The Shifting Nation: A Closer Look
On closer examination of the voting pattern shifts, the counties that increased in favor of the Republican Nominee are located in belt across the South, from Appalachia, the southwest tip of Pennsylvania through West Virginia, Tennessee, and Northern Alabama and then West across the border South thorough Arkansas and Okalahoma. Arizona, not within the geographic region of the South, also shifted towards the Republicans, this may be accounted for because of the “home state effect” for John McCain.
The 2008 election clearly enforced a Democratic ascendancy based first in large metropolitan areas, but now extending into suburbia and gaining in traditional racial and ethnic minority areas, urban or rural. The shift of many metropolitan and suburban counties to Obama, including in San Bernardino and San Diego, California, Arapahoe and El Paso of Colorado, Dallas; Texas; Birmingham, Alabama; and Raleigh, North Carolina, were unprecedented shifts. Indeed, Obama captured voters well beyond the traditional urban base of Democrats.