Today was day-after-elections, as I’m sure you all are aware (if you’re a US reader). And there is a very interesting phenomenon taking place in Georgia. (If you aren’t familiar with Georgia geography and politics, this will probably not be interesting, but read on if you care…)
If you look at this map, you’ll notice some interesting things:
This is the cnn.com graphic for how the Governor’s race broke down between Sonny Perdue (incumbent, R) and Mark Taylor (D). More red indicates higher percentage of Perdue votes and more blue indicates a higher percentage of Taylor votes.
As expected, Fulton, Dekalb, and Clayton counties (Metro ATL) all went for Taylor, although given the demographically diverse nature of north Fulton and south Fulton, it was a close thing. Clarke County (Athens, UGA) and a bunch of the counties around Albany (S.W. Georgia) where Taylor is from also went Democratic.
The most surprising thing to me was that Hancock county, that dark blue spot in the middle right was the highest percentage of Taylor-voters in the state. I have no idea what’s in Hancock county other than the city of Sparta, and why they’re voting for Taylor, who knows. 1,600 odd voters though made for a 75% win! Go Hancock!
Another interesting observation: The more republican you are, the farther north you live (generally). Of course, this also corresponds to caucasian/african-american divides, but if you look at that map, there are some trends visible that seem to follow geologic lines. The line through the middle of the state east-west which has near 50/50 split follows the piedmont/coastal plain fall line and there’s a heavy concentration of republican voters in the mountains. The mountains don’t surprise me, but the fall-line does. Very interesting…
I’ll have to look at other voting indications and get back to y’all…
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