Author Institution: University of AkronA comprehensive, city-wide analysis, based on electoral precincts, was done for the City of Akron concerning the Presidential election of 1976. By superimposing a voting pattern map showing precinct votes, on a census data map showing socioeconomic data by census tracts, certain observations were made concerning the Presidential election in Akron. Black voters and lower income groups overwhelmingly supported Carter, higher income groups and college educated voters tended notably to support Ford, and middle income groups supplied the swing votes. The election of 1976 could be called both a maintaining and a deviating type of election in which the majority party, the Democrats, elected a President largely because numerous lifelong Democrats were bolstered by overwhelming percentages of black voters who voted for their party. There are also indications of white voter deviation, particularly among middle and upper income groups

Dutt, Ashok K.

Kendrick, Frank J.

Nash, Thomas

The Ohio Journal of Science

KnowledgeBank at OSU

Copyright © 1979 Ohio Acad. Sci. 0030-0950/79/0003-0120$! .50/0AREAL VARIATION IN THE 1976 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE:A CASE STUDY OF AKRON1ASHOK K. DUTT, FRANK J. KENDRICK, and THOMAS NASH, University of Akron, Akron,OH 44325Abstract. A comprehensive, city-wide analysis, based on electoral precincts, was donefor the City of Akron concerning the Presidential election of 1976. By superimposinga voting pattern map showing precinct votes, on a census data map showing socio-economic data by census tracts, certain observations were made concerning the Presi-dential election in Akron. Black voters and lower income groups overwhelmingly sup-ported Carter, higher income groups and college educated voters tended notably tosupport Ford, and middle income groups supplied the "swing" votes. The electionof 1976 could be called both a maintaining and a deviating type of election in whichthe majority party, the Democrats, elected a President largely because numerous life-long Democrats were bolstered by overwhelming percentages of black voters whovoted for their party. There are also indications of white voter deviation, particularlyamong middle and upper income groups.OHIO J. SCI. 79(3): 120, 1979There have been several limited effortsto analyze voting behavior with regard tolocal elections in such cities as LosAngeles, (McPhail 1971), Seattle, (Het-rickand Calkins 1972), and Christchurch,(Johnston 1974). McPhail divided LosAngeles into numerous statistical divi-sions much larger than precincts and col-lapsed the election results and socio-economic data into those units to applyfactor analysis. Hetrick and Calkinscombined precincts into precinct-groupsto tally with census statistical areas inSeattle. Their precinct groups were ag-gregated to form 88 analysis zones, andvoting patterns were then correlatedwith socio-economic status. Johnstonstudied the information flow effect andthe local flow effect insofar as they re-lated to a city election in Christchurch.He then applied "R" and "Q" modeanalyses and established a correlation ofpolling booth location with local effect.We have analyzed on a precinct basis anational Presidential election's spatialpattern as it related to a mid-sized, mid-American city, Akron, Ohio (fig. 1).xManuscript received 5 December 1977 andin revised form 18 October 1978 (#77-89).The 1976 Presidential election shouldbe viewed from at least two perspectives:1. It might be considered a "typi-cal" kind of election, similar to thoseof 1968, 1960, 1956, and 1948, in thatit did not demonstrate the extra-ordinary characteristics of either theJohnson landslide of 1964 or theMcGovern debacle of 1971. 2. the1976 election might be considered"atypical" because there is evidencethat the winning candidate failed toattract as much support from white,middle-class voters as appears tohave been the case with other so-called "typical" elections.To speak of the 1976 election as more orless representative of the American elec-toral scene depends upon how the re-sults are interpreted. An analysis ofelection results as they relate to cityspace in Akron, Ohio, should help us todecide which of these viewpoints is gen-erally correct.Angus Cambell has classified electionsas "maintaining, deviating, and realign-ing," (Campbell 1967). The deviatingelection is one in which a defeat of themajority party occurs, although voters'120Ohio J. Sci. AKRON 1976 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE 