Welcome to El Norte

Expanding a bit on the map I mentioned yesterday, here's an interesting conclusion drawn by the author.

El Norte presents the greatest potential for the Democrats to pick up electoral votes.

Of all 10 regions, EL NORTE presents the greatest potential for the Democrats to pick up electoral votes in 2004. It's also the only region carried by Gore that has above-average population growth, meaning that the Democrats can win several states by stepping up get-out-the-vote efforts. Florida is the most obvious target, and Miami-Dade County is where the Democrats are most in need of improvement. Gore won only 53 percent there, compared with 67 percent in next-door Broward County. One could make the case that Elian Gonzalez, the young refugee whom the US government sent back to his father in Cuba, cost Gore the election, since the only two congressional districts in Florida where he ran significantly behind Clinton's 1996 percentages included heavily Cuban-American sections of Miami. Still, the county is by no means predictably conservative. In 2002, a referendum proposal to reduce class sizes in Florida passed Miami-Dade with 68 percent, compared with only 52 percent statewide. The Democrats probably can't win Florida without also paying attention to the Southern Lowlands region (see below), but strengthening its base among the state's fast-growing Latino population is a good long-term strategy.

In the west, Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada, are all split between the El Norte and Sagebrush regions, and every one went for Bush by 50 or 51 percent in the last election, putting them within reach for the Democratic nominee. In Arizona, the Democrats must hope for a near-draw in Sagebrush's mammoth Maricopa County (which includes Phoenix and its suburbs) so that El Norte's smaller but much more Democratic Pima County (which includes Tucson) can break the tie.

Similarly, in Colorado the Democrats must hope for a split in Sagebrush's suburban Arapahoe County (home of Littleton, site of the Columbine massacre) so that their margins in El Norte's Denver and Boulder aren't wiped out even before the returns from the state's rural areas come in. As for Nevada, it's all about Las Vegas's Clark County; it's the only county that falls in the El Norte region, but it casts more than 60 percent of the state's votes. Indeed, the Democrats haven't won a majority in any other Nevada county since 1976, so the odds are against them unless their nominee improves on Gore's weak 51 percent there.