Austin-based Whole Foods Market and Tennessee-based Cracker Barrel Old Country Store share a few similarities. Both are adept at marketing a lifestyle, with an emphasis on “local” and “close to home.” They have similar reaches: Cracker Barrel counts restaurants in 42 states, while Whole Foods just hit its 43rd state when its Nashua, New Hampshire, market opened in August. Yet electorally, their orbits couldn’t be more divergent: In 2012, Obama won 77 percent of all counties with a Whole Foods and just 29 percent of all counties with a Cracker Barrel.
What’s more, these alternate universes of culture and cuisine haven’t simply been markers of red and blue; they have been uncanny indicators of where the parties have gained and lost voters. In 1992, Bill Clinton won 61 percent of counties that now have a Whole Foods and 40 percent of counties that now have a Cracker Barrel — a 21 percent gap. As Democrats have gone out of style in Cracker Barrel country and become more fashionable in Whole Foods enclaves, that culture gap — let’s call it the “Organic vs. Nostalgic Divide” — has more than doubled to 48 percent. This divide has also proven a harbinger in midterm cycles. In 2010, when Republicans regained control of the House, 82 percent of the 66 districts they flipped from Democratic control contained a Cracker Barrel; just 20 percent contained a Whole Foods.
The good news for Republicans in 2014 is that most of the top 12 competitive Senate races are playing out in Cracker Barrel country more than in Whole Foods country. In fact, just three of the 12 Senate races with less than a 95 percent certainty in the latest FiveThirtyEight Senate forecast are in states where more voters live in Whole Foods counties than Cracker Barrel counties.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/senate-control-could-come-down-to-whole-foods-vs-cracker-barrel/