And a hat tip to Evan Manvel, who first noticed the vote margin after excluding the five urban counties.

It would be my guest that they won't have much to say until the election is certified and abstracts are available. Then you can look precinct by precinct how the vote turned out.

I know that in 2004, Schaufler's district voted 68.81% in favor of Measure 37. The no vote didn't win in a single precinct in his district. As a matter of fact, no precinct in his district topped 36% on the no vote, and half the precincts had more than 70% of the people voting no.

When the abstracts come out, we can see how things changed in Multnomah County (M37 lost in the county in 2004).

But one thing we have to remember sometimes is that a state representative is supposed to represent his/her district. If a district is heavily opposed or in favor of something, then they probably are as well. So sometimes there are Democratic legislators we're not happy with because they're not liberal/progressive enough. But maybe they match their district?

Then other times there are legislators that don't match their district, don't vote in ways that match their district, etc. (Karen Minnis, for example).

Once the abstracts come out, I know I'll be doing some number crunching and map making for Mult Co. I'd recommend others do the same and see what they can find out about their precincts.

Anyone who looks at this map and doesn't see an urban/rural divide in this state is color blind.

True, an extremely favorable ballot title and support from the Farm Bureau helped Measure 49 do much better in rural areas than might otherwise have been expected, but support for Measure 49 clearly dissipated as you move away from urban centers.

As for fall-out for legislators who opposed Measure 49, don't hold your breath. The connection between ballot measure votes and candidate votes is notoriously tenuous. If it were not, how many Democrats do you suppose would have been left in the Oregon legislature after the passage of Measures 36 and 37?

Jenni has right right idea: Do actual analysis of the numbers, not spin, if you want to learn anything useful from election results.

ellie: correct. I meant to say that M37 won in Multnomah County.

Seriously, Jack?

There's a handful of counties where M49 lost - but plenty of rural counties where it won.

58% Jefferson 52% Linn 54% Gilliam 56% Union 52% Crook

...and the list goes on and on.

What exactly is so urban about Crook County, Jack?

but support for Measure 49 clearly dissipated as you move away from urban centers.

Yeah, I don't know that residents of Crook or Union Counties (for example) would agree with you suggesting that they are part of Portland's urban center.

Kari, an urban/rural divide doesn't simply mean urban counties all voted one way and rural counties all voted the opposite way. Again, look at your map. Where is the dark blue and where is the darker red and what are the various shading in between? Can you honestly say you see no correlation based on proximity to urban areas?

I have to agree with Jack Roberts--the map shows M-49 dominant in the Willamette Valley. Not so hot in rest of state.

Thanks, Steve and William. You're spot on.

Jack, there may be higher vote totals in urban areas than rural areas - but there's no stark divide. Just because Multnomah County was up in the 70s doesn't mean that Crook County's 52% is anything to sneeze at.

I have to agree with Jack Roberts--the map shows M-49 dominant in the Willamette Valley. Not so hot in rest of state.

Really? Because Clatsop, Tillamook, Lincoln, Deschutes, Crook, Wheeler, Umatilla, Union, Gilliam, Wasco, and Jefferson counties all passed the measure and none of them are in the Willamette Valley... hmmmmm.

Measure 37 and Measure 49 numbers can be found here. I pointed out the number of counties that saw their numbers flip.

We simply don't have enough information yet to claim anything about a rural/urban divide or the lack of one.

The map above will clearly show a strong correlation between the percent urban and the percent vote in favor of M49.

As Steve B. notes, it is very possible that, in these counties, urban voters (Pendleton, The Dalles) voted pro and everyone else voted anti. It could result in the pattern shown above.

Jenni pointed this out early on: until we have precinct results and can do more detailed analysis, we're all out on a limb here.

Actually, you don't need the precinct by precinct numbers so much for looking at urban vs rural. Having the precinct numbers will just allow us to add more areas to "rural" since there are areas in counties like Clackamas and Washington that would be considered rural. But they're being grouped together as urban since they're in the Portland metro.

What I'm talking about is getting down to the house district level, especially in the population centers since there are multiple house districts in a county. While a county might have voted for M49, the results may be different in some parts of the county. You're going to see these kinds of differences more in urban areas where the central urban area may be more liberal than its outer edges and suburbs.

On balance, Jack is right, Kari is wrong: there WAS an urban/rural divide. I did the math. Both population density and housing unit density (two sensible markers for "urban/rural") are significantly correlated with the vote on M49.

Also explaining the breakdown is how much land in each county was up for grabs by M37. That correlation is a little weaker, but still statistically significant.

The other possibility is that rural areas where the threat to their way of life due to Measure 37 claims was clear were more likely to vote Yes on 49. These threats weren't just esthetic. These threats were more clearly "takings" than disallowing the radical changes in use that some have claimed under Measure 37. Some farmers actually want to keep farming, and M 37 was killing that.

I'd surmise that some of the strongest correlations are probably based on where the Yes on 49 campaign allocated field resources.

I can't speak to the rest of the state, but they really had a good grassroots operation in Yamhill, Polk, Washington, and Marion counties and (I've been told) almost nothing in Jackson County.

Also, it's important to remember that Oregon's land use laws were primarily created to protect ag land in the Willamette Valley. Out of 8 counties in the valley, 7 were among the top 9 in favor of measure 49.

Oh please...

This does not demonstrate any kind of divide at all really.

It does demonstrate the viability of the ballot title and the campaigns who tried to argue both sides of the case.

This measure started out, without any advertising, with 80% support. Then after being outspent 2 to 1 the total support dropped to what, 61%?

I mean if you want to go over analyzing county vote spreads and spend your future campaign dollars based on such spreads then be my guest. Actually I hope you do.

