 2000 data for racial distribution within each county. In order from the highest to lowest White percentage, these are the counties' racial distributions from 2000 rounded to the nearest whole number. Before I get hammered, I realize that many of these counties will have seen significant changes to Hispanic and Asian percentages since then and at the expense of the White and Black population.
If I look at all of this in context of whites +21pts Trump nationally, it doesn't look to me that any of these counties are particularly conservative when compared. That said, New Hanover, Forsyth and Cumberland seem to perform more politically conservative relative to their peers within the state and their racial breakdown by percentage.
On the flip side, Orange County performs particularly liberal given its high percentage of white citizens and both Watauga and Buncombe seem to over-perform liberal given their huge white population percentages. While Durham was +60.4 pts Clinton, it's also the county with the smallest percentage of white citizens. Much of that spread can be correlated to race but, like other NC urban counties, it also seems to have over-performed for Hillary. In other words, how much of Durham's Hillary vote can be attributed to being liberal vs. having a large minority population? My guess is that it's a balance of the two. In other words, if Durham County had a higher white population, I wouldn't expect that 60+pts spread.
In the middle, and given the demographics, Wake and Mecklenburg clearly over-performed for Hillary compared to Guilford.
Other correlations are not considered above including religiosity, education level, household incomes, voter participation rates, etc., though I am pretty sure that those correlations also affect voting patterns.
fivethirtyeight had a good article on it after the election regarding income. They concluded that income didn't predict who voted for a particular candidate, but education did. There is a significant swing between HS or less, and graduate degree holders.
good topic, despite its age of the original post, Vatnos brought it back with a fresh update. I wonder now, nearly 5 months later how people feel and would vote differently. But that's a whole other topic and not really a calm one either.. and not the intent of my comment.
I often wonder when someone says a county or town is more liberal or more conservative, what their parameters are. Without using data, but real life interactions with the local gov, the court system, the community, neighbors, etc. What is it that causes a place to be more tangibly different than another? I have my own theories but I'm curious, due to the unforeseen diverse cross section of social classes & cultures in WNC. It seems to me that if you are a nice person with manners on the roadways and in the supermarket you will be reciprocated the same level of respect. I was at the Riverfest in downtown Wilmington yesterday with some friends, I took a moment to watch just the people. All walks of life, all races, all demographics were there. No arguing, no politics, no division. Good people sharing the desire for a good afternoon of fun activities is what I saw, so when and where do these tangible red or blue sides come to life in the real world? or do they mostly exist in our governments, political views, homes and minds???
side note- I've lived all over the country, mountains, desert, both coasts, several cities and rural spots. I've interacted with all walks of life from the wealthy to the street people. So I'm leaning in from an open-minded point of view.
This may not be exactly what the bolded question asks (what causes some places to be more heavily weighted towards one political mindset or another). But I do I have a few theories as to why some areas seem awash in political controversy, while others aren't, which is what was mentioned in the second part of your post:
1. Mistrust within the community combined with a large percentage of the population that feels disenfranchised, not only politically, but left out of the economic and social fabric of the area because they're poorer, less listened to, don't have the clout that the so-called "elite" in the community have.
2. A sudden shift in the political and social composition threatens the political class that has ruled for years and years. Someone mentioned the new age, pothead crowd in Asheville becoming more prominent in what used to be a quiet, more conservative place, to name one example. The established class feels the need to push back and the class gaining support feels the need to evangelize their views to everyone.
3. Somewhat paired with#2 above, and commonly seen in places that attract a clientele that feel the need for activism over their issue, and feel that they are much more enlightened than the "average" person. College towns are n̶o̶t̶o̶r̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ known for this. But sometimes the issue they get so passionate about is much bigger in their minds than it probably is to much of the citizenry, and the citizenry in towns with more regular, working class folks would care even less about some of these esoteric issues that, in reality, probably impact a tiny percentage of the population.
This may not be exactly what the bolded question asks (what causes some places to be more heavily weighted towards one political mindset or another). But I do I have a few theories as to why some areas seem awash in political controversy, while others aren't, which is what was mentioned in the second part of your post:
1. Mistrust within the community combined with a large percentage of the population that feels disenfranchised, not only politically, but left out of the economic and social fabric of the area because they're poorer, less listened to, don't have the clout that the so-called "elite" in the community have.
2. A sudden shift in the political and social composition threatens the political class that has ruled for years and years. Someone mentioned the new age, pothead crowd in Asheville becoming more prominent in what used to be a quiet, more conservative place, to name one example. The established class feels the need to push back and the class gaining support feels the need to evangelize their views to everyone.
3. Somewhat paired with#2 above, and commonly seen in places that attract a clientele that feel the need for activism over their issue, and feel that they are much more enlightened than the "average" person. College towns are n̶o̶t̶o̶r̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ known for this. But sometimes the issue they get so passionate about is much bigger in their minds than it probably is to much of the citizenry, and the citizenry in towns with more regular, working class folks would care even less about some of these esoteric issues that, in reality, probably impact a tiny percentage of the population.
Very good post, agree with last one... some issues are just blown out of proportion by these college kids.
I think that it's a mistake to presume liberal vs. conservative is measured simply in terms of presidential elections and percentages by county without context. What 2016 showed us is that race really does correlate to voting with white citizens across all age groups having voted for Trump in larger numbers than the general population at a national level. Given this information, one would presume that those counties with larger white populations would have voted for Trump in much higher numbers. If a county bucks trends significantly, I'd say that that is a pretty good indicator that an area is more liberal or conservative than the baseline. This is to say that highly white areas that over-performed national averages for Hillary may be a good indicator as being more liberal. Nationally, Whites were Trump +21pts while Blacks were Hillary +80pts and Hispanics were Hillary +36pts.
Since Wikipedia didn't give me a good comparative baseline for 2010 (or later) data, I fell back to 2000 data for racial distribution within each county. In order from the highest to lowest White percentage, these are the counties' racial distributions from 2000 rounded to the nearest whole number. Before I get hammered, I realize that many of these counties will have seen significant changes to Hispanic and Asian percentages since then and at the expense of the White and Black population.
If I look at all of this in context of whites +21pts Trump nationally, it doesn't look to me that any of these counties are particularly conservative when compared. That said, New Hanover, Forsyth and Cumberland seem to perform more politically conservative relative to their peers within the state and their racial breakdown by percentage.
On the flip side, Orange County performs particularly liberal given its high percentage of white citizens and both Watauga and Buncombe seem to over-perform liberal given their huge white population percentages. While Durham was +60.4 pts Clinton, it's also the county with the smallest percentage of white citizens. Much of that spread can be correlated to race but, like other NC urban counties, it also seems to have over-performed for Hillary. In other words, how much of Durham's Hillary vote can be attributed to being liberal vs. having a large minority population? My guess is that it's a balance of the two. In other words, if Durham County had a higher white population, I wouldn't expect that 60+pts spread.
In the middle, and given the demographics, Wake and Mecklenburg clearly over-performed for Hillary compared to Guilford.
Other correlations are not considered above including religiosity, education level, household incomes, voter participation rates, etc., though I am pretty sure that those correlations also affect voting patterns.
I think you would be interested in this article from the 2012 election ( I don't know if there is an updated version from 2016).
If you solely look at the white vote, the three counties that still voted blue in NC were Durham, Orange and Buncombe.
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