Is the Democratic Party even losing ground in their hardcore strongholds?
Click for original.
The graph to the right was posted today at a aggregate conservative website that I frequently check for news. The post asked with puzzlement, “What is going on in Colorado and Utah?”, both of which appear to be moving leftward to support the Democratic Party.
I however saw something far more significant in the voting trends nationwide, especially in almost all hardcore Democratic Party strongholds, such as California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and all of New England. I hope you notice it too.
In all these very hardcore blue states, where violence, censorship, and blacklisting against conservatives is routine and pervasive (suggesting leftwing politics dominate), the voting trends have moved to the right since 2020. The trends in both California and Massachusetts are especially stunning, with practically every single county, even in urban areas, shifting to the right. Only one county in these states, in California, showed any leftward trend, but that county shifted less than 1%.
In other words, the left’s violence, censorship, and blacklisting has been doing exactly the opposite of its intended goals. Leftists do this to intimidate and make others agree with them. Instead, their bullying is turning off ordinary people, and causing their votes to shift rightward.
This is merely one data point. Moreover, I was unable to locate the source for the map, so its data should be viewed with some skepticism. Nonetheless, this data fits with other trends, including the election victory of Trump whereby he won all of the so-called battleground states.
It seems ordinary low-information voters nationwide (except in Utah and Colorado) are beginning to notice the bankruptcy of the Democratic Party, and respond at the voting booth appropriately.
Readers!
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For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Click for original.
The graph to the right was posted today at a aggregate conservative website that I frequently check for news. The post asked with puzzlement, “What is going on in Colorado and Utah?”, both of which appear to be moving leftward to support the Democratic Party.
I however saw something far more significant in the voting trends nationwide, especially in almost all hardcore Democratic Party strongholds, such as California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and all of New England. I hope you notice it too.
In all these very hardcore blue states, where violence, censorship, and blacklisting against conservatives is routine and pervasive (suggesting leftwing politics dominate), the voting trends have moved to the right since 2020. The trends in both California and Massachusetts are especially stunning, with practically every single county, even in urban areas, shifting to the right. Only one county in these states, in California, showed any leftward trend, but that county shifted less than 1%.
In other words, the left’s violence, censorship, and blacklisting has been doing exactly the opposite of its intended goals. Leftists do this to intimidate and make others agree with them. Instead, their bullying is turning off ordinary people, and causing their votes to shift rightward.
This is merely one data point. Moreover, I was unable to locate the source for the map, so its data should be viewed with some skepticism. Nonetheless, this data fits with other trends, including the election victory of Trump whereby he won all of the so-called battleground states.
It seems ordinary low-information voters nationwide (except in Utah and Colorado) are beginning to notice the bankruptcy of the Democratic Party, and respond at the voting booth appropriately.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Mark Levin had Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on his show last night. DeSantis spoke of the leftward turn the Florida House has taken of late.
Nothing should be taken for granted. The problem is that the Left has had a stranglehold on the media and academia for so long that even newly converted “conservative strongholds” like Florida (which had been purple) remain vulnerable either to Democrats, or to the Republicans-In-Name-Only moderates that tend to capitulate to them.
Been waiting for the rational electorate (of which I suspect is by far the majority) to finally say enough.. it’s been slowly happening, but needs to cascade.. maybe we’re getting close.
Michigan, for one, is looking quite good!
(I’ve only ever needed Trump to 1) beat HRC, and 2) Keep my State in play! Everything else is gravy. Promises made, promises kept!)
The Detroit, Mi. Metroplex has 3 large Counties that dominate the State, and those historically always went democrat.
However, I’m in one of the few light blue zones in existence in Michigan. Jerrymandered quite a bit but tightened up substantially in 2024.
Michigan, for one, is looking quite good!
(I’ve only ever needed Trump to 1) beat HRC, and 2) Keep my State in play! Everything else is gravy. Promises made, promises kept!)
The Detroit, Mi. Metroplex has 3 large Counties that dominate the State, and those historically always went democrat.
However, I’m in one of the few light blue zones in existence in Michigan. Jerrymandered quite a bit but tightened up substantially in 2024.
I’d love to see this chart extended back to 2016 or 2012. 2020 was an outlier year in many respects, so mapping change from that year is not terribly useful.
