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Why Obama Won: Explaining the Patchwork Vote

Patchwork Nation Director Dante Chinni explains voter patterns by community type at the It's A Free Country Super Tuesday party.

How did Obama win? In part, by capitalizing on a powerful set of issues in the Democrats favor in 2012.

11:59 — Why Obama Won

When the many stories of 2012 are written, there should be a special focus paid to the suburban counties Patchwork Nation calls the Monied Burbs. Those counties have become a reliable Democratic constituency in recent elections and, when all the votes are counted, 2012 will likely show just how strongly.

Obama won the election last night because of a Midwestern firewall, but also because of a firewall in the Burbs. At this writing Obama leads in the Monied Burbs by 5 points - as you can see on WNYC's election night map. That’s less than he won them by in 2008, but more than the Democratic candidates won them by in 2000 and 2004. Their leaning toward Democrats seemed to grow more solid when you consider the situation working against the Democratic incumbent this year this year – a long recession, a feeling that the country is on the “wrong track.”

What drove it? We’ll dig into that more in the days and weeks ahead, but sitting here on Election Night two big things:

1) The Monied Burbs are better off than other parts of the country. They recovered from the recession sooner and the booming stock market helped their investments (they are the more heavily invested of all the Patchwork Nation types). So they were a harder sell on the idea that “things had to change.”

2) The more moderate social stances in the Burbs – on issues like gay marriage and abortion – pushed them toward the Democrats on that front as well.

That was a powerful set of issues in the Democrats favor in 2012. See a breakdown of the demographics captured by exit polls below.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;11:05pm &amp;mdash; Three Counties in Ohio&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Patchwork Nation has written a lot about Ohio in recent weeks&amp;mdash;like everyone else. And we&amp;rsquo;ve noted that if you look at the vote in the state closely, there are three counties worth particular attention: Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Those counties are full of white voters, a strength of Mitt Romney&amp;mdash;but also full of manufacturing jobs, a strength for President Obama. It was strength against strength in three counties that have swung heavily between Democrats and Republicans in recent elections. In fact, Ottawa has gone with the winner of the state in every election since 1944.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Well, the results there are in. All three went for Obama. That means one of two things: Mr. Obama is on his way to winning Ohio, or the 2012 presidential race is going to break a long-standing record and prove ideas about county bellwethers in the state to be wrong.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9:30pm &amp;mdash; Turnout in Three Paragraphs&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;In this election, demographics in some sense are destiny. There are sharp divides in how Mitt Romney and Barack Obama do with white voters, a strength for Romney, and how they do with African-Americans and Latinos, strengths for Obama.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The question for both campaigns was going to be what was the makeup of the electorate. In 2008 it was about 74 percent white, 13 percent&amp;nbsp;African-American, and 9 percent Hispanic.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Right now exit polls show the makeup for 2012 was 73 percent white, 13 percent African-American, and 10 percent Hispanic. That is a win for President Obama, and those are the kinds of numbers his campaign wanted to see.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8pm &amp;mdash; As Virginia Turns&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;It&amp;rsquo;s still very early in Virginia. Too early to figure much from who&amp;rsquo;s up and who&amp;rsquo;s down in the numbers&amp;mdash;especially since CNN reports the exit polls there show a dead heat and crucial DC suburbs aren&amp;rsquo;t reporting yet. But there are some interesting, very early notes in the department of turnout.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The western part of the state, which has a more Appalachian feel, is important for Mitt Romney because it is very conservative and reliably Republican. His margins looks fine right now. They are currently up a bit from 2008, as we would expect. But the turnout is not up appreciably in two counties Patchwork Nation is watching out there&amp;mdash;Augusta and Rockingham. It&amp;rsquo;s up a tiny bit in Augusta and down a tiny bit in Rockingham.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;What does that mean? It means that he may not get a big boost out of the numbers in those places. They look essentially on par with 2008.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;That doesn&amp;rsquo;t necessarily mean trouble for Romney. Indeed, if turnout is down in other counties that went more heavily for Obama, it can be good for him. Time will tell.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;But it does seem to indicate that turnout in those far western counties may have been maxed out in 2008.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;12pm&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;As the returns come in tonight, &lt;a href="http://project.wnyc.org/election2012" mce_href="http://project.wnyc.org/election2012"&gt;WNYC will be tracking the results&lt;/a&gt; by traditional state and county measures, but it will also we watching the results through the framework of Patchwork Nation &amp;ndash; a demographic/geographic breakdown of 12 different types of county in America.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Those 12 types run from the densely populated urban counties called the &lt;a href="http://www.patchworknation.org/communities/industrial-metropolis" mce_href="http://www.patchworknation.org/communities/industrial-metropolis"&gt;Industrial Metropolis&lt;/a&gt; (places like four of the five boroughs) to the rural, agricultural counties called &lt;a href="http://www.patchworknation.org/communities/tractor-country" mce_href="http://www.patchworknation.org/communities/tractor-country"&gt;Tractor Country&lt;/a&gt;. You can see them laid out &lt;a href="http://www.patchworknation.org/" mce_href="http://www.patchworknation.org/"&gt;on the map here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The county types were created by taking into account a slew of demographic and economic data &amp;ndash; everything from race and income to occupation and religion and more. And they are a helpful way of looking at underlying forces behind the votes we&amp;rsquo;ll all be watching tonight.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The goal is to show not only who is winning and where they are winning, but how they are winning and why. The Patchwork Nation types offer a useful guide to getting an understanding of those more complicated questions.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;I'll be here all night analyzing the results and commenting on them but some &lt;strong&gt;early keys to look for:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The wealthy, suburban &lt;a href="http://www.patchworknation.org/communities/monied-burbs" mce_href="http://www.patchworknation.org/communities/monied-burbs"&gt;Monied Burb&lt;/a&gt; counties swung heavily to President Obama in 2008. He won those counties by 10 percentage points. If he wins them by anywhere near that margin tonight, he will likely be reelected. Virginia, where the polls close at 7 p.m., has a lot of people who live in the Burbs and will be important to watch.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;Some polling shows Mitt Romney is likely to do well in the rural, less-wealthy counties known as the &lt;a href="http://www.patchworknation.org/communities/service-worker-centers" mce_href="http://www.patchworknation.org/communities/service-worker-centers"&gt;Service Worker Centers&lt;/a&gt;. Pennsylvania and Ohio are full of those kinds of counties and if Romney is going to win either of those states the Service Workers are going to have to perform well for him.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;And the big city Industrial Metropolis counties will be crucial to watch for one reason: turnout. Obama will win those counties by large margins, Democrats do that. But he needs big votes out of those places to offset traditional Republican margins in the smaller rural counties scattered across the battleground states.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Come back at 6 p.m. when the first polls close and we begin filling in the map for what many expect to be a long night.&lt;/p&gt;

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