A Look at Mason County's Political Spectrum

[XLFD]

A lot of the people I normally associate with are not all that political, nor do they usually look to talk politics unless they're aggrieved somehow by the local and state units of government.  There are two basic exceptions to that, each on the opposite side of the political spectrum. 

The conservative partisan firmly believes his credo rules the area and President Trump can do no wrong, whereas the liberal stalwart goes out of their way to suggest the area leans towards acceptance of all progressive values and that President Trump can do no right.

Both cannot be correct, so I looked at a recent Mlive article that has an interactive map that shows how each Michigan township and city voted for in 2016.  Of course, my liberal friend would likely want me to look at the 2008 and 2012 votes for a better look, but these are not only quite dated, but took place in elections that featured 'moderate' candidates.  In 2016, the choice was between two candidates that polarized the electorate-- few could argue that both candidates expressed core values of their bases on almost all of the issues that mattered. 

No election had offered two such different choices of direction since the 1980s, or featured such vilification of candidates by the opposite party.  The state was practically a dead heat, with Trump eking a victory by the smallest margin ever at 0.23% of the votes cast, which permits us to better determine where their support lies.

Plotting those voting patterns on a graphic that just showed our county, I found some interesting things appearing.  In the map below, the first number denotes the percentage of all votes that Donald Trump received, the second number shows the margin of victory in percentage points over Clinton.  So in Grant Township, 54% of voters chose Trump, 13% less (or 41%) voted for Clinton.  The leftover votes were either for third parties or null ballots.

The far east townships, along with Eden, are remarkably consistent in the percentages.  The far west townships are the only ones where Trump support was less than 59%.  Ludington was Hillary's best showing, getting 43% of the vote.

The four townships in the heart of the county proved Trump's best showing, never getting less than 63% of the vote and winning by at least 30%.  Victory Township had the largest margin of victory (no pun intended), but Custer Township had the least percentage who voted for Clinton at 24%.

Thus it seems in Mason County, the coast is the most liberal (though still dominated by conservatives), the inland townships that border other counties are consistently conservative-leaning, and the core is undeniably a conservative stronghold.  And this isn't that hard to believe since all but one of the county commissioners are Republicans, with most every state and federal congressional seats showing our county going with Republicans over the last few decades with few exceptions.  My liberal friend is a wishful thinker, yet if Trump loses the county in 2020 they would surely see further trends breaking their way.

And even though, as noted, the presidential election of 2016 was a nail-biter, the state map showing the election result differences illustrated that roughly 80-90% of the townships (and even higher percentages of land area) voted Trump.  The almost universal vote for Clinton in areas of Michigan's southeastern urban centers was the only thing keeping the vote from being a landslide victory.  As for whether Donald Trump is always wrong or always right, I think the correct answer lies somewhere in between those two extremes.

[Willy]

Very intresting X. Thanks for posting this topic. It's going to be interesting to see how the 2020 election turns out. I'm one of those who thinks trump is rarely wrong. That may be wishful thinking but compared to past politicians he is a genius.