# Hee-haw, y'all. The 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 12, 2018, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415 "2018-11-12T17:52:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 87
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1721 "2019-07-05T20:00:34Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I have posted data on it before. They helped power the House wins for all of those moderate Democratic challengers last fall. You’re not talking about the CNN article you just cited, I hope. Because the only “data” I see in there is Biden opinionating about the greatness of being a moderate. Can you provide data that shows that McCain-Romney-Trump voters voted for Dems in 2018? I need to see this with my own eyes. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1722 "2019-07-05T20:12:59Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I have posted data on it before. They helped power the House wins for all of those moderate Democratic challengers last fall. > > Meanwhile, the Sanders campaign is attempting to pivot: > [https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/04/bernie-sanders-2020-election-campaign-1397850](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/04/bernie-sanders-2020-election-campaign-1397850) > > Bernie asking voters if they want chocolate or vanilla, and attempting to banter with “customers” as he stands there in a white apron, sounds HILARIOUS. Cringe comedy at its best. I think even Bernheads would acknowledge that gladhanding, retail politicking is not his strong suit. 😃 Or Bernie and Joe driving around elementary schools in an ice cream truck. Creeeeepy!:eek: ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1723 "2019-07-05T21:24:26Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > My sense is that Obama-Trump voters fall into two camps: those looking for disruptive change and those who are just attracted to the new and shiny. If we accept this splitting, we should ask ourselves whether the “play it safe” strategy covers either one of these. It doesn’t seem like it does to me. > > I’m not optimistic their brains operate this way, at least to a significant extent. > > From the WP article that I posted earlier: > > 66% approval may seem low in an absolute sense, but guess what it is among Democrats? [Just 5%](https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx). The takeaway is that Obama-Trump voters are much closer to Republicans (who are 90%) than they are to Democrats. And by the time Nov 2020 comes, who knows what their approval rating will be. Take one or two Democratic gaffes outright fabricated or blown out of proportion by Russian bots, and their approval of Trump could very well shoot to the moon. > > This is ultimately why I think building a strategy around trying to snag these voters is both insane and unfair. We’re acting like the one group in the electorate that is the least rational and least loyal to the party should ultimately get to decide the kind of candidate all of us have to support. It would be different if there’s actual data telling us that it has to be this way because that’s just how the world works, but there is no data that says that. We just have a bunch of assumptions that haven’t really been properly scrutinized. Let’s start from the top. 1. Turnout of D voters. It was up in 2018 for a midterm. Why? Some major candidate on the D side who promised disruptive change? Nah. The unifying motivator was voting against Trump and Trumpism, changing that. So key D blocs came out including [even groups that often don’t as much](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/04/behind-2018-united-states-midterm-election-turnout.html). Including younger voters, Hispanic voters, Asian voters, so on. This was not a turnout for a personality that promised to disrupt the establishment, it was wanting to change course from Trumpism. Yes in the general they also need positive articulated vision to vote _for_ and we cannot let our primary process get to a point that we turn all these people off. But they are not uniformly voting for disruption. 2. Swingable voters. By definition those who had voted for Obama and then went to Trump (and the Romney-Clinton ones) are swingable, as they have been swung. These are voters who can easily become anti-incumbent whoever is in that place. Their numbers are not small, per the [Voter Study Group](https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/two-years-in) Obama-Trump voters were 5% of the electorate., and more importantly they are concentrated in the states that the D candidate really HAS to win, such as Michigan and Wisconsin ([see this map](https://www.cnbc.com/heres-a-map-of-the-us-counties-that-flipped-to-trump-from-democrats/)), and in a few that matter lots for the Senate (Maine and Iowa). 