Pretty amazing stats...
upside.com
Update: The tech vote
November 10, 2000 09:20 AM PT
by Ryan Tate
Curious as to how technology leaders, entrepreneurs, engineers and the rank-and-file are voting in this
year's presidential election, we'll keep an eye on silicon-drenched counties throughout the nation. This is
by no means a scientific sample of tech sentiment, but should give some insight into what, if any,
differences there are between the tech community and the rest of the country -- or if there is such a
community in the first place.
All results are final, with all precincts reporting, unless otherwise stated.
Nationwide **Not final** updated 9:20 a.m. PT
Bush: 48,889,821 (48.35%)
Gore: 49,108,420 (48.56%)
Nader: 2,685,168 (2.66%)
Buchanan: 442,052 (0.44%)
(99% of precincts)
Silicon Valley
Spread over tech-heavy Santa Clara County and the more mixed San Mateo, the Valley is famous for
hatching an astounding number of tech titans -- big-name companies like Sun Microsystems (SUNW),
Oracle (ORCL), Cisco (CSCO), Intel (INTC) and Apple (AAPL). San Mateo County, which lies to
the south of San Francisco, encompasses Menlo Park, where venture capitalists line Sand Hill Road;
Woodside, where top CEOs live; and Redwood City, a startup hub.
It is Santa Clara County that is dotcom central. Old Netscape hands will remember Mountain View
from the browser's old startup screen. Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and Cupertino house chip companies and
dotcom startups.
Santa Clara County, Calif.
Bush: 165,629 (34%)
Gore: 295,243 (61%)
Nader: 16,715 (3.5%)
(100% of precincts reporting)
San Mateo County, Calif.
Bush: 69,108 (31%)
Gore: 144,883 (65%)
Nader: 9,000 (4%)
(100% of precincts reporting)
Seattle
Led by Redmond, Wash.'s Microsoft (MSFT), the Seattle area is home to many technology firms,
including a healthy number of dotcoms. Venture capitalists love pouring cash into the region because of
the ready supply of Microsoft-trained managers and engineers.
King County, though, encompasses both Redmond and Seattle, a large and diverse metropolis where
the economy is also fueled by aerospace (Boeing (BA) is based in Seattle).
King County, Wash.
Bush: 178,976 (34%)
Gore: 319,362 (61%)
Nader: 24,304 (5%)
(99% of precincts reporting)
Austin, Texas
Home to a bevy of tech firms -- from Dell (DELL) to Vignette (VIGN) -- Austin has managed to
avoid some of the inflationary pressures of the tech stock run-up. Techies.com, an IT portal, ranked the
city as one of the three most affordable high-tech cities in the U.S. (along with Dallas and Houston), with
low home prices and living costs. That helps explain why non-Texan firms like Cisco, Nortel (NT) and
Motorola (MOT) are setting up shop there.
Dell is in Williamson County's Round Rock, while Vignette is in Travis County. Williamson is more
upscale, while Austin houses a large student population. Both have broad-based economies, although
Williamson's is more tech-heavy.
Travis County, Texas
Bush: 141,142 (47%)
Gore: 125,422 (42%)
Nader: 31,219 (10%)
(99% of precincts reporting)
Williamson County, Texas
Bush: 65,031 (68%)
Gore: 26,591 (28%)
Nader: 3,486 (3%)
(99% of precincts reporting)
North Carolina's Research Triangle Park
Scrappy startups like the BuildNet, NetOctave, SciQuest (SQST) and Siebel-acquired (SEBL)
OpenSite Technologies call the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., area their home, along with larger-cap firms
like Red Hat (RHAT). Semiconductor firms and other brainy concerns compete for talent graduating
out of area universities, like Duke.
Tech talent is concentrated in Wake, Orange and Durham counties.
Durham County, N.C.
Bush: 29,799 (36%)
Gore: 53,150 (63%)
Nader: N/A
(100% of precincts reporting)
Orange County, N.C.
Bush: 17,875 (36%)
Gore: 30,802 (62%)
Nader: N/A
(100% of precincts reporting)
Wake County, N.C.
Bush: 137,935 (53%)
Gore: 117,907 (46%)
Nader: N/A
(100% of precincts reporting)
Silicon Alley
New York County in New York is home to all of Manhattan -- hardly a tech-dominated area.
Nevertheless, the city has become more and more directly entwined with technology in recent years.
Internet ad giant DoubleClick (DCLK) and media plays like 24/7 Media (TFSM) and NetCreations
(NTCR) are based there. Don't forget content plays like TheStreet.com (TSCM) and ISP Juno
(JWEB).
And of course, there is Time Warner (TWX), soon to be swallowed by America Online (AOL).
Silicon Alley has been rankled in recent weeks by the downturn in dotcom advertising and several firms
have had to close their doors.
New York County
Bush: 77,614 (15%)
Gore: 409,257 (79%)
Nader: 28,102 (5%)
(99% of precincts reporting)
Boston area's Route 128 corridor
The Boston area is packed with students and their universities, including the most prestigious of all
science and engineering schools, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Brainy new firms like
Forrester Research (FORR) and ArsDigita have recently joined a regional tech pantheon that
includes extinct titan Digital (now owned by Compaq (CPQ)).
Other recent startups in the region: Andover.net, Sycamore Networks (SCMR) and Avici Systems
(AVCI). Lycos, now Terra Networks (TRLY), was founded in Waltham, Mass.
But Massachusettes counties don't count ballots, instead leaving the tallies to the hundreds of individual
towns and cities in the state. Those official results could take days to reach state election officials, but the
home state of the Kennedy famiy went to Gore.
Boston
Bush: 35,931 (20%)
Gore: 129,861 (72%)
Nader: 13,301 (7%)
(100% of precincts reporting) |
