Looking at a county map it looks like a devastating loss for Clinton here in Oregon. Sanders nearly swept the counties, currently leading in 35 of 36, and only trailing in Gilliam County by 1 vote at the moment. Gilliam is one of the least populous in the state, and being Republican leaning, currently the vote count is only 101 to 100. She won 14 counties in 2008. How could she do so much worse this year?
Well she’s actually doing better than she did in 2008 overall. While she won 14 rural counties, mostly Republican-leaning ones, in 2008, she was creamed by then-Senator Obama in the most populous urban counties, and the small counties with disproportionately more Democrats like Benton and Hood River. In nearly all of the big, populous and urban counties she did better this year, despite still losing them. As well, while it looks like Clinton will finish with a similar number of votes as she did in 2008, Sanders is trailing the number of votes Barack Obama receeived in 2008, so overall her share of the primary vote will end up higher than what she had in 2008. In 2008 she lost 40.5-58.5%, but right now it looks like she’s losing by less, about 42.5-55.9%.
With fewer votes counted so far than were cast in 2008, she’s at over 101% of the vote total she got in 2008, with over 263,000 this year compared to just under 260,000 in 2008, while Sanders is at about 92% of Barack Obama’s vote total in 2008, at under 346,000 compared to over 375,000 in 2008.
Using the vote as of 5:24pm, May 20th, we can see Clinton has done better in most of the big urban counties this year than she did 8 years ago.
County |
2016 votes |
HRC 08 |
Obama |
HRC 16 |
Sanders |
Oregon's most populous counties
Multnomah |
186,000 |
34.1% |
65.9% |
40.9% |
59.1% |
Washington |
82,000 |
40.6% |
59.4% |
46% |
54% |
Clackamas |
57,000 |
45.6% |
54.4% |
48.2% |
51.8% |
Lane |
71,000 |
37.1% |
62.9% |
38.9% |
61.1% |
Marion |
34,000 |
45.7% |
54.3% |
45.2% |
54.8% |
Jackson |
24,000 |
39.7% |
60.3% |
46.5% |
53.5% |
Deschutes |
24,000 |
38.7% |
61.3% |
46.7% |
53.3% |
In all but Marion County, home of the state capitol, she exceeded her 2008 performance. This matters, because that’s where most of the voters are. About 29% of the primary vote came from Multnomah County alone, more than 13% from Washington County, and over 9% from Clackamas County, so about half of the total vote came from those three counties that are the core of the Portland metro area. Lane County, with nearly 12% of the statewide primary vote, is the only other county with more than 10% of the statewide vote. Jackson and Deschutes counties both have just under 4% of the statewide primary vote, while Marion, the only county of these where she did worse than her 2008 performance, has less than 6%.
Looking at the smaller Democratic-leaning counties, we see that Sanders started doing better than Obama in more rural counties, while Clinton did significantly better in more urban Benton County, where most of the population lives in Corvallis.
County |
2016 votes |
HRC 08 |
Obama |
HRC 16 |
Sanders |
Smaller Democratic counties
Benton |
19,000 |
30.4% |
69.6% |
38.8% |
61.2% |
Lincoln |
8,900 |
46.3% |
53.7% |
46.3% |
53.7% |
Columbia |
7,500 |
52.6% |
47.4% |
41.9% |
58.1% |
Clatsop |
6,200 |
46.2% |
53.8% |
43.8% |
56.2% |
Tillamook |
4,200 |
50.3% |
49.7% |
46.2% |
53.8% |
Hood River |
4,200 |
39.4% |
60.6% |
39.3% |
60.7% |
None of these counties had even 3% of the statewide primary vote, though. Looking at the smaller, Republican-leaning counties, Clinton only did better in a few counties, while she did worse in the vast majority. Surprisingly Polk County, which has a little of Salem and also Monmouth, a college town, she did a little bit better in, losing by about 9 instead of 11 points in. She did about a point better in Curry County, the southernmost county on the Coast. She also apparently flipped tiny Gilliam County in Eastern Oregon. Sanders flipped all of her counties, though, and did better in the rest than Obama had in 2008.
Looking at these county-level numbers it is apparent that Clinton did better in urban and suburban areas than she did in 2008, but did worse in more small town and rural areas. I would attribute it to her doing much better among middle and upper income voters than she did in 2008, as they had voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama then, but were more evenly divided this year. At the same time she lost many rural voters, likely ‘back to nature’ old hippies, other anti-establishment Democrats who feel unappreciated and forgotten out in the boonies, where the economic recovery has still barely reached, and conservative Democrats who only voted for Clinton in 2008 because they didn’t want to vote for Obama (similar to those who overwhelmingly won her Kentucky and West Virginia in 2008).
It should be little surprise that with Oregon not being a terribly diverse state, other factors like urban/rural and income level would seem more decisive for the outcome than race. Sanders did much better than Obama had in rural counties whether they were nearly all white, like Columbia and Sherman, or if they had large Hispanic/Latino populations like Morrow and Malheur. He even did better in Marion County, one of the more urban counties with a relatively large Hispanic/Latino population. Still Oregon’s urban/suburban areas tend to be more diverse than the rural areas, and Clinton did much better in most of the urban/suburban areas this time compared to 2008. Although I am sure that the general trends in support for the candidates held up among voters, it is also od that Sanders did much better than Obama had in older counties while Clinton’s improvements were often in areas with large numbers of younger voters.
On the other hand in many rural counties there were far fewer votes cast in this year’s primary. In 2008 Clinton lost Gilliam County with 148 votes, this year she apparently won it with only 101. Malheur County cast more than 1,800 primary votes in 2008, but fewer than 1,300 this year. Union County cast 1,000 fewer votes this year, Umatilla about 1,400 fewer, Klamath County about 1,300 fewer, and Crook County dropped by about a third from abut 2,700 to 1,800 votes. Meanwhile Multnomah County cast about 168,000 votes in the 2008 primary, but more than 186,000 have been counted so far this year. Clinton did better in urban areas and they cast more votes, Sanders did better in rural areas which cast fewer votes. Overall Clinton did better than she did in 2008.