“2020 was an outlier year in many respects…”
You misspelled “outright lie”.
wayne,
The three darkest blue Michigan counties on that map are Leelanau, Grand Traverse and Ottawa. I have no idea why they bucked the trend of most of the rest of the state. None are exactly urban powerhouses. The biggest city in Leelanau and Grand Traverse counties is the shared Traverse City which had fewer than 16,000 residents as of 2020. The biggest city in Ottawa county seems to be Holland with less than 36,000. None of these counties hosts a major college or university. Very mysterious.
Though born and raised in the U.P., I recently notched a half-century as a Californian so my familiarity with MI politics has pretty much gone by attrition. As you still live there, perhaps you have a clue as to why these outlier counties are outliers. It sure beats me.
I think it has to do with timing.
What usually happens, is that legacy media will tell a howler –then print a retraction two weeks later just before the classifieds.
Shilling for Biden–ignoring the sundowning…just before seeing him freeze up during the debate—that went out live.
That and in the era of the Internet–there are new rules….a story two days old might as well have been during the Pre-Cambrian.
That’s my take, anyway.
The map of Utah is misleading, those giant counties that are red? Have only a few thousand residents. Mostly desert with no power or infrastructure. We have a huge problem with mail in ballots, the far exceed the registered voters. For most of my life, this was the reddest state in the entire nation.
Also the party’s say all the information is open to the public, 40% is kept hidden. Utah government won’t release it.
We have a governor who was shunned by his own party so to keep his job, he had to do a write in campaign to get on the ballot. (just like mitt Romney who came in third, whom was allowed on the ballot because of the signature campaign that was later deemed illegal) Mitt Romney‘s republican replacement from Utah in the legislature was once the head of the Democrat party here.
The signatures for the governor were forged, entire pages was done in the same handwriting… 12 people have been sent to prison. why has nothing been done? The person counting the votes became the governors “lieutenant governor”
The man picked by the Republican Party to run for governor was not allowed on the ballot, and they found others who had the same name placed on the ballot to confuse people, because you had to physically write his name on the ballot.
Here’s his appeal to President Trump and the Doge team to right the wrong of the recent election. (some of the votes went negative as they were counting them just like in trumps second term that failed… how does the vote count go backwards?) I don’t know if it still works.
https://x.com/phil_lyman/status/1894933671704146009
Jeff Wright,
If all of that usual nonsense still worked – which it no longer generally seems to, given that Trump actually got elected – it is still a generic explanation for what is a very non-generic result. If these particular three counties in Michigan are still uniquely vulnerable to disinformation tactics that have largely ceased to work elsewhere, then why is that so? I’d like to have some idea and I don’t.
Heck, there might even be two separate explanations as there is quite a geographic distance between the adjacent Leelanau-Grand Traverse pair and Ottawa, which is well to the south. They are in separate local media markets to cite one possibly relevant distinction. T’is still a puzzlement.
This is a little deceptive.
The map is basically showing Trumps popularity. It also shows the centers of the left coming out in higher numbers in those areas.
As it always happens after a presidential election the leftist media will have 3 more years to smear the right. Which tends to drift the moderates away from the right.
But the new media, the internet, has a good chance of battling back against the left. It worked for the last election so it could work again. We just need to keep telling the truth. The truth destroys the left. Logic ruins their lives.
I would like to see this very same map after the midterm elections.
I was listening to WBAI, a far left radio station in NYC, on my drive home in the months leading up to the election. They had 2 migrant advocates on the show and were taking calls. Just about every call, people from Brooklyn, Queens, all around the area, was critical of the migrants and the policy to take them in. The host and guests were alternately scolding the callers and expressing bewilderment.
Michigan history videos here-
“The Restless Viking”
Martha & Chuck
https://www.youtube.com/@RestlessViking/videos
“What’s It Like Living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan?
Alexis Dahl
https://youtu.be/qlRFqWI0TD0
12:27
When elections fail to maintain the Left’s hold on things, they follow Mao’s precept: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
Two things about Colorado, and maybe one applies to our good neighbors to the west:
1) altitude. the air is thin. low oxygen. a lot of newcomers. it takes months to adapt, and to make my point a tad more credible, many of the newbies are pinkos from CA or NY. they came to escape what they were in, and brought their politics.