3. Specific states. Yes the specific states matter. As to **SlackerInc** ’s claim, there is [this Vox bit](https://www.vox.com/2018/11/15/18078974/trump-gop-midterms-2018-arizona-texas-never-trump) that somewhat addresses it - > [@](#): > > Never-Trumper and Trump-skeptical voters defied conventional wisdom last week: They mattered. Their numbers were small, but in tight races, suburbanite registered Republicans voted for Democrats over Republicans, helping to send them to Congress. … In races across the country, from Washington’s Eighth Congressional District (which had never sent a Democrat to the House before) to Virginia’s Seventh District, where the Tea Party captured one of its biggest wins in 2014, suburban districts with Republican tendencies went for Democrats in 2018 — with many conservatives clearly choosing Democrats over Republicans. … > > … Republican voters didn’t magically become liberals. “These voters in Texas, Arizona, Georgia, etc. didn’t become socialists in the last two years. They haven’t changed. They think the GOP has. Heck, the GOP lost suburbs in Oklahoma because of these issues. For God’s sake, people, a Democrat picked up SC-1 by running against Trump and tariffs and for free trade.” > > And writing on the Republican’s massive losses in traditionally red Orange County, California, National Review’s David Bahnsen said on Thursday, “The fact is that a significant number of center-Right, fiscally conservative, suburban, upper-middle-class voters have found the present message of the Republican party repugnant.” > > The research bears this out — and indicates that Democrats who promised to provide a check on Trump did better with suburban Republicans. According to the American Enterprise Institute, 38 percent of those polled (including Republicans, Democrats, and independents) said they voted to express opposition to Trump, with 26 percent voting in support of Trump and 33 percent saying Trump had no impact on their vote. (That 33 percent figure is the lowest since the 1990 midterms.) … This cohort may matter less in PA, MI, and WI, but in some of the hot Senate races they could be the deciding piece. They are, per that article, feeling defined out of the current GOP, and they still vote. They are also swingable. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1724 "2019-07-05T21:39:13Z")
I see DSeid partially ninja’d me, but I don’t feel like editing. Enjoy a partial repeat: > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > You’re not talking about the CNN article you just cited, I hope. Because the only “data” I see in there is Biden opinionating about the greatness of being a moderate. > > Can you provide data that shows that McCain-Romney-Trump voters voted for Dems in 2018? I need to see this with my own eyes. No, I am talking about in-depth data analysis I posted weeks ago. But rather than find that post, I will just Google anew. Plenty of other sources out there: > **[The midterm election shows white women are finally starting to abandon Trump](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/7/18064260/midterm-elections-turnout-women-trump-exit-polls)** > > Women of color have backed Democrats for years. In 2018, more white women started to join them. > [@](#): > > White, college-educated women in particular swung heavily left in 2018, with 59 percent voting for Democratic House candidates, compared with just 49 percent in 2016. > **[Educated Americans Are Fleeing the Republican Party](https://www.newsweek.com/educated-americans-fleeing-republican-party-1210620)** > > Many of the House districts flipped by Democrats had high levels of college-educated voters. > [@](#): > > Democrats have accumulated control over the most educated 30 districts over the last quarter century. Republicans and Democrats evenly split these seats when Bill Clinton took office. > > Even in 2016, Republicans still maintained control of 10 of these seats. > > Midterm voting revealed some other notable demographic shifts. Democratic support from college-educated white women increased eight percent from 2016, according to The Washington Post, which cited Cooperative Congressional Election Study data and a voter model to estimate patterns for the 2018 contests. > **[How Trump-skeptical Republicans swung the 2018 midterms](https://www.vox.com/2018/11/15/18078974/trump-gop-midterms-2018-arizona-texas-never-trump)** > > Suburban Never-Trump and Trump-skeptical Republicans aren’t a myth. And they vote. > [@](#): > > If he wants to win in 2020, Trump will need to win again in suburban areas in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and win with Trump-skeptical Republicans. The GOP’s problem in 2018 wasn’t just that Democrats came out motivated and in bigger numbers than in 2014. Their problem was that a small percentage of Republicans who don’t like Trump didn’t stay home — instead, they showed up, and they voted for Democrats. And a Republican who switches counts twice as much as a Democrat who was motivated to come out after previously staying home. > [@](#): > > National Review’s David Bahnsen said on Thursday, “The fact is that a significant number of center-Right, fiscally conservative, suburban, upper-middle-class voters have found the present message of the Republican party repugnant.” > The research bears this out — and indicates that Democrats who promised to provide a check on Trump did better with suburban Republicans. According to the American Enterprise Institute, 38 percent of those polled (including Republicans, Democrats, and independents) said they voted to express opposition to Trump, with 26 percent voting in support of Trump and 33 percent saying Trump had no impact on their vote. (That 33 percent figure is the lowest since the 1990 midterms.)