You usually have to wait for election season to find out what your neighbors think. Then hundred of “Vote for X” signs appear lawns (are these our modern-day pink flamingos?), bumper stickers slap themselves on cars, and neighborly “How’s the weather” conversations turn political. But thanks to Crowdpac, you can find out an area’s political leanings before you move into a neighborhood.
Crowdpac ranked every U.S. neighborhood according to political leaning. They based those rankings on every contribution made to political candidates and ballot measures since 2008. The most liberal neighborhood possible would receive a score of 10.0 on the liberal side (residents contributed exclusively to liberal candidates/causes); the most conservative neighborhood would receive a score of 10.0 on the conservative side (residents contributed exclusively to conservative candidates/causes). A neighborhood that donated evenly to liberal and conservative politicians/causes would receive a neutral score of 0.0.
Where’s what we learned about Seattle by exploring Crowdpac’s rankings:
Seattle Neighborhoods
- The most liberal Seattle neighborhoods are:
- Judkins Park (“Atlantic” on Crowdpac’s website) (9.5 liberal)
- Columbia City
- North Delridge
- Roxhill
- Central District
- The least liberal Seattle neighborhoods are:
- Broadmoor (Seattle’s only gated, golf-course neighborhood) (2.5 liberal)
- Madison Park
- Denny-Blaine
- Pioneer Square
- Downtown
- The most conservative neighborhoods are also some of the wealthiest, but that correlation isn’t absolute. Poorer downtown neighborhoods such as Pioneer Square also bent more conservative than the Seattle average.
- Seattle is thoroughly liberal. Even the least-liberal Seattle neighborhood (Broadmoor) scored 2.5 on the liberal side of the scale.
Washington Neighborhoods
- Beyond Seattle proper, the most conversative Seattle-area neighborhood is Clyde Hill (on the Eastside). It scores 1.3 on the liberal side, though—hardly a bastion of true conservatism.
- The most liberal neighborhood in King County isn’t in Seattle at all—it’s Vashon Island (8.0 on the liberal side of the scale)
- The most liberal neighborhood in all of Washington is Port Townsend, on the Olympic Peninsula (8.1 on the liberal side of the scale).
National Rankings
- Seattle is the third-most liberal major U.S. city. The national rankings:
- Oakland (8.4 liberal)
- Brooklyn (7.7 liberal)
- Seattle (7.7 liberal)
- Portland (7.6 liberal)
- San Francisco (7.4 liberal)
- Seattle grew much more liberal this year, according to Crowdpac’s measuring system, due to donations to Bernie Sanders’ campaign.
If you’re curious about more liberal/conservative data for Seattle, The Seattle Times put this data into a neighborhood map for even easier viewing. If you’d rather have this information accompanied by more personal insights, though, don’t hesitate to give us a call. We pride ourselves on not just finding homes our clients love, but neighborhoods, too.
