Demographic analysis of the New York Mayoral election - part three

Ethnicity and yet more cultural fragmentation

The final part of this little series concerns ethnic origin - which, due to the institutionalisation of the concept of "race" and the country's history as a beacon for mass immigration- has a slightly different meaning in the United States than it does over here. To a large extent "ethnic" means white immigrants (including and especially 19th century ones) and their descendants - non-white immigrants are covered by "racial" catagories (with several exceptions, more of which later). As whites (as currently defined) are a minority in New York only a minority of people in 2000 fitted into one of the census bureau's ancestry-ethnicity groups. The following a basic list in order of size:

Other ancestries - 53.2%
Italian - 8.7%
West Indian - 6.9% (the important non-white exception)
Irish - 5.3%
German - 3.2%
Russian - 3.0%
"American" - 3.0%
Polish - 2.7%
English - 1.6%
Subsaharan African - 1.5%
Greek - 1.0%
All other groups were under 1%

And now, the fun stuff...

Italian:

29% - Bloomberg 4
19% - Bloomberg 4, Thompson 1
12% - Bloomberg 6, Thompson 1

Bloomberg took over 70% in three of the four most Italian districts.

West Indian

31% - Thompson 4
13% - Bloomberg 1, Thompson 10

Irish

16% - Bloomberg 2
12% - Bloomberg 6

German

10% - Bloomberg 2

Russian

8% - Bloomberg 7

Polish

11% - Thompson 1
6% - Bloomberg 3

English

6% - Bloomberg 6

Subsaharan African

4% - Bloomberg 1, Thompson 5

Greek

7% - Bloomberg 2

At some point I may look at the same sort of thing at block-group level. Finally, something else relating to cultural fragmention... the percentage born outside the United States:

41% - Bloomberg 16, Thompson 14

Fascinating. It's quite clear that whether an area is full of immigrants or not had no bearing on its voting patterns - what mattered is who these immigrants are. For example, Bloomberg took over 80% in AD 45 (which has lots of Russian immigrants) while Thompson took over 80% in nearby AD 58 (which has lots of West Indian immigrants).