This is just a generalization but why does it usually seem like the coastal states tend to vote more often for democrats? If you look at the maps for the election it looks like Gore has most of New England. IIRC this is usually the case for most presidential elections (at least in my lifetime). The same is usually true for California, Oregon and Washington. According to the latest polls the coastal states are either for Gore or a toss up. Bush has most of the middle states. Is there some reason for this??
I think this is because the coasts are where the larger cities are and cities have a high concentration of democratic constituencies such as ethnic voters, blacks, and single women.
Democrats are generally found in urban areas and the Republicans are in suburban areas.
In California, the Democrats dominate Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Alameda counties (and a few other smaller ones), the Republicans’ strength is in the other counties, which are either suburban (like Orange and Riverside and San Bernardino) or rural.
I’m sitting here watching CNN and they are saying that there seems to be a shift in that. It seems that the suburbs are switching to being Democrats, and the rural areas(which they said were a democratic stronghold) seems to be switching to the Republicans. Fascinating stuff.