In my previous post, I explained how even though Ohio has traditionally been very close from total votes perspective, when you break down the vote results by region, Ohio is very similar to the US – the relatively few urban areas (I.e. Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus) trend Democratic while the many less populated areas trend Republican.
The results of the Bush/Gore 2000 election held true to form. Gore ran up a 315,145 vote advantage in 16 counties, with the Cleveland (165,000) and Toledo (35,000) metropolitan areas accounting for over half of the total. Bush then won the remaining 72 counties by a net of 480,164 votes with an average win of 6,600 votes in each county. This was enough for Bush to carry Ohio in 2000 by what was then considered a close 165,019 votes. Overall, Bush totaled 2,351,209 votes to Gore's 2,186,190.
With 7.5M registered voters, the turnout in the 2000 election sat at 62%. The registered voters were split fairly evenly, with 3.8M registered voters in “Bush” counties and 3.7M voters in “Gore” counties.
In my next post, we'll take a look at the leadup to the 2004 Bush/Kerry election.
Showing posts with label 2000 Ohio election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2000 Ohio election. Show all posts
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Bush/Gore 2000: An Ohio Primer
Ohio has been a key battleground state in the last several presidential elections. This has caused many outside of the state to refer to the state as a purple state that could go either Republican Red or Democratic Blue. This often leads to the misperception that support for the two parties is uniformly close throughout the state. This is false.
Ohio is made up of 88 counties, and in reality, a county-wide map of Ohio mimics the statewide map of the US. Counties in or near the large metropolitan areas of Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo lean largely Democratic while the numerous rural counties lean Republican. The two notable exceptions are Hamilton county, near Cincinnati, which leans Republican and Athens county, a rural county which is the home of the liberal Ohio University, which leans Democratic.
The strategy for the Democratic party is to run up the vote totals in the few metropolitan counties and then hang on as the rural counties slowly chip away at their cushion. The strategy for the Republicans is basically the opposite.
In my next post, I will review the results of the Bush/Gore 2000 election and show how this strategy manifests itself in the county-by-county vote totals.
Ohio is made up of 88 counties, and in reality, a county-wide map of Ohio mimics the statewide map of the US. Counties in or near the large metropolitan areas of Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo lean largely Democratic while the numerous rural counties lean Republican. The two notable exceptions are Hamilton county, near Cincinnati, which leans Republican and Athens county, a rural county which is the home of the liberal Ohio University, which leans Democratic.
The strategy for the Democratic party is to run up the vote totals in the few metropolitan counties and then hang on as the rural counties slowly chip away at their cushion. The strategy for the Republicans is basically the opposite.
In my next post, I will review the results of the Bush/Gore 2000 election and show how this strategy manifests itself in the county-by-county vote totals.
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