President Obama did better on the coasts and the Great Lakes states than elsewhere. I thought it would be fun to plot coastline/shoreline miles by state against Obama vote percentage in 2012. Here is what I got:
The data on coastline/shoreline come from http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,4561,7-135-3313_3677-15959--,00.html and The Statistical Abstract of the United States, Table 364. Vote totals come from Dave Leip's Atlas of Presidential Elections. The correlation is .22, so not huge, but not nothing either.
If one adds Alaska, with its 6000+ miles of coastline and support of Romney, the correlation goes to zero.
If one adds Alaska, with its 6000+ miles of coastline and support of Romney, the correlation goes to zero.
