America’s most liberal-friendly counties: numbers 80-61

After counting down the 100 friendliest counties for conservatives, The Daily Caller is doing the same for liberals. If you still have an Obama bumper sticker on your Prius, this is where you’ll feel most at home. On Monday, we listed numbers 100-81; below is the second installment, numbers 80-61.

The criteria are:

• Percentage of the vote John Kerry and Barack Obama earned
• Median household income, adjusted for cost of living
• Percentage of adult population with bachelors degree or higher
• Percentage of adult population in management/professional jobs
• Unionization laws (whether right-to-work laws are present)
• State concealed-carry laws
• State abortion laws, as measured by Americans United for Life
• Status of same-sex partnerships (whether civil union, same-sex marriage, etc.)
• Number of Whole Foods in the county
• Strictness of bans on smoking

Note: counties are almost meaningless in New England. Their main responsibility is generally to administer prisons. Some New England states have outright abolished county governments. Counties are used here to compare geographic areas similar to the rest of the country.

Here is a slideshow of 80-61. And here, the list:

80. New Castle County, Del.
Largest city: Wilmington

New Castle County takes up the northern third of Delaware, and is essentially part of the Philadelphia metro area. Wilmington, the largest city in the state, serves as a satellite city and has transitioned from a manufacturing city to a financial center (credit card companies set up here due to favorable incorporation laws). Joe Biden is the most famous native of Wilmington, and his presence on the 2008 ticket turned added nine points to an already strong Democrat showing in 2004.

79. Hudson County, N.J.
Largest city: Jersey City

Frank “I am the law” Hague doubled as the longtime mayor of Jersey City and the preeminent Democratic boss in New Jersey. He was one of the classic big city machine politicians that defined the mid-century Democratic Party. Jersey City and the broader Hudson County have remained Democratic since, and its largest city is now a true melting pot. The area became known as “Wall Street West” during the 1980s when Manhattan financial firms began to relocate across the Hudson River due to cheaper office space. Hudson County has been referred to as New York’s “sixth borough” due to its integration with the Big Apple.

78. Lane County, Ore.
Largest city: Eugene

Eugene and the University of Oregon have long been a left-wing center; counterculture icon Ken Kesey got his start here. It is the capital of the American track-and-field world, encompassing Hayward Field, the legendary Steve Prefontaine and the beginning of a little shoe company called Nike. Neighboring Springfield has the best claim of any same-named place to be the basis for The Simpsons’ hometown, since creator Matt Groening is a native Oregonian.

77. Ingham County, Mich.
Largest city: Lansing

Lansing is both the state capital of Michigan and home to Michigan State University. There’s a town/gown divide as in many college towns, and most of the county outside of Lansing is Republican. Michigan is a mixed bag for liberals; union-friendly, but somewhat culturally conservative.

76. Benton County, Ore.
Largest city: Corvallis

Another Pacific Northwest college town makes the list. This time, the college is Oregon State and the town is Corvallis. The county is located on the west bank of the Willamette River in middle Oregon. Nearly all of the population of the county is in Corvallis, and 48 percent of adults are college graduates. A 2003 study concluded that Benton County was the least religious county per capita in the United States.

75. Mendocino County, Calif.
Largest city: Ukiah

The North California coast was primarily settled by people from New England, and its not surprising that distant cousins are following the same migration into the Democratic Party. Mendocino is a lightly populated Northern California coastal county, whose largest city is Ukiah. This area is not particularly wealthy or well-educated, but it still is reliably Democratic. Jim Jones once had his People’s Temple located here.

74. Cuyahoga County, Ohio
Largest city: Cleveland

Cleveland is a Democratic stronghold — what makes Cuyahoga County worthy of inclusion on this list is that its suburbs are generally more ideologically liberal than its Midwestern counterparts. You can see this difference in the eastern suburbs of the city, particularly the series of “Heights” neighborhoods and towns. Shaker Heights is an affluent inner suburb that gave 77 percent to John Kerry.

73. Delaware County, Pa.
Largest municipality: Upper Darby Township

Suburban Philadelphia was once a Republican stronghold. Delaware County, to the immediate southwest of Philadelphia, gave 60 percent of the vote to George H.W. Bush in 1988. In 2008, it gave Barack Obama 60 percent of the vote. A similar transformation in neighboring counties has been making Pennsylvania a light blue state on the national level. The county’s landscape is varied; there are depressed urban areas like Chester, wealthy communities in the north like Radnor and Swarthmore and middle-class suburban areas in the center and west.

72. Leon County, Fla.
Largest city: Tallahassee

Tallahassee is another city that brings together a state capital and major state university. Florida State is more known for Bobby Bowden than political activity, but it still helps boost a liberal presence in the county. State governments attract the liberal bureaucrats and interest groups looking to benefit from power or influence. There are no Republicans in the county government.

71. Lake County, Ill.
Largest city: Waukegan

The affluent North Shore of metro Chicago now stretches nearly to the Wisconsin border. Such municipalities as Highland Park, Deerfield and Lake Forest were the sort of prosperous suburbs that were GOP mainstays in the past. This and a few other Chicago suburban areas are responsible for turning Illinois into a solidly blue state.