One of the first things that I wanted to find out from the election results was the amount of success John McCain had convincing working-class white people to vote against Obama. While McCain obviously didn’t do well enough at this to win the two states it was supposed to win for him (Ohio and Pennsylvania), it’s clear that he had limited success. The four rural, traditionally Democratic counties in southwestern Pennsylvania that voted for John Kerry in 2004 were all carried by McCain, albeit narrowly. At the same time, a number of counties in southeastern Ohio flipped from Democratic to Republican, and all the southwestern Virginia counties that Democrats normally win were won by McCain, although the results in some of them were quite close.
On the other hand, Obama did hold on to enough traditional white Democratic voters to win in other counties, and there were some places where he did better than Kerry. (Without taking away anything from Obama, it would be fascinating to know how much of a role Joe Biden and the Clintons played in this, which is something I'll try to research and write about later.) Cambria County (best known for the city of Johnstown and its flood) narrowly went for Bush in 2004 after decades of voting Democratic, but Obama won it back with just under 50% of the vote. Obama got essentially the same percentage of votes as Kerry in Alleghany County (Pittsburgh), Mahoning County, Ohio (Youngstown), and Belmont County (St. Clairsville), and actually got a higher percentage of the vote in Summit County, which includes Akron. In Kentucky, while Obama didn’t do as well as Kerry did in the traditionally Democratic eastern part of the state, he still won Elliott County by 61%, and did better than McCain in Menifee County, with just over half the vote. In traditionally-Democratic northern Wisconsin, and in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Obama did as well or better than Kerry just about everywhere.
Of course, it's great that Obama won these areas, and that John McCain's campaign tactic didn’t win him any new states. The willingness of so many white people of any political persuasion to vote for Obama is certainly proof that this country has made a lot of progress on race, and Democrats should appreciate all the traditionally Democratic voters that stepped up and helped Obama win. All that said, I think it's even better proof of progress to see more votes for Obama in normally conservative and Republican areas, and this is precisely what happened in many of those areas.
Obama won Chester County, outside of Philadelphia, by about a ten-point margin (making him the first Democrat to win it since the Johnson landslide in 1964), and he won an amazing 43% of the vote in very-Republican Lancaster County. In traditionally Republican Frederick County, Maryland, Dutchess County, New York, and Seminole County, Florida, Obama won about half the vote, and did better than Kerry in all three of those counties. Obama dominated the entire Denver metropolitan area, not only winning the city itself and Adams County, but also suburban Araphaoe, Broomfield, and Jefferson Counties. Even in Orange County, California, known as the ultimate bastion of suburban Republicanism, Obama lost only narrowly, with 48% of the vote, a 9% increase over Kerry’s total.
Best of all, in Virginia, Obama won both of the crucial suburban counties of Loudoun and Prince William with 53% and 57% of the vote respectively, more than making up for his losses in other parts of the state. All these victories or near-victories in normally-Republican counties helped him win all of the above-mentioned states.
(The winnings in Virginia are notable for another reason. Some media outlets, especially the Washington Post and some blogs, can’t get enough of noting how Kerry Lost Virginia and Obama Won Virginia, but the truth is that Obama built on Kerry’s earlier progress. Kerry, after all, got 43% and 46% of the vote in Loudoun and Prince William Counties, more than Clinton or Gore had received in their winning campaigns of earlier years. Kerry’s higher percentage of the votes presaged Obama’s success in much the same way that the victories of Governor Tim Kaine and Senator Jim Webb did. By not reporting this, the Post makes Obama’s victory seem much more random and sudden, instead of being part of a logical progression.)
When I mentioned all of this to my wife, she used the phrase "Obama Republicans." This may very well be an explanation for this phenomenon. Not long before the election, the conservative-leaning Post columnist Anne Applebaum mentioned that she had mixed feelings about Obama, because of his inexperience, but the ugliness of some of the Sarah Palin-led right-wing rallies turned her off so much that she decided to vote for him. It’s well known that the excesses of the 1960's protests turned off many traditional Democratic voters, and led ultimately to the election of Ronald Reagan and the phenomenon of "Reagan Democrats." Could the same thing be happening now, except in the opposite direction? Are the furthest right of the right-wingers turning off independents and the more moderate members of their own party? If you look at the election results, it’s hard to conclude anything else.
(Note that as always, Uselectionatlas.org is my source for election result information.)
UPDATE: One commenter asked what I meant by a "progressive" election; what I meant was an election that proves that the American people want progressive--or what I prefer to call liberal--policies (more government aid to those who need it, more public works spending, universal health care, gun control, etc.) I wouldn't think that would be too hard to figure out, but I guess I didn't make it clear enough; I hope I have now. Also, while I agree that the strong youth vote for Obama is an important story (as another commenter argued), I'm not sure why there isn't room for more than one story about the election. Obama's ability to get a large percentage of young voters AND older, traditionally Democratic white voters helped him win, as did overwhelming minority support.