However something tells me that deep down inside and behind the closed doors of future campaigns, you yourselves don't really believe this pap.

I mean seriously, do you believe that if the "NO" side had spent the same amount of money as the "YES" side that the map would look like this? Of course not.

Now if the measure had started out at about even then I might agree with you.

But then again you need to spin some more good news where there is none. You have some legislators you hope to keep in line with this silliness.

Ted, 1000 Friends did a poll in January, 2007 that showed 61 percent support for either repealing or modifying Measure 37.

The Riley poll in July had Measure 49 at 58 percent.

Polls released in the last few weeks of the campaign had it at 61 percent.

Can you post a link that shows something dramatically different than that?

To be fair, Kari was right in his initial point: Measure 49 did not pass because urban voters imposed this on rural voters. Measure 49 passed in rural Oregon, too, albeit by a smaller margin.

My point was a different one; namely, that the distribution of votes and the vote margins were consistent with the traditional urban/rural split, which Torridjoe seems to have confirmed with his statistical analysis.

My reason for making this point is simply as a caution to anyone who is thinking the basic political landscape has changed.

Jack and Bert are right in the same sense that people talk about a persistent gender gap.

But I'd like to go further than Bert and ask if two categories really can capture this at all. What happens if we put "suburban" into the mix? Is there a pattern related to proximity to UGB's at all? To areas with local experience that M37 claims are for big developments or companies vs. smaller claims? To areas particularly hard hit by declining in logging?

Someone on another thread was arguing that the division is more N vs. S than W vs. E, based on types of farming (& implicitly, underlying geography and climate). That seemed interesting. Wonder what Jack R. thinks about it & if it would constitute some sort of departure from typical urban-rural divisions, which at least around here tend to get rendered as E vs. W of the Cascades.

Chris-- I think by using densities as a marker you include "suburban" and everything in between urban and rural. But I'd be curious to see what other correlations there are. Anybody who wants to send me data points for all 36 counties to match up against the M49 vote, I'll run it through the wringer.

Right now though, I think urban/rural and the extent of claims in your county are likely the two best indicators we have.

Sorry TJ, you lost me. Can't quite see how you get from densities (a continuous variable, no, if inclusive in the way you say?) to urban/rural (a dichotomous categorical one). What density demarcates urban from rural?

Admittedly "suburban" is a slippery category at best. But in either 1990 or 2000 the census classified the majority of Americans as residents of suburbs for the first time.

What happens if we use Jenni's suggestion (I think) of House districts, instead of counties?

Not really arguing with you here, just trying to understand.

"Sorry TJ, you lost me. Can't quite see how you get from densities (a continuous variable, no, if inclusive in the way you say?) to urban/rural (a dichotomous categorical one). What density demarcates urban from rural?"

Because density is continuous along the line between the dichotomous poles of urban and rural, and "suburban" surely fits in somewhere in the middle, then over the range of density scores for each county, you should have suburban densities accounted for. In other words, suburbs would be considered more dense than rural areas, but less dense than urban ones. So while the counties in the middle range might not be "suburban" counties per se, they still represent the middling density range.

"This does bear out Joe’s hypothesis (“My hypothesis going in was that rather than simply urban/rural, the divide was more likely to be along lines showing the potential for M37 to impact voters in each county”). His hypothesis mirrored the Yes On 49 Campaign strategy."

I want to do a full post at LO on this, but an absolutely BRILLIANT tactic by Yes49 people was to generate an address-based list of claims, and create a customized letter showing what was going on within 5 miles of their house. I bet that opened up some eyes...

Yeah TJ,

Maps were huge in this one.

I got my first M37 claim map for the county, done by county DOT, in February.

It was followed bystate wide maps, regional maps, and the ones you mentioned.

Seeing the claims in bright green, gold, and red on a white background made it look like a spray pattern in a crime scene photo.

Very effective.

What's one-size fits all about our land use laws?

Our land use laws differentiate large cities from small cities, good soils from bad soils, high-value farmland from non-high value farmland, Willamette Valley v. the rest of the state, Portland metro from all other cities. They ask local governments to adopt their own plans.

Many sizes fit all. Some common principles -- like planning for our future, making sure growth is efficient, and protecting our agricultural economy -- exist, but to call them one-size fits all is simply incorrect.

Coyote,

The Yes campaign never got the kind of 80% polling numbers you cite; support for 49 topped out in the high 60s from the start. Early polling prior to the drafting of HB 3540 DID show numbers in the 70s for changing Measure 37, however. That's the relevant number that you would rather ignore, because it does not suit your perspective.

As to what might have happened had the No folks spent several million dollars more, I suppose we won't ever know for certain. However, we do know for certain that the No side matched the Yes side in terms of dollars spent during the last several weeks of the campaign on TV in the critically important Portland media market, as well as exceeding the Yes side in other parts of the state on TV. I would maintain that it was not necessarily the money spent on media that made all the difference - the No side did absolutely no get-out-the-vote work. Hunnicut stated the last week of the campaign that "no one wants to have some creepy person come to the door" and ask for their vote.......and he was wrong. Get out the vote does work - especially in a low-turnout election.

In addition, some of us realize that the No side's TV ads were simply not believable to many folks. The allegation that the couples pictured in the ads were going to "lose everything" didn't make sense to lots of voters, esp in the Portland market. They still owned their land, and it has value. Substantial value, actually. I live less than a mile from two of the couples pictured in the ads, and their properties are CURRENTLY worth several million dollars each. without any additional development. I bet alot of folks would like that kind of property value for their retirement! Admittedly, very few voters knew these facts - but they did sense that the "we're going to lose everything" statements didn't jibe with common sense.