I've been thinking about this NYT exploration of research into political geography. One pitfall of the "bubble" framing is that it can suggest a kind of symmetry between Rep & Dem areas that doesn't exist. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
For instance, I grew up in rural Bardolph, IL with only 19% Democrats. Now I live in a part of Milwaukee where just 4% of my neighbors are Republican. Both of these are counted as "bubbles" but it's a difference between 1-in-5 and 1-in-25 neighbors belonging to the out-party.
If you're a Democratic from a neighborhood like mine, I think it's good to remember that almost nowhere is as red as your neighborhood is blue. It took me awhile to wrap my head around what this meant for political redistricting. Consider these graphs.
In Wisconsin, the median Rep's neighborhood is more red than median Dem's is blue. BUT many more Dems live in super-blue places than Reps in super-red. Consequently, even randomly drawn legislative districts "waste" more Democratic votes. law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/20…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
quick thread on MFD ambulance response times. MFD is facing real challenges to deliver prompt service. @milwaukeenns has documented the challenges caused by the closing of Station 17 on the south side. milwaukeenns.org/2021/02/05/the… 1/x
Private EMS contractors support MFD by taking care of less critical calls. @compujeramey recently wrote about how the company covering the northwest side has cancelled their contract. 2/x urbanmilwaukee.com/2021/04/28/cit…
As you might guess, response times are higher as a result. The average time between call and MFD ambulance arrival was 7.4 minutes in April 2021, compared to 6.3 minutes in April 2019 and 5.3 in April 2015. 3/x
Is Wisconsin's white working class Trump's base? It's not that simple. Part of the problem is in the term "working class." Often, people say the "working class" is people without a bachelor's degree, but I think any good definition of "working class" has to include income.
This is a crosstab @RonBrownstein often writes about. Trump wins big with non-college white men and ties with their bachelor's degree-having counterparts. Women are much different. Trump loses by 6 with non-college & 20 with college educated. But wait! income matters too...
Here I've divided the pop into rough thirds by family income (RVs skew richer). Trump does best with relatively high earning white men without college degrees. He does much worse with low-income non-college white men.
A short thread on gender, party ID, and the Wisconsin primary. The gender balance of the parties in Wisconsin is different than during recent past presidential elections. A significant number of men have changed their partisanship, shifting from the Democrats to the GOP.
In 2012-16 men split 48% R to 42% D. In 2017-20, 53R/36D. The party ID split of Wisconsin women has not systematically changed. This means that:
(1) The relative size of the Wisconsin Democratic party has shrunk. (2) The Democratic party is now proportionally more female.
Here's the shift.
In 2012-16 we found the state to be 48% Dem and 43% Rep, including independents who leaned to a party.
In 2017-20 we've found a narrower split. Now it's 45% Rep and 44% Dem.
The WI Dem party was 58% female in 2012-16. Since then it has averaged 62% female.