This post originally appeared in the Capital Journal blog.

One of the most important political stories next year will be the way high unemployment affects voter attitudes and behavior. Some new estimates from the economic analysts at IHS Global Insight indicate just how big a factor unemployment figures to be—and how unevenly its effects may be felt, in the real world and in the political realm.

In a new report, IHS projects that a year from now—that is, just about at the time of the 2010 mid-term election–“payrolls will be rising in most metros for consecutive quarters.” Payrolls up: That sounds like good news. But here’s the kicker: Despite this likely rise in payrolls, “the unemployment rate will have shown little improvement, as employment gains will not be sufficient to absorb enough job seekers.”

That means an economically stressed electorate, raising questions of whether voters will be inclined to take out their anxieties on Democrats now in charge in Washington, or on incumbents running for re-election in general.

Yet the effects of this lingering unemployment—and, presumably, its political fallout—will hardly be uniform. IHS forecasts that a third of the nation’s metropolitan areas will have jobless rates in double digits in the fourth quarter of next year, and that 16 metro areas will have jobless rates exceeding 15%.

The pain figures to be worst in California, which will have nine metro areas with jobless rates exceeding 15%. Michigan will have three, and Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Indiana one each.

Things figure to be better by time President Barack Obama runs for re-election, but far from perfect: “By the end of 2012, the jobless rate will still be above historic norms, but it will finally slip below 8% in more than half of metro areas,” IHS says.