Economy was the number 1 issue for Michigan Republicans and they voted in large numbers for Mr. Romney. Michigan has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the U.S. Huge job losses in manufacturing sector, mainly due to down-turn in Michigan’s auto-industry has voters worried about the future. Romney’s “optimistic” message that he would fight to bring those jobs back to Michigan resonated with voters as opposed to McCain’s “straight talk” message that the lost jobs are never coming back!

Romney vis McCain: Michigan primary vote

Note: Brighter hues = Higher vote count, Darker hues = Lower vote count

This is Romney’s first win (not including his win in the Wyoming primary) and probably saved him from dropping out of the primaries after finishing 2nd, both in Iowa and New Hampshire. McCain and Huckabee finished 2nd and 3rd respectively. With Romney’s win in Michigan, the GOP has no clear cut front runner. Romney got nearly 38.9% votes (~337,700), to McCain’s 29.7% (257,400), followed by Huckabee at 16% (~139,600).

DNC (Democratic National Committee) decided to punish Michigan for violating primary rules by moving forward its primary date. They stripped Michigan of all its delegates for the National convention. As a result, both Obama and Edwards withdrew their names, while Clinton’s name remained on the ballot and she won the primary. According to some, Clinton would have won the primary anyway.

Clinton vis Mr. Uncommitted: Michigan primary vote

Note: Brighter hues = Higher vote count, Darker hues = Lower vote count

Interestingly many who wanted to support either Obama or Edwards voted “Uncommitted”. Clinton won more than 55% vote (~327,300) compared to 40% vote for Mr. “Uncommitted” (~236,900). And much of the “Uncommitted” vote came from African Americans and young voters according to the exit polls. This does not bode well for the Clinton camp, as the Democratic primaries move south where African-Americans are a major constituency. More on this in the future blogs.

In the meanwhile you may want to explore all of the maps shown above at Geocommons. Search with keywords “Michigan” or “Primary” to discover dynamic, interactive maps with zoom-in and pan.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Of the 850,000 or so registered voters, nearly 44% are Independents, 30% registered Republicans and even smaller percentage (26%) are registered Democrats. And since these Indepenedent voters can vote for either a Republican or a Democratic candidate, they are indispensable for candidates from both parties.

The current surge in polls, both for Obama ( ~39% to Clinton’s ~29%) and McCain (~32% to Romney’s ~30%) -who won the primary vote in 2000 against Bush- can be attributed to a limited extent on their increased appeal in their respective parties and could help them to win tomorrow. However, the main reason for these extraordinary poll numbers, especially for Obama are mainly due to Independent voters. Ironically, the more independent voters go to Obama, the less likely it is for McCain to win tomorrow’s vote, which in turn could mean a win for Romney.

Below is a heatmap of spatial distribution of Independent voters across the Granite State from 2004. For an interactive version of the map where you could use pan and zoom functions to navigate the map and explore details of distribution of Democrats and Republican voters, go to Geocommons .

New Hampshire Independent Voters, originally uploaded by rajkulkarni63.

The original data for Year 2004 was compiled by Belgen on Many Eyes website which was then geocoded and rasterized using GeoCommons tools to generate the current heatmap.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Iowa caucuses are just three days away and even with near constant media coverage; huge amount of personal time and campaign money spent by candidates from either party, its not yet clear who may win the Iowa Caucuses. Nearly all the recent polls put the top three democratic candidates in a virtual tie while Romney and Huckabee polling numbers are within statistical margin of error.

The first-in-the-nation Caucus state with a total population of over 2.9 million of whom nearly 83% are white, has 600 thousand registered democrats, 550 thousand registered republicans and over 700 thousand independents, a combined voting age population of over 1.8 million. And yet, less than 5 to 7% of these voters particiate in these caucuses. Such low turn-out is understandble. Unlike primaries, the Caucuse demand substantial amount of time, patience and committment from those who may participate. Add to that, the time when Caucuses take place (7 pm local time), inclement weather conditions with frozen snow on the ground and bitterly cold temperatures, only a tiny minority, between 100 thousand to 135 thousand, may show up for the process of selecting winners. So who are these brave souls who could be the likely Caucus-goers? We at FortiusOne decided to map the spatial dimension of the likely Caucus-goers based on Census population/demographics, NOAA weather forecast and the past attendance records. The estimated distribution of likely Caucus-goers can be viewed on an interactive map .
Pan and zoom-in to explore the distribution at various geographic resolutions. A zoomin view showing distribution around Des Moines and surrounding areas as well as eastern half of Iowa is shown below.

Closeup view of the estiamtes of likely Caucus-goers by voting-districts in Iowa, originally uploaded by rajkulkarni63.

Come back and visit us to see the results of the Iowa Caucus on 3rd January, 2008.

Popularity: 10% [?]