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Nate Silver: Win the Cities, Win America

Fast-growing urban demographic handed Obama election victory

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 15, 2009 8:54 PM CST

(Newser) – Barack Obama's strength in cities won him the election, meaning he "might be America's first urban" president, statistics whiz Nate Silver writes in Esquire. Obama's "pragmatic, superior, hip, stubborn, multicultural" ways make him unmistakably urban, Silver writes, and America's changing demographics mean that urban voters matter now more than ever.

The percentage of voters identified as rural has shriveled since 1992 while the urban percentage has risen steadily, Silver notes. Suburban voters now make up almost half the electorate, and they are starting to look—and vote—more like their urban counterparts. "Among the many mistakes the McCain campaign made was targeting the rural vote rather than the suburban one," Silver writes.

[Images (4)]

[Videos (1)]

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Barack Obama addresses a rally in the parking lot of Soldier Field before a presidential forum hosted by the AFL-CIO at the stadium in Chicago, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2007. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Barack Obama takes a walking tour of downtown Vinton, Iowa, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007. (AP Photo/David Lienemann)

The image of Barack Obama is shown on a poster for sale Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008, in downtown Denver. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

John McCain and Sarah Palin's focus on small towns was no way to win an election in today's America, Nate Silver writes. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Nate Silver explains the mission of his website, www.fivethirtyeight.com, at the DNC in Denver in August 2008. (craignewmanCST)

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If you are going to pit big cities against small towns, it is probably a mistake to end up on the rural side of the ledger. - Nate Silver

Barack Obama was elected partly in reaction to the failures of the previous one, a president who was dogmatic, insecure, white-bread, and—at least ostensibly— rural. - Nate Silver

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Nate Silver: Win the Cities, Win America