Fairfax County, Kanawha County, and Monroe County
The Washington Post had a fascinating piece this weekend about voting patterns in Fairfax County, Virginia (essentially a suburb of DC) and Kanawha County in rural West Virginia. Fairfax County traditionally voted Republican and now votes Democrat. Kanawha traditionally voted Democrat and now votes Republican. Fairfax is a classic example of how many business conservatives are turning Democrat; Kanawha is an example of how some cultural conservatives who once voted Democrat are now voting Republicans. The former trend is especially strong in areas where the tech-based “new economy” is strong, while the latter is stronger in poorer areas.
This article made me wonder: how much do we see these same trends taking place in Monroe County, with the the eastern suburbs — say Pittsford and Brighton — playing the role of Fairfax, and the western parts of the county playing the role of Kanawha? There are a few differences of course. First of all, the entire state of New York is trending Democratic, so this would be more a matter of some areas trending Democratic more quickly than others. And, obviously, western Monroe County is much better off than West Virginia, while eastern Monroe County is not nearly as wealthy as Fairfax County. But try reading the Rochester Business Journal — a bastion of old school Pittsford-style business conservatism — and comparing it with what you read in the Democrat and Chronicle blogs, which are dominated by westside cultural conservatives. Or take a look at the results from the 2006 midterm elections — Republican Tom Reynolds won Monroe County’s western suburbs (which are part of NY-26) 57% to 43% while Democrat Eric Massa won the county’s southeastern suburbs (which are part of NY-29) by a similar amount.
I’ve often by struck by how out-of-place shrill Republican attacks on gays and immigrants seem for this area. Is their whole point to attract cultural conservatives who might have once voted Democrat? Or are they just how Minarik liked to play?
We’ll get some clue about the answers to these questions when we see how Dinolfo runs her campaign this fall. I suspect we’ll still see a lot of immigrant-bashing.
“Rural” Kanawha County, West Virginia?
‘Scuse me, but Kanawha County is home to Charleston, the state’s largest city and the state capital, too. Not only do they have indoor plumbing and electricity there, they also have a symphony orchestra, museums and libraries. And unlike our town, they even have TWO daily papers with separate editorial philosophies.
Kanawha County only looks “rural” to the same people who think Rochester is some kind of backwater place in the deep woods way north of Manhattan. And we all know how much that kind of geographic illiteracy about OUR state frosts us.
(In reading the WaPo article, I see that it’s not actually about Kanawha County, it’s about Grafton, way on the other end of the state, anyway.)
Sorry — the article switched from Grafton to Kanawha. Actually, this makes the point a little better since it means that it’s probably a bit more like the western suburbs here.
Danged if I can find Kanawha anywhere in the article you linked to - was there a sidebar somewhere I’m not seeing?
I’ve been to Grafton - it’s deep Appalachia. The closest we probably come in this neck of the woods would be parts of Yates County, or maybe down in the areas outside of Wellsville and Olean. A different world, indeed.
Yes, it’s the main county listed in the stats on the sidebar. The median income looked a little higher than I’d expect for rural WV. I guess the fact it’s not in rural WV explains that.
Ah - now I understand: the article is about Grafton, which is in Taylor County, but the sidebar shows data for Kanawha. It’s kind of like an article about Wellsville or Hornell showing data for Monroe County.
The stats for Taylor are more interesting than the ones they used in the sidebar for Kanawha: for Taylor, population went from 13,878 in 1970 to 16,089 in 2000. Median household income was about $27,000 (versus $38,000 for Kanawha County) in 2006, and just under $27,000 (in constant dollars) in 1970. The county went 56-43 for Bush over Kerry in 2004. In 1976, it went for Carter over Reagan, 58-42.
Then Kanawha county is much more demographically similar to Rochester’s western suburbs, in fact. A household income of 27K is drastically lower than that of places like Greece, Chili, Churchville, etc. whereas 38K is lower but not so much lower.