The Weird Politics of the Underdeveloped South

That map of states by human development index score reminded me of something. Remember this New York Times map of voting shifts from 2004 to 2008?



The bluer counties shifted more towards the Democrats in the presidential elections from 2004 to 2008, and red counties shifted more towards the Republicans. The country as a whole shifted about 9.7% more Democratic; but one region stands out for having a lot of counties that actually went more Republican in 2008 - and it sure looks like it correlates pretty strongly with what I described yesterday as the underdeveloped core: the eight states with human development index scores well outside the mainstream for other developed economies. Those states all went for John McCain in 2008, just like they all went for Bush in 2004 and 2000 (though Bill Clinton did pretty well in the region in his two elections). They're not the most Republican states (though Oklahoma's close to the top of that list), but they all seem to be moving towards the Republicans, even as most of the rest of the country moves toward the Democrats.

If anything, this correlation is even more striking when you make the apples-to-apples comparison of state HDI vs. state voting shift from 2004 to 2008.



This shows the voting shift towards the Democrats from 2004 to 2008. The scale is set so that red states shifted less toward the Democrats than the nation as a whole (even though most of them shifted somewhat toward the Democrats) and blue states shifted more toward the Democrats than the nation as a whole. Again, the vote shift in the underdeveloped core was less toward the Democrats than in any other region; five of the 8 states actually shifted toward the Republicans - the only states to do so. Based on Dave Leip's US Election Atlas, here are the states that moved the least toward the Democrats, with their percentage change in the Democratic margin:

1. Arkansas, -10.09
2. Louisiana, -4.12
3. Tennessee, -0.79
4. West Virginia, -0.25
5. Oklahoma, -0.15
6. Massachusetts, +0.65
7. Arizona, +1.99
8. Kentucky, +3.64
9. Alaska, +4.01
10. Alabama, +4.04
11. Mississippi, +6.52

Massachusetts was the home state of the Democrat in 2004, and Arizona and Alaska were the home states of the Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates in 2008. If you take out those three states, the top 8 states that shifted the least toward the Democrats were precisely those eight states that constitute the underdeveloped core. Does that seem like an odd correlation to you? The states that seem to be moving towards the Republicans are exactly those that have the lowest human development index scores.

One possible explanation for this would hold if Republicans were generally increasing their vote share among poorer people: if that were so, it would be most evident in the poorest states. But according to this compilation of exit poll data, that's not the case; lower income voters moved about as much toward the Democrats as the country as a whole.

Other people have explained the relatively strong Republican showing in this region as a phenomenon of Appalachia or the Upland South. But that doesn't account for the pattern of voting shifts in the Deep South. Some moron also argued that the areas of Republican improvement in 2008 should best be conceptualized as those parts of the South where there are few blacks. But that wouldn't account for the fact that Republicans did well relative to 2004 in some states with lots of blacks, like Louisiana and Mississippi, and not as well in some other states with large black populations, like Georgia and North Carolina. The pattern of areas of relative Republican improvement and the states with very low HDI scores makes for a much tidier correlation.

This is a bit hard to figure out. I mean, it's not like the Republicans are avowedly interested in addressing poverty or issues of human development in any direct way. And it's not as if they're popular among lower income people. Yet here they are making inroads in the one region of the country where levels of human development diverge widely from the norms of the developed world. The only explanation I can think of is that, in areas with lower levels of human development, traditionalist values have a firmer hold, and Republican appeals to those values have been paying off in the underdeveloped South. But it still seems odd that such values would swamp material concerns for voters in the one region of the country where the material standard of living really isn't up to snuff.

Mood Map of the United States

Via the Southern Political Report, this map, based on data from a telephone survey performed by the Centers for Disease Control, shows percentages of residents who reported more than 14 days of emotional discomfort, including "stress, depression and problems with emotion" over the prior month.



Appalachia has problems. Kentucky is the saddest state, with 14.4% reporting extended periods of mental discomfort, and a depression belt stretches right through the entire Upland South region from West Virginia to Oklahoma. This corresponds to a region with some of the highest rates of neuroticism, as well as some of the lowest rates of overall well-being.

