How Political Parties Get Their Votes

If you’ve ever wondered why you voted one way, and your city or county voted another, or if you’ve ever wondered by your city, county, or state votes one way or another, here’s some insight…

• Low to median income families tend to live in, or work in, large counties, cities or metropolitan areas than in small counties/cities/towns. This could be due to the availability of jobs, or accessibility to services established to help families in need of financial/job/social assistance programs.
• “Small” counties/cities/towns are more rural than urban, are less populated. Their populations tend to be either more affluent or more self-dependent.

The Washington State example: About one third of the voters in the state live in King County, the majority of which live or work in Seattle, the biggest city in the state. San Juan County, one of the smallest counties in the state, boasts a median home price in excess of $400,000. East of the Cascade Range, counties tend to be large in geographic size, but low in population.

• The job base in these large counties/cities/metropolitan areas comes, in part, from large companies/corporations with offices in those locations. Many of these companies/corporations employ workers who belong to a union. Thus, what benefits unions tend to benefit employees of those businesses/corporations, and as a result, those businesses/corporations are more likely to support unions than not.

The Washington State example: King County (the largest county in the state) is home to major employers, including Boeing, Microsoft, and Weyerhaeuser, just to name a few. Few of the state’s major employers base their businesses east of the Cascade Range – most of the businesses in these counties/cities/et al are small businesses or ag-related businesses owned by families – these aren’t big businesses with union card-toting employees.

• Large counties/cities/metropolitan areas - by their rural, housing project and commercial/industrial makeup, are less environmentally “pristine” than their smaller counterparts. Thus, elected officials in the larger municipalities aspire to make their communities as “clean and green” as they can (establishment of new parks, building moratoriums, increasingly stringent environmental regulations, etc.)…

The Washington State example – King County, Pierce County, and Snohomish County (the largest metro area in the state) are urban by design. In recent years, those counties have passed ordinances, regulations and laws to restrict already out-of-control industrial growth in favor of parks and scenic views. Smaller counties, like Skagit County are subject to statewide regulations that have been established to benefit the large counties. Those small counties, by their smaller-populace (and hence, taxpayer base) nature, have difficulty in paying for the state mandates placed upon them. The tax burden ends up going to the voters, who tend to move to larger counties, where the price of the same regulations is shared by a larger population).

OK – based on what I’ve mentioned above, the political landscape should be clear-cut.

• The Democratic Party platform (or, at least, the campaign platforms made by Democratic candidates) is directly targeted to benefit most of those who live in the large counties/cities/metropolitan areas: Establishing ever-increasing social assistance to low-to-median income families. Tax incentives to large corporations to generate more job opportunities for members of those families. Close association with unions. Heavy regulation of environmental issues to benefit the “typical” voter in those large areas. The voter “backbone” of the Democratic Party is the union worker, or the low-to-median income family living in an urban setting.

• The Republican Party platform (or, at least, the campaign platforms made by Republican candidates), differs somewhat from their Democratic counterparts: Tax cuts/incentives for small families to relieve the “tax burden” given from state programs that benefit others. Tax cuts/incentives for small business owners. Easing statewide environmental regulations to benefit municipalities that are not urban. By and large, both political parties (and their elected officials) tout the “streamlining” of government. That is, trimming the fat from ever-increasing budgets.

Each party treats this differently, though.

• On the state level, Democrats “trim the fat” by taking state funding from a program they deem as inappropriate or unnecessary to fund, while giving the financial responsibility for that program to counties and cities. Democrats may also “trim the fat” by redirecting the bill for a statewide program or agency to the voters, which (by the Democrat-heavy nature of the more populace counties/cities/metropolitan areas), almost ensures voters in less populace counties will be footing the bill for programs/agencies that primarily benefit the larger municipalities.

• Republicans “trim the fat” by cutting the number of employees for a state agency or program, while maintaining the same level of service. Republicans may also cut statewide funding to a program or service, based upon the amount of money available to the state versus the amount of money state agencies/programs want to spend. If the money’s not there, the money’s not there. (To use the supermarket shopping example, if you go to the grocery store with $100, you buy no more than $100 of groceries, instead of buying $150 of groceries, expecting someone else to put $50 in your bank account before the check bounces.)

Budget-wise, Republicans tend to legislate (or campaign) on the immediate needs of the taxpaying voter: less regulation, incentives for small business owners to build their businesses further, etc., and a greater sense of self-reliance by those that don’t own a business but are employees. Most voters who vote Republican are small business owners (refer to the small municipality demographic breakdown above), or people who have built their estate equity to a “comfortable” level, and do not want to be stuck with the bill for services that others have not worked as hard for. Republicans believe in “smaller government” – that is, less administration and dependence on the state (or county) to provide services that can be provided on the community level.

Democrats, generally, will legislate on the “longer term” – that is, expect their voter base to support tax increases in the future that benefit the low-to-middle income voters who live in the large municipalities now (thus, Democrats tend to win in statewide elections because their voter base lives in the biggest municipalities), or support tax increases that specifically benefit areas within Democratic strongholds, with those same tax increases benefiting other areas marginally. Democrats believe in “bigger government” – that is, services provided by private individuals or organizations on the community level can be better administered by municipalities (particularly by the state).

In Washington State, the split between the two parties is about 50-50. The 2004 gubernatorial election is proof that despite voting tendencies of the greater Puget Sound region, half of the voters in the state called for a state administration far different from that of now-former Governor Gary Locke (a Democrat), and now Governor Christine Gregoire (a Democrat). In the Washington State Legislature, Democrats now control the House and Senate. The Democrats hold a strong position to control the spending habits of state government. In order for Republicans to gain control of either body of the Legislature, or the governorship of the state, they will need to find a way to appeal to the majority of the Seattle/King County voter base in a way that they haven’t been able to do so before.