Alan Greenblatt is a GOVERNING correspondent.
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Purpling of the Exurbs
Pace Josh, Charlie Mahtesian notes that Obama made significant inroads in the nation's fastest-growing counties, which were formerly near-pure Bush territory:
Four years after George W. Bush underscored the Republican dominance of these places by winning 97 of the 100 fastest-growing counties, Obama won 15 of them in 2008 and dramatically scaled back the GOP's margin of victory in many more, according to a Politico analysis of unofficial election results in the Census Bureau's 100 counties that grew the fastest between April 2000 and July 2007.
Obama won the three largest of these high-growth counties: Riverside County in Southern California, Las Vegas' Clark County and the Research Triangle's Wake County, N.C.
Obama ran ahead of Democrat John Kerry's 2004 performance in 94 of the counties and grew the Democratic share by 8 or more percentage points in 29 of them. His improved performance over John Kerry in these high-growth places probably provided his margin of victory in at least two closely contested states: Indiana and North Carolina.
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