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Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Davidson Village...Last Bastion for Democrats in North Mecklenburg

Stumbled across this analysis a while back and thought it was interesting considering the upcoming election.  Early voting starts this Thursday!!!

Sorting of Communities Contributes to Polarizing Politics - The Party Line Blog

One thing jumped out at me.  In the map at the link, precinct 206 (the Davidson Village area) sits like a spot of Carolina Blue in a Sea of NC State Red at the top of Mecklenburg county.  (Not to offend any Tar Heel fans, I could have used Duke Blue Devil Blue - except even the Davidson Village is no longer that dark a hue - the surprising number of Romney-Ryan signs in town being a small testament to that.)

This precinct is the last holdout for Democrats in the Lake Norman area.  How long it can last that way is anyone's guess, but with Charlotte continuously trying to raise property taxes, I'm guessing a few more Republicans will be fleeing north in the next few years.

Davidson already has slightly more registered Republicans (3008) than Democrats (2866) - a fact that shocks most people who think of Davidson as a typical college town - meaning solidly progressive.  The reality is that Davidson is both.  It's a progressive town with a lot of registered Republicans and conservative Independents.  Incidentally, Unaffiliated voters are the largest group in town - edging out Republicans with 3011 voters as of the MeckBoe.org site on 10/16

As to the "polarizing" effect of self sorting on politics.  Davidson's voting patterns seem to bare that out in microcosm.  Precinct 206 is based much more on New Urbanist planning than the automobile centric Precinct 127.  Those two paradigms attract different people, and it will be interesting to watch that play out in the coming years as the town grows. 

The challenge for Davidson will be to accommodate those two self-sorting lifestyle choices.

One can already see polarzation playing out in the vote totals from the last municipal election.  Looking at the below numbers you can see that some successful candidates relied much more heavily on Precinct 206 rather than attracting a balanced voter base across the entire town.




It will be interesting to see how this plays out in this year's State and Federal elections.

Track Davidson voting patterns during this voting season at www.carolinatransparency.com - Davidson

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