[…] > [Jonah Goldberg] argued that many of those who voted for Democrats in 2018 may have been Trump voters in 2016. “Remember most, or at least many, of these suburban voters were almost certainly not Never-Trump voters in 2016. So they presumably voted for lower taxes and conservative judicial appointments,” and thus, voted for Trump. But since 2016, Goldberg told me, those same voters had gotten more than they bargained for from the president. “What they don’t like is the way Trump conducts himself as president and forces them to defend indefensible statements and behaviors.” Satisfied? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1725 "2019-07-05T23:46:56Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Satisfied? There’s compelling evidence in that article, so I’m less skeptical of the “play it safe” strategy than I was before reading it. But I’m far from 100% sold. State and local elections are different than a national one decided by the EC. If the Dems run a change agent, Trump-Resistant conservatives may very well not vote for him/her (of course, if it’s a centrist like Obama they might) but that’s hardly the end of the world if Dems have a strong turnout. Razor thin margins in battleground states mean exactly this. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1726 "2019-07-06T00:10:45Z")
> [@Boycott](#): > > The vetting/hit job campaign from the left is underway > > **Why You Shouldn’t Support Kamala Harris For The Upcoming 2020 Election: a thread** > > [https://twitter.com/niktaylorde/status/1145281507449286656](https://twitter.com/niktaylorde/status/1145281507449286656) > > 80,000 Retweets, 120,000 likes. This sort of internal fighting only helps the Republicans because the left are digging up the dirt for them. Campaigning and hitting hard is part of the job. It’s the candidates job to keep their gloves up at all times. That said, there are certain things that Democrats must be careful not to do. They must not: 1. Alienate independent (mostly white) voters 2. Kill enthusiasm among Latino and Black voters 3. Have front-runners take positions so far out of the mainstream that they can’t pivot or water them down later ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1727 "2019-07-06T00:33:39Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > There’s compelling evidence in that article, so I’m less skeptical of the “play it safe” strategy than I was before reading it. > > But I’m far from 100% sold. State and local elections are different than a national one decided by the EC. If the Dems run a change agent, Trump-Resistant conservatives may very well not vote for him/her (of course, if it’s a centrist like Obama they might) but that’s hardly the end of the world if Dems have a strong turnout. Razor thin margins in battleground states mean exactly this. …another person that holds the same opinion as your original cite: > [@Chris Arnade](#): > > While my book focuses on all back-row (all races in all places), I did run across a fair number of Obama to Trump voters & voters who voted for Obama then sat 16 out > > What they shared in common, politically, was a deep frustration with the status quo. Or with centrist politics! > > They are not very ideologically focused (I mean, Obama to Trump). What they really care about is change. Any change. > > Obama offered that. He was young. Odd name. Outsider. So they gave him a chance. > > Then Trump came along & he was even crazier! A real change! > > What the writer of the piece describes is the opposite of that. > > Sure some of them are xenophobic, some scared about immigration. > > But that is secondary to wanting a politician who will shake shit up. Because they are at the bottom and any political change gives them a chance. [https://twitter.com/Chris\_arnade/status/1145360767627202560](https://twitter.com/Chris_arnade/status/1145360767627202560) Clinton represented the establishment. Being a woman was incidental. Too many people have focused on that: and the declarations by many that the Democrats \*\*have \*\*to put forward a “white man” is a big mistake in my opinion. Its about picking the right person for the job. Not trying to guess what specific physical traits the American people will vote for. Look at the recent elections around the world. Corbyn lost. Bill Shorten lost. Both the UK and Australia are all-manner-of-fucked-up in ways that mirror what is happening in the United States. In any rational world May and Morrison would have been voted out in a landslide. Instead the UK is still a basket case in in