The Hamilton County precinct map from the 2016 presidential election looks a lot like a strawberry danish with blueberry jam in the center.
The blue-shaded precincts inside the Chattanooga city limits voted solidly for Democrat Hillary Clinton, while the vast outer suburbs, often called exurbs, and rural areas turned red for Republican Donald Trump.
There's nothing like a presidential election to expose a region's true political colors.
And apparently, we tend to stick closely to those who think like we do.
As the Washington Post put it in a 2014 article examining the trends in a Pew Research Center survey, "We live in places that reflect our values, and our values are influenced by where we live."
It's why maps of the United States showing votes by county are heavily covered in red for Republicans - Trump won 80 percent of them - with tiny and sometimes larger dots of blue for Democrats sprinkled throughout. This trend bore out across the vast expanse of a red Tennessee, where Clinton won only three of 95 counties: Davidson, Haywood and Shelby.
Of Hamilton County's 130 precincts, 85 went to the Trump column.
Most of the Clinton vote was concentrated in area contiguous to the central city - in precincts that extended from downtown southward into Alton Park and St. Elmo, across the Tennessee River to North Chattanooga, Moccasin Bend and Stuart Heights, over Missionary Ridge and out to Brainerd Hills and northeasterly to Murray Hills.
Other than that, it was all Trump, the giant red geographical area surrounding the Clinton precincts like a giant pincer. Trump, in fact, did not lose one precinct outside the city of Chattanooga but tied in one (St. Elmo 2) with a 34-34 split.
Clinton easily won Chattanooga proper, getting 52.8 percent of the vote to Trump's 40.1 percent.
But she lost the other nine municipalities and the unincorporated area of Hamilton County. She lost Ridgeside by one vote. In Lakesite, Trump beat her by a nearly four to one count. In the county as a whole, Trump won 55 percent to Clinton's 38 percent, with other candidates getting just over 7 percent of the vote.
The 2014 Pew survey bore out what is shown on the Hamilton County map and elsewhere. Of those people who said they were consistently conservative, 76 percent said they'd prefer to live in a rural area or small town. Of those who termed themselves consistently liberal, 67 percent said they'd prefer to live in a city or suburb.
In the same survey, 77 percent of consistent liberals said they'd prefer to live in a community where the houses are smaller and closer together and schools, stores and restaurants are within walking distance. Meanwhile, 75 percent of consistent conservatives said they'd like a community where the houses are larger and farther apart and the schools, stores and restaurants are several miles away.
That doesn't make either demographic group right, just desirous of living among like-minded people.
In last week's election, 73.1 percent, or 144,182 voters, out of a possible 197,224 who had registered in Hamilton County, cast a ballot for president. Four years ago, when President Barack Obama was elected to his second term, 63.7 percent, or 141,744 voters, out of a possible 222,480, cast ballots. So, in spite of the fact there were 25,256 fewer registered voters this year, more Hamilton County residents went to the polls and voted in a greater percentage than in 2012.
The percentage of Hamilton County voters casting a 2016 ballot for president also bettered the 72.1 percentage in 2008 and 63.7 percentage in 2000 but did not rise to the 77.6 percentage in 2004.
Three small precincts, Apison 3 with five voters, Concord 5 with six voters and Harrison 6 with 15 voters, turned out 100 percent of their electorate.
Trump fared best in the far north end of the county, where his vote differential of 60 percent or better topped Clinton in five precincts, and in the northeastern part of the county, with two of the three Apison precincts giving him a 60 percent vote differential.
Clinton found her strength in traditionally black precincts, rolling up a 90 percent differential in the vote in Avondale and Bushtown and 80 percent or more in Alton Park 1, Dalewood, Eastdale and Woodmore 1.
Trump and Clinton tied in two small precincts, 60-60 in Concord 6 and 34-34 in St. Elmo 2.
Libertarian Gary Johnson, once thought capable of siphoning off a significant amount of votes from Trump, fared little better in Hamilton County than he did across the country, taking only 3.8 percent of the vote. Throughout the U.S., he attracted 3.3 percent.
The young-populated and apartment-laden Mountain Creek 1 precinct gave Johnson the most votes with 159.
Like Trump, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Chattanooga, lost the vote in the city of Chattanooga in his race against former city of Chattanooga intern Melody Shekari but won unincorporated Hamilton County and every other municipality in the county on the way to his District 3 re-election.
The three-term congressman actually ran 4 percent ahead of Trump in the county, taking 89 precincts to Trump's 85.
Shekari received fewer votes than Clinton in all but 26 of the 130 precincts. She ran ahead of her party's presidential candidate in 17 precincts, though 13 of those precincts were won by Trump.
The congressional race in Hamilton County had 4,125 fewer voters - 71 percent of registered voters - than the presidential contest.
In the Hamilton County portion of the state Senate District 10 contest, incumbent Todd Gardenhire ran behind both Trump and Fleischmann but with 49 percent of the vote did slightly better than the 48.06 percent he received in 2012. Yet, with a healthy majority of votes in Bradley County, he cruised to re-election against former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga adjunct professor Khristy Wilkinson.
Gardenhire was strong in Collegedale 5 and Collegedale 6 with vote differentials of 81 percent each, while Wilkinson had a vote differential of 88 percent in Bushtown. Gardenhire rolled up his biggest total in Lookout Valley 1 (1,862 votes), while Wilkinson scored her top total in Woodmore 1 with 1,120 votes.
Contact Clint Cooper at ccooper @timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6497.