121GENERALIZED LAND USE - 1975 CARTER VOTERS - 1976AKRONFIGURE 1. Generalized land use map of Akron.FIGURE 2. Carter votes in the city of Akron: Presidential Election 1976.Figure 222-3737-53party loyalties are not permanently dis-turbed. The realigning election is onethat results in major, permanent changesof party loyalty and sometimes occurs ininstances of severe or unusual nationalcrisis (the "Depression" had a profoundeffect on the election of 1932). The"maintaining election" is one in which themajority party is elected, and votersgenerally express their lifelong, partisanloyalties. For the most part, the 1976election may be viewed as both a typicaland maintaining one in that the majorityparty was returned to the Presidency,and many voters voted according totheir regular party loyalties. On theother hand, the 1976 election indicated acertain amount of "deviation" fromregular Democratic Party loyalties on thepart of large numbers of white voters.Our study demonstrated that at leasttwo of the views discussed above mightbe considered to be partially valid assess-ments of the 1976 Presidential election.Three factors have been taken intoconsideration in order to assess PresidentCarter's votes in Akron—distribution ofblack population; distribution of incomegroups; and distribution of college grad-uates. A National Broadcasting Co.election-day street poll, based on 16,000interviews of voters across the nation, in-dicated that Carter was "to some degreesuccessful in rebuilding the New Dealdemocratic coalition." (National Broad-casting Co. 1976). Carter attractedsome 85% of regular, Democratic voters,about two-thirds of labor union members,a high proportion of lower income voters,and relatively large numbers of the lesseducated. Moreover, Carter did verywell in urban areas an in the Southwhere minority group voters may havegiven him the election. An ABC/Harrispoll analysis of some 300 key precincts inthe country demonstrated that Carterdrew heavily from minority group voters(specifically, 84% of black voters and72% of Latino voters). Thus, "JimmyCarter won his majority . . . by the over-whelming support given him by blackAmericans" (Hess 1976). In fact, FordPercentage of Population122 A. K. DUTT, ET AL Vol. 79actually won a majority of white votersnationwide, even though Carter collectedsome 61% of big city votes. By con-sidering the factors of race, income, andeducation, our paper will compare theabove poll results with the findings inAkron.CARTOGRAPHIC METHODOLOGYA logical and useful way to organize data isto aggregate subunits into larger units andthese, in turn, into still larger units (A's toform B's to form C's, and so on). This conceptassures that when one has accounted for agiven unit, one has also automatically ac-counted for all sub-units which are componentparts of it, in that no area is left out and nounit is counted more than once). Such a sys-tem assures that when an individual refers to agiven area, such as tract X in county Y, otherscan independently identify the area specified.In this study of voting patterns such competinghierarchies did not exist in data organization.The basic areal data for voting in the city ofAkron were election districts, or 361 precincts.These precincts were aggregated into 10 wards.Socio-economic data from the Census wereavailable at the block-groups and census tractlevel (block groups are defined as all cityblocks numbered in a given hundred's serieswithin a census tract). There was very littleareal correlation between the wards and thecensus tracts. There was a variety of tractsand partial tracts included within the wardboundaries, but in only a few cases did entiretracts fall within wards. The mapping poten-BLACK POPULATION - 1970AKRONPercentage::::::::: 0-1919-37- " " » - 37-56of Population111HillHit!56-7*174-95Figure 3tial did not become any better for matchingprecincts and block groups. Another probleminvolving accuracy of counts was that blockgroup totals were often incorrect or had su-pressed information in order to avoid dis-closure. All blocks in a given group serieswere not always continguous.The authors decided that the best accountingfor geographic area would be to use computermapping of the socio-economic data by censustracts, and the voting information by indivudalprecincts using the same scale. Census datawas mapped using a SYMAP A-Conformalinespackage for the City of Akron (Dougenik andSheehan 1976). The voting pattern map wasproduced by using the SYMAP PROXIMALpackage which displays data by assigning toevery