Jobs map can reflect political map

Few were seriously expecting New England to do anything than go for President Obama — he’s won Vermont, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Turns out, New England’s doing better than some other sections of the country. It’s got a regional unemployment rate of 7.4 percent.

But look at the rest of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic: large chunks also tend to vote Democratic, and they’re doing much worse than the rest of the country, with 8.9 percent unemployment. So far, the Associated Press has called Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and South Carolina for Romney.

Oklahoma and West Virgina like a pro-domestic energy production policy, and they’ve got plenty of jobs these days. South Carolina’s still suffering — it’s lost manufacturing jobs in the recession and the jobless rate’s 9.1 percent.

But the South as a whole — it’s just about average for unemployment. And projections are most states in that part of the country are likely to vote for Romney.