Thread by @JedKolko

A short thread on the "urban" vote in the Democratic primary.

Start with this: Biden leads in the popular vote everywhere EXCEPT the urban (central) counties of large metros.

hiringlab.org/2020/03/04/pri…

1/

Seen another way: relative to all other candidates, Biden's vote skews LEAST urban. Here's the correlation of each candidate's share with population density, at the county level

Sanders 0.46
Warren 0.45
Buttigieg 0.02
Bloomberg 0.00
Klobuchar -0.14
Biden -0.34

2/

Note: those correlations include only states where the candidate competed; are weighted by total county vote; and use tract-weighted county density (of course!).

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Some have pointed out to me on Twitter that people might be saying Biden won the "urban" vote because he did so well with African-Americans and "urban" is sometimes used as a euphemism for African-American or Black.

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So it's worth pointing out that the Hispanic and Asian populations in the US are more urban than the African-American population is -- based on correlations between race/ethnic shares and population density at the county level.

5/

In fact: among states that have voted so far, the correlation between African-American share and county density is ever so slightly negative.

That's how Biden's strongest support can be African-American -- and at the same time less urban than all the other candidates.

6/end

Follow-up:

The correlation btn African-American population share & county density is high in Northeast & Midwest, medium-high in the West, and lowest in the South.

Also, the African-American share is highest in the South, America’s lowest-density region (tract weighted!).