At the other end of the spectrum, the most content states are Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, and - happiest of all, for utterly inexplicable reasons - Hawaii. All of those states had fewer than 8% report sustained mental distress.

What strikes me about this map is that urban and suburban counties generally seem to rate consistently toward the middle of the mood spectrum throughout different regions of the country (albeit with a few exceptions, like Los Angeles, Detroit and Tampa). But rural areas vary dramatically - the happiest counties are rural areas of the Upper Midwest, and the saddest counties are, again, rural areas of the Upland South. So what accounts for the discrepancy? Well, broadly speaking, National Geographic says this:

Previous studies have linked regional income and education levels to well-being. And in general, people with higher incomes and college degrees report fewer instances of prolonged depression or stress, said study author Matthew Zack, a medical epidemiologist with the CDC.

But that's probably not the whole story, he added.

For example, communities with low [frequent mental distress] levels may have above-average support structures for residents—subsidized health clinics, for example, or job-retraining programs.

"There may be different influences in different communities," Zack said. "Once we find out what the most important ones are, we may be able to develop programs to reduce the levels of mental distress."

So are such support structures much more prevalent in places like the rural Midwest than in Appalachia? And if so, why? And what accounts for some of the intra-regional differences, like the fact that people in the Appalachian counties of Tennessee and North Carolina seem to be happier than their counterparts in Kentucky and Virginia? And why is it that Oklahoma is not just very sad, but appears to taint neighboring regions in other states? Lots of intriguing questions here.

This study will be published in the June 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The 2008 Election and Southern Whites

Two maps:



This one shows how Obama and Clinton did in the primaries. The redder the county, the better Clinton did; the bluer the county, the better Obama did. (Ignore Michigan and Florida; they didn't have real primaries.) You can see Clinton had an obvious region of strength from her home state of NY, down the spine of the Appalachians and through the Ozark states. This region is also known as the Upland South, or Appalachia.



And this one shows the voting shifts from 2004 to 2008. Bluer areas shifted towards the Democrats; redder areas shifted towrds the Republicans.

Notice anything about these two maps? There sure seems to be a strong correlation between the red areas in both of them, huh? In other words, it sure looks like Obama was unpopular in Appalachia. Indeed, that was a common theme in political commentary, during the primaries and right through the aftermath of the general election.

This analysis was wrong, though. It's true Obama underperformed in Appalachia. But another way to characterize Appalachia is as the area of the South which has few blacks. Now consider this map:



It shows the percentage of blacks in every county. And as you can see, they're concentrated in much of the south - much of the south outside Appalachia, that is. Of course, Obama did really well among blacks, boosting both the Democratic percentage of their vote and raising turnout among that demographic. So he actually did comparatively well in parts of the south with large black populations. In the remainder of the south - not so much.

But what the conventional wisdom sometimes missed was that Obama did just as poorly among southern whites in areas with lots of blacks, if not more so. A final map, from dreaminonempty, to drive the point home:



Obama's worst states among whites were Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia (all of which, along with South Carolina, went for Goldwater in 1964, incidentally: the only states besides Goldwater's home state of Arizona to do so). He did slightly better in those states overall, though, thanks to his huge margins among blacks. So Obama didn't have an "Appalachia problem," as some have alleged. He had a southern whites problem. (Though the better way to say it, probably, is that Southern whites had an Obama problem.)

Of course, not every region in the south was so hostile. He actually won Virginia and North Carolina, for instance. These are all areas where the New South has taken hold - areas which are more urbane, cosmopolitan, wealthier and more educated. He didn't win whites in these states, but he did do better among them than he did in the more rural and economically stagnant areas of the south.

It's fair to say that race has something to do with this pattern. But obviously, despite this obstacle (which was limited mostly just to the South), Obama won anyway. And this is progress. What will be interesting to see is what the results will be in 2012. Obama may or may not win, but here's a bet: those areas of the south will not diverge from the rest of the country as much as they did in 2008. They're among the most conservative parts of the US, of course, and I don't expect that to change. But I don't think they'll be quite so divergent. I think four years of an African American president will have an effect in these areas; I think whites will get used to the idea. And in so doing, the country may actually be able to make even more racial progress than was made in electing the first black president in the first place.