Clinton lost many areas of Spokane County that were won by Obama

Sun., Nov. 27, 2016

By Jim Camden jimc@spokesman.com (509) 879-7461

Disappointed in Obama, she voted for Trump

Sandra Miguel voted for President Barack Obama in 2008. This year, she voted for Donald Trump.

“I fell for all the things that Obama promised. My husband and I both thought, well, we need a change,” Sandra Miguel said. “I decided I didn’t want to go down that path again.”

Miguel is 68, retired, and lives in Spokane County south of Long Lake. Each month it is a struggle to pay the bills.

In 2008, these same concerns drove her to vote for Obama. But she voted for Romney in 2012, and eight years after casting her ballot for Obama she believes things are worse.

“You know, you work all your life and pay into these things and have to follow this tight, tight budget, instead of being able to relax,” she said.

She said Trump’s enthusiasm and his focus on “making America great again” won her over; she thinks he will make Americans proud of the country again.

“I’m not a racist, by any means,” she said. “But I do think that we need to stop bringing so many people into this country until we take care of our own.”

Trump will take care of people like her and her husband, she said. And, although some of his comments and his impulsiveness make her nervous, she also finds it refreshing.

“For people in our age group and in our income group, I didn’t feel that it has been in our favor,” she said of the past eight years.

– Eli Francovich

A vote against Clinton

Jeremy Thornton is a landscaper, a professional disc golfer and a die-hard Bernie Sanders supporter. He considered voting for Hillary Clinton after Sanders lost in the primary, but her political record left a bad taste in his mouth.

Frustrated by the two major party nominees, Thornton cast a ballot for the Green Party’s Jill Stein on Nov. 8. He believes there were many voters like him who couldn’t muster support for an entrenched politician like Clinton or an “erratic” outsider like Donald Trump.

“I don’t think people were voting for Trump. I think they were voting against Hillary,” he said. “There was kind of a feeling that she was getting it handed to her, and I think that kind of rubbed people the wrong way.”

Thornton, 40, has lived in the Hillyard neighborhood for most of his life. He said he’s disappointed by the vitriol of the election, and particularly offensive comments made by Trump and his supporters.

Nationally, Clinton’s popular vote lead exceeds 2 million, or about 1.5 percent of all ballots cast. But in closely contested areas like Hillyard distrust of Clinton may have given a decisive edge to Trump.

“I think a lot of people just know that she has no (expletive) clue what to do with this country,” said John Bacon, 30, who lives a few streets south of Thornton. “Even though Trump’s a borderline sociopath, he’s still the lesser of two evils.”

Thornton said his friend voted for Barack Obama in 2012 but couldn’t bring himself to vote for Clinton. After much consideration, the friend voted for Trump this year.

Although he feels disenfranchised, Thornton believes one thing is certain: The United States “won’t see another entrenched politician becoming the president.”

– Chad Sokol

The nationwide decline in support for Hillary Clinton compared to Barack Obama four years ago is evident locally.

A computer-assisted analysis of voting patterns in the past three presidential elections shows Clinton lost some of the support Obama had in north Spokane and parts of the Spokane Valley. Republican Donald Trump also received significantly more votes out of some Valley and rural precincts than his GOP predecessors John McCain or Mitt Romney.

To determine how the presidential vote in Spokane County shifted, The Spokesman-Review analyzed the precinct results for 2008, 2012 and 2016 to look for patterns in the differences between the votes for the Republican and Democratic nominees in each of the county’s 335 precincts.

The 2008 and 2012 numbers are certified final results; the numbers for this year will be completed this week, but county officials said last week they have only about 25 ballots to process.

In all three elections, the Republican received the most votes countywide, while the Democrat won the city of Spokane.

Making direct comparisons is difficult because some precinct boundaries changed between elections because of redistricting. But mapping the results showed areas of the county where the shifts were most noticeable.

Overall, Republican candidates gained and Democrats lost support over those 12 years. In 2008, Barack Obama came within 1.1 percentage point of John McCain countywide. In 2012, Obama was about 6 percentage points behind Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton is 9 points behind Trump.

In 2012 and again this year, Republicans gained strength in the suburbs and rural areas of the county. Democrats lost support in many north precincts in the city of Spokane, particularly in the northeast part of the city, including Hillyard, along with west and central precincts in the city of Spokane Valley.

Compared to 2008, Clinton lost the most support in some traditionally blue-collar precincts, most notably in neighborhoods on either side of North Division Street. Some precincts saw a shift of more than 100 votes away from the Democratic nominee.

Although the maps show many areas of Spokane Valley and rural Spokane County giving Trump more support than McCain, there were also some shifts away from Trump in the city of Spokane precincts that have long been regarded as “establishment” Republican neighborhoods.

Clinton gained support in the lower South Hill between Interstate 90 and 29th Avenue, and lost some intensity in the Logan neighborhood.

Romney did better than Trump in the northwest precincts of Spokane, and in Liberty Lake. McCain and Romney both did better than Trump in the precinct that contains Fairchild Air Force Base, and in parts of the West Plains. Trump generally did better than McCain or Romney in the rural precincts in the southern half of the county, and a bit better than Romney and about as well as McCain in the north precincts between Spokane and the Deer Park area.

Running against Romney, Obama held his margins in northeast Spokane precincts, along Division and in Hillyard, and in the Valley city precincts just east of Havana. But Clinton lost many of those to Trump.

Clinton lost many areas of Spokane County that were won by Obama

Downtown Spokane stadium groundbreaking set for Tuesday

Pandemic project: Dental lab owner Robert Carnell paints pop art abstracts of celebrities

Gardening: Bird feeders safe to hang this winter after salmonella epidemic in 2020