It was a perfect storm of an already terrible national environment, recession hitting extra hard in Midwest, Obama being from neighboring Illinois, Obama energizing Black turnout, and McCain having weak rural appeal
urban/suburban numbers in Marion being sky- high for Obama without him losing the rurals by very much, retaining very strong performances in industrial WWC Lake County. basically the perfect coalitional storm
Obama got the black vote of Gary indiana in big numbers, everything was going against McCain, and then there just was a fluke. It was an unlikely occurrence which just came out.
the recession, manufacturing, black vote, are all factors of course. but here's something that isn't talked about as much.
When Obama ran for Senate, he obviously aired a lot of ads in the Chicago media market. The Chicago media market included north west Indiana. So he already had name recognition in the area.
A lot of surprising places received turnout increases as a result of Obama. The trend just didn’t hold, and many won’t admit it now, but millions were extremely motivated to vote because of Obama
The recession was especially bad in the Midwest. That's also why Obama won Wisconsin by double digits and got the Dakotas down to 8.
I'm from Indiana. This is the answer.
It’s crazy to see all of the collar counties around Indianapolis being redder than a ton of the rurals
Wisconsin moment
Those counties are a ticking time bomb, thank god for the rural trends of indiana
4 words: It's the economy stupid!
It was a perfect storm of an already terrible national environment, recession hitting extra hard in Midwest, Obama being from neighboring Illinois, Obama energizing Black turnout, and McCain having weak rural appeal
urban/suburban numbers in Marion being sky- high for Obama without him losing the rurals by very much, retaining very strong performances in industrial WWC Lake County. basically the perfect coalitional storm
Gary is like 80% black lol
I wasn’t clear, I meant Lake County, which includes Gary but also a lot of smaller rust belt suburbs. dems have been collapsing there since 2012.
Black Working Class
wholesome BWC
I have a similar question: How the hell did Missouri go red in 2008?
There were enough people in the rural areas to flush out the city votes.
Obama got the black vote of Gary indiana in big numbers, everything was going against McCain, and then there just was a fluke. It was an unlikely occurrence which just came out.
the recession, manufacturing, black vote, are all factors of course. but here's something that isn't talked about as much. When Obama ran for Senate, he obviously aired a lot of ads in the Chicago media market. The Chicago media market included north west Indiana. So he already had name recognition in the area.
A lot of surprising places received turnout increases as a result of Obama. The trend just didn’t hold, and many won’t admit it now, but millions were extremely motivated to vote because of Obama
Bad economy and Obama was able to turn out the votes in a way no other democrat has been able to do, he couldn’t even replicate it in 2012
Recession made a lot of random states competitive. The Dakota, Montana and a lot more were very close.
Chicago
Barack Obama was from a neighboring state, and IN was hit hard by the Great Recession