NEW MEXICO 2008 – County by County - Part I

The West: extremes in geography, demographics and ideology

NEW MEXICO is the eighth in a state-by-state, county-by-county analysis series. The first nine states in the series are the nine Democratic pick-ups from the 2008 General Election. All analyses are published at Google Docs.

Mid-west:

OHIO - Part I, Part II, Part III , raw data / INDIANA - Part I, Part II and Part III, raw data

IOWA – Part I, Part II, Part III, raw data

South:

VIRGINIA – Part I, Part II, Part III, raw data / NORTH CAROLINA – Part I, Part II, Part III, raw data

FLORIDA – Part I, Part II, Part III, raw data

West:

COLORADO – Part I , Part II , Part III , raw data, special 9-county 48-year voting history study

Supplemental to Colorado: DEMOGRAPHIC and ECONOMIC profile of Colorado (p.4, hispanic population)

NEW MEXICO – Part I, Part II, Part III, raw data, special 12 county 48-year voting history study

Supplemental to New Mexico: DEMOGRAPHIC and ECONOMIC profile of New Mexico (p.4, hispanic population)

NEVADA: in progress

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President Obama, who won the state of New Mexico with 56.91% of the popular vote and a sizeable +15.13% landslide margin, is the first Democratic candidate to win the state since 2000 and the second since 1996. His winning percentage and margin:

-were the largest of the nine Democratic pick-ups in 2008.

-were the largest for any candidate since 1984 (Reagan: 59.70%, +20.48% margin).

-were the largest and the first majority win for a Democrat since 1964 (Johnson: 59.22%, +18.98% margin) and

-the second largest for a Democrat since 1936 (FDR: 62.69%, +26.20% margin).

-resulted in a partisan-shift of +15.92%, the 2^nd largest partisan shift of the nine pick-up states in 2008 (after Indiana: +21.71%); it was Obama's 5^th largest partisan-shift overall (behind Vermont, Delaware, Indiana and Hawaii) and is 2.01 times larger than the national partisan shift of +9.73%.

-resulted in a win that was more solid than in a number of „safe“ Democratic states that were not considered in play in 2008 or states that one side claimed were in play but were, statistically speaking, never in play. Here an excerpt from the so-called „everything table“ that I published with the large national GE 2008 analysis in January 2009:

In terms of margin, New Mexico came in right under Oregon and New Jersey, but above Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, as well as above all other pick-ups..

In terms of winning percentage, New Mexico slides one position upwards, now in front of Oregon, but still under New Jersey, both states considered absolutely safe Democratic territory in 2008.

Obama won 18 of 33 New Mexico counties. Of the Democratic pick-up states from 2008, Obama won a numeric majority of counties in New Mexico and Iowa.

The type of extreme county wins in New Mexico is very indicative of the Southwest portion of the US: where Obama won, he won mostly with overwhelming landslides. Where John McCain won, he also won mostly with overwhelming landslides. Only 3 counties in New Mexico were won by less than 9% and only 1 of them was a truly close race (more on these counties in Part II). Conversely, 21 counties were won with with over +20% margins, 8 of those counties were won with over +40% margins!!

In terms of the popular vote, New Mexico has been a near perfect bellwether state since it's inception: aside from 1976, it has gone for the winning candidate every time he has won in the popular vote, including Al Gore's (D) extremely thin +0.06% margin win in 2000, where Gore won in the popular vote, but lost in the electoral college to George W. Bush, Jr. (R). The winning margins in New Mexico, however, have only been representative of the national margin in close and relatively close elections, i.e. 1916, 1960, 2000 and 2004.

From 1988-2004, the state was won with single digit margins. It should be noted that at this time, hispanic immigration into the southeast and mountain west of the US rose dramatically. Between 1990-2005, the hispanic population more than doubled in New Mexico.

Note: In 2000, Al Gore won the national PV but lost the election itself (electoral back-fire), but the margin and partisan-shift still can be counted, since 2000 was still a Democratic popular vote win nationally and in New Mexico.

Here the same table, arranged by winning percent, descending:

And the same table, arranged by winning margin, descending:

Again, the same table, this time arranged by partisan shift, descending:

And finally, the table to measure the partisan shift for the state over the national partisan shift for that year (this is often called „PARTISAN VALUE“):

So, based on the above information, here are the cold, hard facts about Obama's win in New Mexico in 2008:

1.) Obama set a new New Mexico raw vote record for a candidate of any party: 472,422 votes, 95,492 votes more than Bush's record-breaking raw vote from 2004. The Democratic party's jump of 101,480 votes from 2004 to 2008 is also the largest jump in the state's history. The state's growth rate over 2004 was 9,76%, 2.28% above the national 7.48% growth rate. The state did not grow as much as Colorado (12.72%) or Nevada (16.67%).

2.) Obama won with the 4^th largest winning percent and margin, the 3th largest partisan shift and the 5^th largest partisan value in New Mexico's democratic electoral history. This places him in the upper third of the rankings.

And now, county for county...

I took the county-wide data for the entire state for both 2008 and 2004 and plugged it into an excel document, which you can link to here. Subsidiary data for all 33 counties can be found here.

Here the breakdown:

Comparison to the first seven states in the analysis:

And now, the table, in descending order to DEM %:

In the excel document everything is color-coded: red= GOP, blue = DEM, green= OTH. In the case of DEM pick-ups, those counties are also shaded in light-blue.

Here is a table of the number of counties, by party, where there was a percentage loss or gain, a numeric (raw vote) loss or gain and a margin loss or gain (not applicable to the „other“ vote“):

The margin loss or gain is also known as „SWING“. In this case, all of New Mexico swung DEMOCRATIC.

So, the GOP lost ground in 33, 32 or 33 counties. Since the margin is most used for comparative purposes, the number 33 is the most appropriate statistic for the GOP for this state. This alone is statistical proof that the Democratic trend was all-encompassing and state-wide.

All of the counties listed by number above are listed by name in the appendix to this analysis.

Part II is here