Vote totals as simple as red and blue? Not necessarily. More like purple in WNC.

Posted on by Bill Rhodes

If you look at the website of the N.C. Board of Elections, you would think that the people of Buncombe County were the only ones in Western North Carolina who voted for Obama for president. Buncombe county looks like island of blue in a sea of red.

Here are the numbers from the state for each of the 16 counties shown on the map.

County Obama/Biden Romney/Ryan Percentages Dem/GOP
Cherokee County 3339 9201 26/72
Graham County 1115 2743 28/69
Clay County 1573 3952 28/70
Macon County 5692 10817 33/64
Swain County 2618 2976 45/51
Haywood County 11795 15599 42/55
Jackson County 8052 8224 48/49
Transylvania County 6740 9522 41/58
Henderson County 18519 32860 35/63
Buncombe County 70066 54429 55/42
Madison County 4466 5379 44/53
Yancey County 3954 5249 42/55
Mitchell County 1810 5778 23/75
McDowell County 6006 11732 33/66
Polk County 4000 6219 38/60
Rutherford County 9277 18797 32/66
Note: Some county totals do not add to 100 due to write-in votes and 3rd party votes. 

The numbers from the yet unofficial vote tallies were used to make this map. For each county, the red value (for example in Cherokee County 72) and the blue value (again for Cherokee, 26) were mixed in photoshop to create a purple. As you can see, some counties are red-purple and some are blue-purple.

Averages in the 16-county area come out to 37 percent for Obama and 60 percent for Romney, significantly above the state averages reported (48 percent for Obama/Biden and 50 percent for Romney/Ryan).

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2 thoughts on “Vote totals as simple as red and blue? Not necessarily. More like purple in WNC.”

  1. jrh0

    For all the counties shown, Obama got 159,022 votes, or 43.9%, while Romney got 203,477, from a total of 362,499 votes. This is a much better summation of how WNC voted, rather than averaging the county shares to compare with the state total.

  2. travelah

    All you have really accomplished with this is to highlight just how divided and sectarian this country has become.

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