Voter migration as a source of electoral change in the Rocky Mountain West |
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| Authors: | Tony Robinson Stephen Noriega |
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| Institution: | 1. University of Colorado Denver, Political Science Department, PO Box 173364, CB 190, Denver, CO 80217, United States;2. University of Colorado at Boulder, Political Science Department, UCB 333, Ketchum 106, Boulder, CO 80309, United States;1. Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences, Texas A&M University, 600 Kimbrough Blvd., Mailstop 2261, College Station, TX 77843-2261, USA;2. Department of Anthropology, University of Louisville, Lutz Hall, Louisville, KY 40292, USA;1. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA;2. Department of Government, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA;1. University of Copenhagen, Department of Political Science, Øster Farimagsgade 5, DK-1353 Copenhagen K, Denmark;2. VIVE – The Danish Centre of Applied Social Science, Købmagergade 22, 1150 Copenhagen K, Denmark;3. Copenhagen Business School, Department of Business and Politics, Steen Blichers Vej 22, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark |
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| Abstract: | Examining county-level voting patterns since 1992, this paper describes the rising strength of the Democratic Party in the Rocky Mountain West and explores domestic migration (voter mobility) as a cause of the electoral change. Other theories of electoral change (voter conversion, voter mobilization and generational replacement) are analyzed and found less significant than a voter migration theory. A spatial autoregressive model also presents evidence of significant contextual “neighborhood effects” contributing to electoral change in the region. Relying on IRS tax-filer migration data, Census data and voting results for all Western counties since 1992, this work finds a significant correlation between growing Democratic strength and in-migration of new voters who generally hail from more Democratic environments than the Western counties into which they are emigrating. The strongest correlations emerge in counties where the share of creative class occupations is also growing quickly. Migrating voters are building a new Western community – a community of creative classes, childless households and urban professionals who are more likely to vote Democrat than the rural conservatives they are increasingly outnumbering. |
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