Voting trends shift in metro counties | Denver Post

[Ediacara]

Voting trends shift in metro counties
Once-conservative inner-ring suburbs such as Jefferson and Arapahoe have seen Democrats make gains, while growing outer suburbs like Douglas lean to the GOP.



By Alicia Caldwell
Denver Post Staff Writer

It wasn't so long ago that the political leanings of the counties ringing Denver were easy enough to peg.

Arapahoe and Jefferson were considered Republican bastions while Adams was seen as strongly Democratic.

But in recent years, voter registration patterns have shown some intriguing countertrends.

More at the Denver Post

[NMDemDist2]

1. sweet. is CO in play then? (she asked hopefully) eom

[hlthe2b]

3. Senate election: definitely; Presidential: Probably.....

(but not without lots of work). Our State Dem party leadership has not been strong in years and cronyism with regard to local races has been a real problem. But, I'm hopeful. Denver, Boulder, Aspen have always been Lib strongholds... But, with CO Springs (fundie capital of the world), and the Western Slope (strongly libertarian) and all the influx of Southern (Orange County) Californians to Douglas County, it has been a real challenge. The saddest thing for me was seeing the Repugnants totally take over Fort Collins, an otherwise progressive college town near the Wyoming Border. But, even WY now has a Dem governor. There is hope!

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I note that in EVERY COUNTY for which stats are provided,

whehewr predominantly a R or D county, if the county lost registered voters, the R losses are greater than D losses, and if the county gained voters the D gains are larger than the R gains.

[hlthe2b]

4. Not sure about the losses, though...

Are all these folks afraid to register in fear of being called for jury duty?

[TahitiNut]

5. We can't draw that conclusion from the percentage gains/losses only.

Percentages are often very deceiving when we don't focus on the denominator. Perhaps the most famous deception is the claim that "The top 1% of taxpayers pay 40% of the income taxes." This is a spin intended to cause the listener to make a mental comparison between the "1%" and the "40%" ... as though it's "one apple" vs. "forty apples." It is intentionally deceptive. If, for example, that same "1%" collected 50% of the income, we should easily conclude that they are unfairly under-taxed and grossly overpaid. That's a conclusion that's the opposite of the impression intended. That's why it's propagandistic -- as most half-truths are.

So, how does that apply to the chart? In a specific county, if the number of registered Republicans increases by 10% and the number of registered Democrats increases by 5% we cannot know the actual number of people those increases represent without knowing how many there were to begin with.

In Denver County, for example, the number of Republicans decreased by 11.6% and Democrats decreased by 8.0%. But the number of Democrats in that county is twice as large as the number of Republicans (45.1% v. 22.4%) so, in the actual number of people, the Democrats lost more voters, albeit at a lower rate.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Your argument is true for absolute numbers but not for percentages.

To simplify, suppose Denver Co. has a population of 40 Republicans, 60 Dems & all the Independents have been ridden out of town on a rail.

Now the Dems lose 8% of their total, or 5 people, and the Repugs lose 11% of their total, or 4 people. There remain 91 people total. Of these, 55 are Dems and 36 are Repugs. 60.4% of the new total are Dems and 39.6% are Repugs. Thus the Dems improved their percentage of the total by a whopping 0.4%.

Q.E.D.