2) the CO GOP is, or until recently was, a dysfunctional club of hack insiders and saboteurs. it wasn’t enough that the king makers had to win, they had to see the others lose. even the good folks in the party were powerless to get the ambitious ones to act like adults. and the result was candidate clowns that _this_ population will never vote for.
There is also an astonishing acceptance of the media smears against the GOP. We have one of the most educated states, and they buy the libels of our local and the national media.
I operate under the assumption that this country is 50/50–which means each administration is walking a knife-edge…overconfidence means you fall and/or get cut.
Dave in Denver observed ” . . . they came to escape what they were in, and brought their politics.”
I have seen this in Oregon and North Carolina, and written about it. Idaho and Montana have the same experience. Outside Vegas and Reno, no one moves to Nevada. Seattle has always been a Liberal enclave, but imported California politics have pushed Portland further Left than it’s historical moderate bent. Maybe there should be a tariff on importing Progressive policy?
My new neighbor family comes from California. Inner city and gang affiliated. They were leaving the gang scene.
Dad and mom are all tatted up. The only place on the fathers body not covered in tattoos is his face.
Moving to the Ohio suburbs was a huge adjustment for them. Sometimes funny.
I was laughing out loud the first time they tried to cut the lawn. I had to show them how to adjust the wheals to keep from dragging the thing on the ground.
They drove but had never done any vehicle maintenance. I eventually taught them how to change the oil and replace the battery.
They turned out to be pretty good people and good neighbors. Never caused trouble or loud noises.
They admitted they were worried about moving to Ohio and the suburbs especially. They didn’t think anyone would be friendly to someone who looked like them.
They turned out to be pretty conservative and voted Trump. They are now moving to Oregon to be with family they say. I will miss them. Other than the old folks around me they are the best neighbors I have ever had.
I guess a few good “normal” people can come from California. These at least didn’t bring any bad politics.
Regarding the Trump tariff policy, people should be aware of a number. $640 billion. That is the combined revenue of Apple and Microsoft in 2024. Another number. 8 of 10. That is, 8 of the top 10 market cap companies in the world are based in the US. The point being, if the US is being ripped off by the trade system, how is it that huge amounts of revenue and wealth end up in the US? The taxes paid by Apple, Google, Meta, … make the welfare state possible. CA has a $300B state budget.
For Trump to be tearing up the trade system is the height of foolishness. Not only is the US a chief beneficiary of the trade system. Messing with the system, provoking China to retaliate is making a recession more likely. And I think a strong case can be made that the US cannot survive a recession. The already excessive budget deficit will increase to $3 trillion. Emergency spending cuts will have to be made. There are many millions of people who cannot pay their rent without the support of the government which will simply run out of money.
( BTW, Grok is awesome. Ask it anything. Get a well informed, to the point answer. Go US capitalist system! )
Just because the US has a huge if not the biggest economy does not mean its not being robbed by other nations import taxes and tariffs. It just means more can be taken from us and our companies.
A big part of the tariffs places like China put on American goods is our agricultural products. Even with huge tariffs on our white rice and soybeans China still buys a huge amount from us. They just can not produce enough for their own people. So all those tariffs actually just raise the prices on their own peoples food.
What food does America import from outside North America, and could we live without it?
Textiles like clothing. I am ok importing from places other than China. Heck shoes might fit and clothing quality might go up.
Chemicals and drugs. The US should be manufacturing our own.
Canada, Mexico and the US should by all logical reasoning have zero tariffs on each others goods. They should be working together to control the whole of the rest of the worlds economy.
If south America wants to tag along they can. They could work on supplying Africa food and goods. All while dropping the costs to their own people for North American made goods.
Food import policy of a country should not be questioned or complained about much. How China goes about making sure it can feed its people is for them to decide.
I was listening on YouTube to a person named Gary out of the UK who made a name for himself as a working class guy who earned a finance degree, became a currency trader and made a lot of money. Now he is aligned with the far left.
