More evidence that GOP becoming the rural party

Those who enjoyed my recent column on the Republican Party essentially becoming the nation’s Rural Party – and those who thought my piece was off the mark – will be interested in a story published by theatlanticcities.com, a sister publication of The Atlantic.

Relying upon experts, the writers at Atlantic Cities concluded that geography had a bigger impact on the presidential election than demography. The GOP’s emerging weakness is that most of their support comes from rural areas while the Democrats thrive in densely populated urban areas. So, the number of supporters for the Republicans creates a mismatch, to the party’s detriment.

Bottom line: In U.S. elections, density equals destiny.

In fact, Atlantic Cities found that the density factor can be identified with surprising precision when election results are studied based on geography.

Here’s a portion of the piece:

“As Dave Troy puts it, the key factor in this year's election is even simpler — it's all about density. Troy, a founder of several software companies, recently plotted the county-level election results against population density (see the graph below). His conclusion was striking: ‘98% of the 50 most dense counties voted Obama. 98% of the 50 least dense counties voted for Romney.’

“The graph shows a clear ‘crossover point’ in terms of density where counties turn blue and Democratic, as he explains:

“At about 800 people per square mile, people switch from voting primarily Republican to voting primarily Democratic. Put another way, below 800 people per square mile, there is a 66% chance that you voted Republican. Above 800 people per square mile, there is a 66% chance that you voted Democrat.”

In case you’re wondering, Macomb County’s population density is 1,473 people per square mile. In neighboring Oakland County, the figure is 1,325 people per square mile.