Yard Signs and the Hillary Vote

Original Musings did a tongue-in-cheek poll by counting yard signs in her subdivision and determined John McCain was going to win the election.

There are about 300 homes in our subdivision — Summerfield — and, as of Thursday night, precisely 25 have put up yard signs for the upcoming election. Presumably the other 275-ish are voting, they’re just not comfortable openly stating their allegiance.

Of the 25 yards with signs …

* 19 have McCain signs (all of which are McCain/Palin)
* 6 have Obama signs (two of which are Obama/Biden, the rest Obama alone)

This got me to thinking a little bit more about yard signs and what they may or may not indicate.

Let's take the example above. The Summerfield subdivision is in Beavercreek, OH, just outside of Dayton, which is in Greene County. Green county leans Republican (Bush beat Kerry by over 17,000 votes and a margin of 61% TO 39%) and this particular area of Green county leans slightly more (65% to 34%) so it's no surprise that there are more McCain signs than Obama signs. What is interesting is the ratio of McCain signs to Obama signs, which is higher than you would expect.

The results of the Ohio primary may provide some insight. Clinton won this precinct over Obama by 51% to 47%. By comparison McCain got 51% of this precinct and 35% went for Huckabee.

Is it a coincidence that the Democratic signs are for "Obama" and the Republican signs are for "McCain/Palin"? I don't think so.

It looks to me like Palin is attracting some Hillary votes while solidifying those Huckabee voters as well. If this is the case, Obama could have a bigger hurdle to get over in Ohio than he expects.

With that said, this precinct shows the same trend as I am seeing throughout Ohio. Small increases in voter registrations which are leaning slightly more Democratic than you would expect based on their precinct/county makeup. There were 72 new voters registered in 2008 in this precinct, 10 Democrats, 11 Republicans, and 51 undeclared.