Metro areas, exurbs important in NC

The new issue of a newsletter (DOWNLOAD PDF) from our friends at the Program on Southern Politics, Media & Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill includes interesting data on the growing influence of ex-urban areas in voting patterns.

North Carolina's trend, which appears to be happening all over the South, shows a dominance of metropolitian counties in voting turnout (40 percent of total are from eight counties), while a ring of 27 ex-urban counties provided another 35 percent of the vote. The remaining 65 counties - - dubbed the "Country Crowd" - - provided only one in four voters.

So what does it mean? It seems to parallel conclusions drawn in last year's The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America, which suggested progressives needed to concentrate turnout in ex-urban and metro areas if they wanted to start winning more elections.