He was saying how tariffs were bad because, like the sales tax, it is a tax that everyone pays at the same rate. He was also saying that poor countries like Cambodia and Vietnam need to export cheap manufactured goods to help their people. What I heard was, him speaking for the left and basically saying the West has to accept that it cannot have a domestic manufacturing industry. Which I found very interesting. The left has given up on advocating for the working class to actually be able to do productive work in their own country.
I remember the Reagan 1984 tariff war with Japan.
Japan was HEAVILY tariffing Harley Davidson motorcycles coming into Japan and helping Japanese manufacturers to export their motorcycles into the USA.
Did it help save out steel industry and HD? I do not know but it could not have hurt.
wayne,
Thanks, as always, for the links. Alexis didn’t say where she lives in the UP, but from hints dropped it might be Houghton. Can’t say I’d disagree much with anything she said. The UP is sparsely populated and isolated, but it ain’t exactly Northern Exposure.
That Restless Viking stuff is going to take quite awhile to plow through. A lot of it looks quite intriguing.
On the original subject of why three counties in MI bucked the generally rightward trend of the rest of the state, I think I may have an explanation. Upon further reflection, I note that one thing the Leelanau-Grand Traverse and Ottawa county areas have in common is that both are resort areas that host vacation homes for many lefty suburbanites from the Greater Detroit Metroplex. Michigan is also one of many Dem-controlled states with deliberately long-unscrubbed voter rolls. What we see in these three counties may well be evidence of double voting by big-city lefties. Their lefty votes – in person or by mail – in thinly populated areas of the state would have an outsized effect compared to that in their actual home areas. This needs looking into soonest. I hope DOGE evolves into an organization that can turn over rocks at the state and municipal level as well as the federal and put an end to such things wherever they exist.
pzatchok,
I’m sure we’ll see updates to this map after the midterms.
Nice story about your about-to-move-on new neighbors. Cultural bad habits tend to be amplified when said culture is majority/dominant, but are sometimes extinguishable by cultural dilution. Your neighbors, from what you say, were deliberately diluting themselves into a different culture so motivation also plays a role.
Generally agree with your trade comments. I’m a reformed libertarian on that subject.
International trade is never strictly a matter of economics as the Friedmanites and the Paulists would have us believe. The Left, sadly, has not been alone in pushing ideology to the detriment of the country.
On the matter of food imports to the US, those are mainly fruits and veggies from South and Central America as they have growing seasons that are offset from our own so imports make it possible to have more types of produce year-round. Food imports from elsewhere, especially Europe, tend more to be luxury goods than staples.
Jeff Wright,
With long-term control of legacy media, education, and federal and state bureaucracies, the left has, until recently, at least been able to create an illusion of 50-50 partisanship. But with DOGE busily putting the torch to both the Deep State – the bureaucracy – and the Dark State – the Democrat-built web of government-funded NGOs – as well as the radical lurch leftward in “mainstream” Democrat ideology, I don’t think that illusion can be maintained. Defections to MAGA by long-time Democrat constituencies, already notable in the lead-up to Trump’s re-election, have continued, and perhaps even accelerated, since. The midterms in 2026 should be instructive in all of these regards.
Dave in Denver & Blair Ivey,
There has certainly been some “Californication” of other states due to lefty ex-Callies moving to them. But I think the majority of self-expatriated Callies have been non-lefties who’ve had enough. When these folks move elsewhere, they reinforce whatever the local MAGA/conservative complexion is of their new homegrounds. Overall, I think the net effect, nationally, is favorable even if that is not true in certain specific places.
Steve Richter,
Your experience listening to WBAI is emblematic of the condescension, shaming and “left-splaining” that characterize the American left these days. They are, literally, unable to understand why anyone would oppose their destructive policy nostrums.
Based on your jeremiad about Trump and trade and then your story about “Gary” the lefty currency trader you seem to have a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance. I will put to you a question someone asked recently – “If tariffs are bad, why is it most countries have them and we don’t?”
Free entry of imports was part of a deal the US made with many nations after WW2 as inducement to side with us against the Soviets. It did no great harm to us for a long time because Europe and Japan took time to get back on their feet and the PRC didn’t really get rolling as a manufacturing superpower until after the Soviet collapse. By the 80s, though, American industry was off-shoring and hollowing out in damaging ways and has only reversed in recent years when both Trump and Biden put tariff and non-tariff restrictions on the PRC.
