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Okay, check this out. This is crazy.

Map #1: Largest Self-Reported Ancestry Group for Residents of Each County

Notice the gray belt-like area in the South, where a majority of respondants claim “American” ancestry.

Now look at the previously referenced
Map #2: New York Times’ map of voting shifts from 2004-2008.

Look how closely the “American” counties correspond to the areas that got more Republican.

Ben Smith at Politico quotes a reader:

This second map is based on census data and shows what the largest (self-reported) ancestry is in county of the United States. Take a look at it and you’ll see that the interior south, where Obama could get no traction and almost the only part of the country where people voted more Republican in 2008 is the part of the country dominated by people who describe their ancestry as not German or English or Spanish or Irish but “American.”

This sounds at first blush like simple ignorance of the concept of ancestry, but the map’s annotation notes that “The region had very low levels of immigration for 200 years. … According to the 1870 census, less than 2% of the south was immigrants.” In most of the rest of the deep south’s counties the biggest ethnic group is African-Americans descended from slaves. While the rest of the country has gotten more ethnically mixed recently, the south, and I’d guess particularly Appalachia, has had a nearly static, isolated population for two centuries.

And now those “American” Americans are the most reliable Republican voters.

Interesting, eh?

Alright, I know that after months of checking the polls you’re probably sick of talking about the election, so this will be my last post on the subject. Fortunately, there are always other ways to waste time online.

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