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Examines to what extent political geography can help understand a state's politics, using a geographic statistic to identify regional nodes in four states for 1928-35 and 1988-2000 presidential elections.

AbstractPolitical scientists, historians, pundits, and campaign managers have often sought to understand electoral politics by examining intrastate political geography. But what practical or theoretical contribution can political geography make when we have the powerful tool of survey research? We use a geographic statistic to identify regional nodes in four states, for the 1928–36 and 1988–2000 presidential elections. By weighting county-level election returns for their contribution to the total statewide vote for each party, we find that traditional regional characterizations of these states' politics are altered dramatically. We find that the parties typically compete on the same turf, making clear sectional distinctions harder to draw. Furthermore, over time within three of these four states, the Democratic vote has become more geographically concentrated, while the Republican vote has become more geographically dispersed. These findings have implications for the organization of statewide governing coalitions, the cost of party mobilization efforts, and the study of candidate emergence and success.

Migration is often discussed as one of several factors underlying political change. But the precise kind of political change we should expect in areas of high inmigration is often not specified. In this article, we draw from migration theory in economics & demography to hypothesize that areas with large migrant populations will be more likely to support Republican than Democratic candidates. Because mobility imposes costs that only some can afford to pay, there will be an economic bias in who moves & who stays put. Using the ecological inference maximum likelihood technique developed & advanced by King (1997), we estimate the % of cross-state migrants & natives who vote Democratic in gubernatorial & presidential elections. Our results generally confirm the principal hypothesis, but they also indicate that the propensity for migration to produce partisan change in a location depends not just on the volume of migration, but also on such aspects of the local environment as demand in specific labor market sectors & the political loyalties of the native population. 7 Tables, 55 References. Adapted from the source document.