Size

The first place to look for the qualities of Democrats and Republicans are the places where they gather in the largest numbers. So let us first look at those counties in which one candidate in the 2000 presidential election prevailed over the other by more than 100,000 total votes.

There are 23 such counties that plumped in favor of Al Gore in the 2000 election. The largest of them all is Los Angeles County, in which Gore bested Bush by over 838,000 votes. This margin is wider than that of the entire country. Los Angeles County contains over 9.8 million persons and Gore prevailed by a ratio of 2:1. This is far from the highest Democratic proportion, but in terms of sheer numbers it is unrivalled. Of course, Los Angeles County, more populous than the entire state of Georgia, is the home of the city of Los Angeles.

In fact, the most conspicuous patterns of the 23 counties which favored Gore by more than 100,000 votes is the presence of a major urban city. The second-place county is Cook County, Illinois, otherwise known as Chicago, where Gore surpassed Bush by 746,005 votes. Next come Kings County and New York County, both within New York City, where Gore won by 400,863 votes and 369,379 votes respectively. The fifth-place county is Philadelphia County home to, you guessed it, Philadelphia, where Gore prevailed by 348,223 votes. Other top contenders are Wayne County, Michigan (Detroit); Queens & Bronx Counties New York (more NYC); Alameda County, California (Oakland); Broward County, Florida (Ft. Lauderdale); Middlesex County, Massachusetts; King County, Washington (Seattle); San Franscisco County, California (SF); Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Cleveland); Prince George's County, Maryland; Washington DC; Santa Clara County, California; Baltimore, Maryland; Essex County, New Jersey; Palm Beach County, Florida; Nassau County, New York; Suffolk County, Massachusetts (Boston); Montgomery County, Maryland; and Multnomah County, Oregon (Portland).

Taken together, these 23 counties were home in 2000 to 44.2 million people, or 15% of the U.S. population.

By contrast, George W. Bush beat Al Gore by a margin of more than 100,000 votes in only 3 counties. The number one Republican vote-producing county in the entire United States is my home region, Orange County, California, where Bush won by 149,480 votes. Orange County, intriguingly is right next to Los Angeles County, and is also enormous, with a population larger than Iowa. As a native of the place, I can safely report that there is a proud mindset of partisan segregation, with county residents referring to the county line with L.A. as "the Orange Curtain." Second place was Tarrant County, Texas with a Bush margin of 113,163 and third-place was Harris County Texas, where Bush won by 110,892 votes. Harris County is home to Houston and Tarrant is home to Fort Worth, Texas.

Looking at this list, then, it is tempting to guess that Democratic preference is a function of size. But this would be a mistake.

Los Angeles County and Cook County are the largest and second-largest counties in the United States. Harris County is number three. The fourth largest is Maricopa County, Arizona (aka Phoenix), where Bush prevailed by 93,000 votes. Fifth is Orange County, sixth San Diego, both of which favored Bush. Seventh, eighth and ninth largest are Kings County, New York; Miami-Dade County, Florida; and Queens County, New York, each of which favored Gore. Rounding out the top ten is Dallas County, Texas, which plumped for Bush.

So, of the ten largest counties in the United States, 50% broke in favor of Gore and 50% in favor of Bush.

Though the differences in these counties may seem intuitively obvious, we will look at them in more detail later, as we pursue stronger correlations between demographics and voting patterns.