Gary’s notion that the West – the lefty subtext being “the White West” – must yield manufacturing to the needy Third World – the lefty subtext being “virtuous-by-definition People of Color” – is both sub rosa lefty race politics and a sort of lefty Morgenthau Plan to “pastoralize” the White West preparatory to extinguishing it entirely.
Dick Eagleson-
Good stuff!
You’ll like most of the Restless Viking stuff, they do a good job researching.
As you noted– The whole Traverse City area has a lot of retired money & seasonal tourists. That stretch up to Petoskey has a lot of lake-front development and it’s not cheap.
Ottawa County– very similar vibe going on; part seasonal tourism and heavy agriculture. (half the people commute to Kent County to work.)
People in Chicago think Grand Haven is “up north.” I consider Traverse City to be ‘up-north,’ but truth be told, you have to cross the Bridge to be truly “Up North.”
“Making a Run to our Picturesque Canadian Border”
Interstate 75 North, the final miles.
The HighWayMan
https://youtu.be/Xc9NOw1BN2I
4:05
To Pzatchok
I am so thankful you took the time to help your neighbor.
…. wasn’t it P.J. O’Rourke who said that the folks who dressed crazily were the most conventional–and vice versa?
Feynman looked Bohemian–but it was button down Wheeler who came up with geon holes, mass without mass and charge without charge.
Jeff Wright
You might think this family was the oddest people I have befriended in my life but you would be so wrong.
I am 60 years old this year.
I started hanging out in local bars around here when I was 16. Drinking. Not in good bars but in biker bars. Places you would never even let your friends know you went to. I was 17 and watched a man get knifed 5 feet from me and all the rest of the crowd did was toss him out the back door and call the local sheriff who came out and picked him up. It turned out he was a sheriffs deputy. He only needed a few stitches. The blade missed all the good parts inside him.
At 16 I bought a cheap motorcycle and went on poker runs with them.
When I go out with my odd friends today one of the places we go to is a “rainbow” friendly bar. It has a few regulars who I call odd. Two people who dress like classic clowns all the time. Make-up and all. And one guy who cross dresses in dresses. Add in all the alternate people and the place gets a bit odd.
My neighbors tattoos are normal compared to some of my other friends. He is a felon on parole so I could not introduce him to my gun friends. Those people might have scared him.
We used to do things in high school that would have us on the FBI and ATF wanted list today. And the local cops let us do it back then. We edited the Improvised Munitions Hand book. It actually had intentional errors. Fun times.
Regarding the Trump tariff policy, people should be aware of a number. $640 billion. That is the combined revenue of Apple and Microsoft in 2024. Another number. 8 of 10. That is, 8 of the top 10 market cap companies in the world are based in the US. The point being, if the US is being ripped off by the trade system, how is it that huge amounts of revenue and wealth end up in the US? The taxes paid by Apple, Google, Meta, … make the welfare state possible. CA has a $300B state budget.
You act like the welfare state is such a virtue, Steve. And your focus on a few big players reminds me of the policy focus that propped up the Too Big To Fail banks in 2008-2009, at the expense of smaller institutions that might (or might not) provide better and more trustworthy customer service than the well-connected TBTF.
Accumulating dollars means nothing if you can’t make or buy the goods – services too, but they are not enough – to stay fed, clothed, warm, and productive. As I’ve reminded you and others over at Instapundit, comparative advantage ends when the supply chains it depends upon are disrupted.
What Trump is doing, is implementing trade policy that provides insurance against that loss of material, more-than-dollar assets – and also doesn’t sacrifice the ability of smaller firms to compete and prosper along with the “bigs”, by opening up our markets to competitors who don’t return the favor. Not to mention enriching those who would threaten the peace, given an opportunity to do so.
Jeff Wright & pzatchok,
There are “styles” even among people who dress or self-decorate atypically. Brightly-colored hair dye, for example, seems much in vogue at present. A few years hence, it will likely be passe and something else will self-identify the majority of the assertively bohemian. Of ostentatious “rebels,” someone once said, “I see by your uniform that you are a non-conformist.” So it goes.