2101 Election night

Wednesday, November 5, 2008 - 1:10 am

I've been following the election results on network TV and online on CNN. The one state I'm very curious about is Alaska. I'd love to see how that one goes, but their polls didn't even close until ten minutes ago. I'm not going to wait up for them.

Something interesting I noticed. On the CNN website, at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/president/, they show the states in red or blue. You can click on a state and see the counties in that state in red or blue.

The very interesting thing is that in many states, whether it ended up red or blue, the rural counties are almost always red, and the metropolitan counties are almost always blue. Go to the site and click on Pennsylvania, and you'll see a stark example of what I mean. Erie, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Allentown, State College, all blue. The rest of the state, all red.

It would be easy to say "Oh, that's the Black vote" - except that Blacks are still a minority on a county basis. It really does look like city and suburban folk in general went blue, and country folk went red.
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