location in the City of Akron the valueassociated with the data point (centroid ofeach precinct) to that location. Products ofthis activity was superimposed, and the arealassociations were noted.RESULTSThe three factors of race, income, andeducation were the only factors that couldbe correlated with voting statistics withany degree of accuracy. Such factors asreligion, ethnic background, party loy-alty, etc., were of considerable interest,but unfortunately were not available forpurposes of this study. It should alsobe stressed that by examining these threedominant factors, we saw very strikingcorrelations in our mapping of electoralINCOMES BELOW $6000 -1970AKRONPercentage of Population8-19 ~E1930 Hiij.':;:: 30-41Figure 4FIGURE 3. Distribution of Black population in Akron, 1970.FIGURE 4. Distribution of Lower income groups in Akron, 1970 ($6,000 and less).Ohio I. Sci. AKRON 1976 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE 123precincts and census tracts. Generallyspeaking, the wealthier, better educated,white voter voted for President Ford,while the poorer, less educated, blackvoter cast his ballot for Governor Carter(figures 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8). The otherfigures show the correlations betweenmiddle-range income levels and votingbehavior; although the correlations arenot quite as distinctive, they are stillevident (figures 5 and 6).INCOMES $6,000 - $11,999 -1970vote Democratic since the 1930's (Litch-field 1941), it should come as no surprisethat areas with black majorities in Akronvoted heavily for Carter. The moststriking areal concidence occurred in thewest-central part of the city where blackvoters gave Carter over 70% of the area'svotes (fig. 3). The areas that had be-tween 25% and 50% black populationwere also generally Carter majority areas,although these were lower income areasINCOMES $12,000 - $24,999 - 1970AKRONFigure 6FIGURE 5. Distribution of Lower-Middle income groups in Akron, 1970 ($6,000-$ll,000).FIGURE 6. Distribution of Upper-Middle income groups in Akron, 1970 ($ll,000-$25,000).Carter votes were clearly concentratedin the central part of the city and de-clined as one moved away from the cen-ter; particularly toward the northeast(fig. 2). In all probability, if a map ofthe entire Akron metropolitan area weredrawn, we would find that the peripheralareas had even more Ford votes, whereasthe inner parts of the city had the mostDemocratic votes. This reflected a fa-milar pattern of a Democratic inner citysurrounded by a suburban Republicanarea. Within the inner city, there wasonly a small pocket (around the Univer-sity of Akron) where less than 53% of thevoters voted for Carter.Because black voters have tended tothat tended to be traditionally Dem-ocratic. There are two significant cor-relations in terms of income groupsand Carter voters. High income groups($25,000 and above) concentrated in thenorth-western part of the city werenotably Republican in 1976 ("fig. 7).There has been a constant rise in the in-come polarization of voters since theearly 1930's, which was indicated by theDemocratic Party affiliation of lower in-come groups, particularly in the decadeof the 1930's when the development ofthis affiliation was greatly accelerated.The Democratic affiliation of this groupgrew from 53% to 66%, between 1930and 1938. During the same nine-yearPercentage of Population Percentage of PopulationFigure 5124 A. K. DUTT, ET AL Vol. 79INCOMES $25,000 AND UP - 1970 ! COLLEGE GRADUATES - 1970AKRON AKRONPercentage of Population Figure 8FIGURE 7. Distribution of Higher income groups in Akron, 1970 (over $25,000).FIGURE 8. Distribution of College-educated in Akron, 1970.span, the upper income group's affiliationwith the Democrats declined from 51%to 37% (Lithchfield 1941). It is there-fore logical to assume that the voters inthe central part of the city of Akron(where over 30% of the population hadincomes less than $6,000) voted for Car-ter (fig. 4). There was a minor exceptionin the University of Akron area where thestudents are not usually registered votersand in luxury apartment complexes, likeFir Hill Tower, housing college-educated,middle income Republicans (figs. 5, 6,and 8).Middle and lower-middle incomegroups were apparently "swing" and"split" voters (figs. 5 and 6). The cor-relations were not impressive amongthese groups, however, so one must becareful against over-generalizing. Withinthese groups there appeared to be someracial division, with the Carter voterstending to be black and the Ford voterstending to be