There’s a familiar trope among right-leaning pundits: the Georgetown cocktail party. It’s used to describe the supposedly out-of-touch limousine liberal attitude that dominates the Washington political social scene.
But as the election on Tuesday showed, maybe this trope is misplaced. You see, for Washington there sure are a lot of Republicans in Georgetown.
Versus the rest of the city, Georgetown’s two voting precincts didn’t produce the most votes for Romney as a matter of total votes or percentage; but they were close.
Here’s where the GOP lives in DC:
- Precinct 12: 37.8% to Romney – Observatory/Normanstone
- Precinct 9: 36.3% – Spring Valley
- Precinct 6: 28.4% – West Georgetown
- Precinct 130: 28.4% – Within a couple blocks of the Capitol
- Precinct 5: 25.8% – East Georgetown
- Precinct 7: 25.7% – MacArthur/Foxhall
- Precinct 8: 25.0% – Palisades
- Precinct 10: 22.9% – Wesley Heights
- Precinct 4: 22.7% – West End
- Precinct 3: 21.7% – West Foggy Bottom
So, chances are that there are a bunch of Republicans at that Georgetown cocktail party. Of course, most Washingtonian’s response to this information would be “and that’s why I don’t go to Georgetown.” But it just demonstrates how out of date the “Georgetown cocktail party” trope is.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
And I am proof of same, as you know 🙂
Hmm. I always read the “Georgetown cocktail party circuit” thing as less about a liberal bias and more about general social elitism and a concern for one’s social standing and party attendance above issues that matter. So it is a reference to people being out of touch, but because they are so invested in going to parties with other rich people (liberal and conservative) that they aren’t as invested in policy. That’s why it is used as a criticism by ideologues – they don’t want their elected representatives to be hobnobbing with the enemy, they want them to be fighting them in a pitched battle.
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Where did the election result data come from? I’d be interested in looking up other precincts in Washington. Let me know if possible please!
So because 3 out of 4 voting Georgetowners voted Democratic, the “trope” isn’t accurate?
Sarah, data is available from the DCBOE site in full in a CSV file.