Guest post by Dante Chinni
Knowing your battleground states is crucial to understanding a presidential election, but if you want to get at the more subtle dynamics driving the campaign you have to go deeper. In Florida, Miami’s distance from Jacksonville is about more than just miles. And Ohio not only holds Cleveland and Columbus, but also the state’s Appalachian south.
In the coming months NBC’s political team will explore those electoral nuances using Patchwork Nation, a reporting effort created by journalist Dante Chinni that’s part of the Jefferson Institute in Washington DC. Patchwork Nation uses demographic data to break the nation’s 3,100-plus counties into 12 different types of voter community; then uses those community types to analyze data – everything from unemployment rates to latest poll numbers on a candidate’s “likeability.”
Patchwork Nation’s types breakdown as follows: Industrial Metropolis (think Philadelphia), College and Careers (Johnson County, IA) and Monied Burbs (Fairfax County, VA), which make up the core Democratic coalition counties; Minority Central (Wilson, NC), Immigration Nation (Maricopa, AZ), Military Bastions (Norfolk, VA) and Service Worker Stations (Richland, OH), which make up the competitive counties; and Empty Nests (Lake, FL), Boom Towns (Clark, NV), Evangelical Epicenters (Christian, MO), Tractor Country (Sioux, IA) and Mormon Outposts (Cassia, ID), which make up the core Republican coalition counties.