white. In all areas theincidence of racial polarization was un-usually high in the 1976 election.In terms of education, the Akron situa-tion showed the traditional pattern ofcollege-educated voters overwhelminglyvoting Republican (Campbell and Cooper1956). As previously mentioned, therewas also, near the center of the city, ahigh income college-educated group livingaround the University of Akron whovoted Republican. The northwesternpart of Akron, where college-educatedvoters tended to predominate, also votedfor Ford in large numbers (fig. 8).The Akron voting situation tended toconfirm the NBC and ABC/Harris find-ings by demonstrating that black ma-jority areas voted heavily for Carter,higher income areas voted heavily forFord, college graduates and more edu-cated voters tended to vote for Ford, andthe central city, which was largely low-income and black, was the most heavilyCarter-oriented. The 1976 Presidentialelection in Akron can be compared to theOhio Senatorial election, in which in-cumbent Republican Senator RobertTaft, Jr. was defeated by DemocratHoward Metzenbaum. In the Presi-dential Election the city totals were59,197 for Carter to 28,468 for Ford,while for Senator the totals were56,860 for Metzenbaum to 30,563 forTaft. Examining ward and precinct re-Percentage of PopulationFigure 7Ohio I. Sci. AKRON 1970 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE 125suits, the Senatorial election followedpatterns very similar to those of thePresidential, although with slightly re-duced majorities. Together, the twoelections demonstrated that the Demo-cratic Party votes in general followed thesame general pattern. The same alsocan be said about other presidential elec-tions since I960 (although with widelydiffering majorities in 1972), and aboutstate, local, and municipal elections inAkron. That is, the central city isheavily Democratic Party-oriented, whilethe highest income, northwestern pre-cincts form the bastion of Republicansupport.The overall conclusion is that the 1976Presidential election, at least as reflectedin the Akron results, was in large part a"maintaining" type of election and to alesser extent a "deviating" one. Al-though it resulted in the defeat of an in-cumbent President (a rare occurrence thathas not happened since 1932) the electionreflected many of the more normal,Democratic Party loyalties and votingpatterns that Presidential elections havepreviously reflected in this and otherurban areas. President Nixon in 1972failed to carry Akron by some 14,000votes, but Carter carried Akron by aplurality of nearly 31,000 votes in 1976,indicating both a return of many demo-crats to previous loyalties, and a fallingaway of 1972 Republican voters.As a typical "deviating" type of elec-tion, there was evidence in the Akronstatistics that white, middle-class Demo-cratic voters moved to the Ford column.The evidence was as strong as for a"maintaining" election, as indicated bythe strong black voter support. Thestrong correlations between figure 2(which shows the concentration of Cartervotes) and figure 3 (which shows blackresidential living patterns) bears out thisobservation. The correlations betweenfigure 2 and figure 7 (which shows upperincome, white voters) also lend supportto this conclusion.LITERATURE CITEDCampbell, A. 1967 A Classification of thePresidential Elections, p 63-77. In: A.Campbell, et al, Elections and the PoliticalOrder. John Wiley and Sons, New York.and H. Cooper 1956 Group Differencesin Attitudes and Votes. Univ. MichiganPress, Ann Arbor, 149 pp.Dougenik, J. and D. Sheehan 1966 Labora-tory for Computer Graphics and SpatialAnalysis, Harvard University, Cambridge.Hess, D. 1976 84-16 Margin Among BlacksWon Election For Carter. Akron BeaconJournal (Nov. 3, 1976) p. A4.Hetrick, V. and H. Calkins 1972 Urban MassTransportation in Seattle: A Behavioral An-alysis of Special Election Results. Proc.Asso. Amer. Geogr. 4: 41-45.Johnston, R. J. 1974 Local Effects in Votingat a Local Election. Ann. Asso. Amer.Geogr. 64: 418-429.Litchfield, E. 1941 Voting Behavior in aMetropolitan Area. Univ. Michigan Press,Ann Arbor. 93 pp.McPhail, I. R. 1971 The Vote for Mayor ofLos Angeles in 1969. Ann. Asso. Amer.Geogr. 61: 744-758.National Broadcasting Company 1976 Elec-tion Day Street Poll, No. 8a (December 1,1976) 32 pp.

Areal Variation in the 1976 Presidential Vote: A Case Study of Akron

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Areal Variation in the 1976 Presidential Vote: A Case Study of Akron

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