The Not-So-Big Sort

» NYT Mag: Vote Like Thy Neighbor (Bill Galston, Pietro Nivola)

Reading this article serves as my reminder to pick up Bill Bishop's long-anticipated book on political self-segregation. I'm a sceptic of his thesis (you can review the Statesman's archives for some detail on this), but I'm curious enough to see what there may be to the research that's gone into this. For the diehard enough, there's also the Brookings variation that the authors of this article allude to (Part 1, Part II) ... to which, I've only found time to review but a small part of this work.

The question marks I take into this idea is that if you look at some examples in this great state of Texas, there are some curious datapoints that aren't immediately answered by Bishop's theory that we're all moving next door to folks who vote like us.

One, is Dallas County. In reviewing the precinct-level data for the 2006 outcomes, I was a bit surprised at how Democratic the northern part of the county has grown. Part of that culminated in the election of Allen Vaught as State Rep. But you've also seen the Irving/Dallas seat formerly held by Steve Wolens now represented by Rafael Anchia - a sign that the Hispanic migration in the area is now culminating in strength at the ballot box. These showings have yet to migrate all the way north into Collin County, but even if you look at parts of Plano, the pattern is there. Now, there may be something to Bishop's thesis in that the pattern seems geographically continuous. Put another way, a precinct seems more likely to grow Democratic or Republican if it is situated next to a precinct that has a supermajority of same.

Another is Williamson County. The conventional wisdom - as captured by Burka (who else?) - is that this is all due to Austinites moving to the 'burbs and securely packing their "liberal values" with them. I think that's entirely too reductionist to be accepted. Yes, there is some migration of this pattern, and there's no doubt that it accounts for a part of this. But the plural of anecdote isn't data. The drivers for population movement to the suburbs seems to get overlooked in that shorthand. For instance - among the reasons you commonly hear of people that move to the suburbs are the schools. Last I checked, that's a critical role of government ... and one that is presently driving a wedge between GOP activists who disapprove of public education in greater numbers than traditional Democrats. Fort Bend County is another instance of this, albeit one behind the curve witnessed in Williamson. Still ... again, the patterns are relatively contiguous in terms of geography. Sugar Land extends from Missouri City and Houston ... WilCo extends from Austin.

The final question is Travis County. The county that voted for Bush over Gore and Kerry over Bush. There's a part of me that hates to view this trend in terms of county-level data, but it tends to be the most consistent over time. As one who's had recent fun with precinct-level data, it'd be a major pain to try and do a more extensive job ... at least out of this one-man data shop.

So with those questions, there isn't exactly a complete refutation of Bishop's argument. But it's enough in my mind to go in as a skeptic. Brookings covers numerous examples of societal forces that drive polarization - forces that operate relatively independently of geography. I'll be interested to see how that gets incorporated into Bishop's book.

But as one who's looked at Harris County on a precinct-basis from 1990 on, what strikes me about Harris County is that there is what might be categorized as a wave pattern that responds to the political cycle at any given time. For instance, the area that goes up Highway 290 and southwest along 59 are areas I've highlighted in the past as areas that recede and regroup as Democratic precincts. That indicates an inate level of Democratic strength in those areas (which may support Bishop), but it also demonstrates that geography is by no means destiny (and therefore refute Bishop).

ADD-ON: Forgot to add this as a Harris County question. But, on a broader scale, it would be curious to see how Bishop handles the question of Harris County being a one-time Democratic county at the local level (say, 1972-1990), only to flip to a one-party Republican county, and now back to a resurgence as a possible swing back to the Democratic column over the coming few years. I guess, in part, that's no different than the swing precincts that wax and wane red or blue. But the forces that drive this are maybe easier to distill at a county level - migration, immigration, economic growth varying by region, etc ....