Partisan identification in Wake County (house, residential, map of)

[Nelson919]

This is a map of Wake County organized by voter precinct. The shade of each precinct symbolizes the percentage of votes cast for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.
election08 wake county.pdf

It has been suggested that presidential election results are a good indicator of an area's partisan makeup because people are more likely to vote their politics in national elections and less likely to do so in local elections. If that is true, what does this map say about Wake County?

[Francois]

Originally Posted by Nelson919

It has been suggested that presidential election results are a good indicator of an area's partisan makeup because people are more likely to vote their politics in national elections and less likely to do so in local elections.

What is your source for this "it has been suggested..."? I've never heard that.

[tabbcat]

Local elections may be skewed because you may know the candidates personally and don't identify them with a particular party, or because you may feel like it wouldn't do as much harm to vote out-of-party in a local election. Then again, local candidates aren't really publicized nearly as well as the federal candidates, so I'd assume you'd vote your party automatically if you didn't know anything else about the candidate. So I'd assume local would be a better gauge of an area's partisan makeup. Interesting

[CHTransplant]

Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill used to say that "All politics is local."