Australia they are still holding asylum seekers in torturous conditions and doing their best to stifle the free-press. In the New Zealand elections Andrew Little was the leader of the opposition and the Labour Party was cruising towards another defeat, polling in the toilet, when he resigned less than two months before the general elections, Jacinda Ardern took over the leadership and she lead them to victory. As soon as Ardern took over everything changed. There was a “buzz in the air.” People I knew who weren’t planning on voting started to talk about “Jacinda.” People who never talked politics were suddenly joining in on the conversation. The polls turned around overnight. It wasn’t because Ardren was a woman. It was because she was perceived as “a breath of fresh air.” A change to the boring, stale, status quo. Biden doesn’t have and will never have that. Biden won’t shake things up. If he gets elected he will “bring things back to the way things were”: its the entire message of his campaign. I don’t think thats enough to get the people who went from Obama-to-Trump or the people who voted Obama-but-stayed-home to do something different. Thats just my opinion. But we are all guessing here. My biggest takeaway from the discourse is that people have become overly invested in a particlular candidate. If I see one more person declaring “If XYZ happens, thats why Trump will win again” I will probably scream. I think that Biden will be the worst candidate the Dems could run, but if he wins the nomination then we all need to switch gears and do what we need to do to get him elected. But we aren’t at that point yet. Robust debate right now is the best thing we should be doing. The mid-terms are an indicator. They aren’t a predictor. This is a high stakes game. We really can afford to take the time to consider all possible options. I am skeptical of “play it safe” politics. I’ve seen it backfire too many time \*\*since \*\*Trump got elected for me to think its the best strategy going into 2020. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1728 "2019-07-06T00:51:52Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > Look at the recent elections around the world. Corbyn lost. Bill Shorten lost. Both the UK and Australia are all-manner-of-fucked-up in ways that mirror what is happening in the United States. In any rational world May and Morrison would have been voted out in a landslide. Instead the UK is still a basket case. It kind of blows my mind how you basically whooshed yourself and proved my point. How on Earth did Corbyn lose the general election? You are mystified. Somehow you don’t see what is so plain to me and [has been for years:](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21386367&postcount=2259) Jeremy Corbyn is exactly the kind of cringe-inducing walking self-parody who blows elections a normal-acting center-left party would win in a walk. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1729 "2019-07-06T01:15:42Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Let’s start from the top. > > 1. Turnout of D voters. It was up in 2018 for a midterm. Why? {snip}.\*\* But they are not uniformly voting for disruption.\*\* I never said they are. My disruption/newshiny theory applies to Obama-Trumpers. Yes, it was great that Dems blew up the polls in 2018. I’m encouraged by that, but I don’t think we should take it for granted they will do that in 2020. Because Russians. > [@](#): > > 1. Swingable voters. By definition those who had voted for Obama and then went to Trump (and the Romney-Clinton ones) are swingable, as they have been swung. These are voters who can easily become anti-incumbent whoever is in that place. Their numbers are not small, per the [Voter Study Group](https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/two-years-in) Obama-Trump voters were 5% of the electorate., and more importantly they are concentrated in the states that the D candidate really HAS to win, such as Michigan and Wisconsin ([see this map](https://www.cnbc.com/heres-a-map-of-the-us-counties-that-flipped-to-trump-from-democrats/)), and in a few that matter lots for the Senate (Maine and Iowa). Based on that WP article I linked to earlier, only 34% of that 5% have the good sense to even disapprove of Trump right now. If the election was held tomorrow, we would expect only a fraction of these voters to be swingable. That’s a whopping 1.7% of the electorate, if we’re generous. Should we completely ignore this fraction of the population? Of course not. All the hand shaking and baby kissing needs to be done where they live. But dumbing down the dinner menu to accommodate them because of the assumption they will only eat chicken nuggets and and oh, how we want them to like us, oh how it hurts our feelings when they don’t like us…all the while everyone else at the table is thinking “Chicken nuggets again? Why do I keep coming to this restaurant?” And then when the Obama-Trumpers throw the chicken nuggets on the floor and eat their own shit instead, cue the overwrought articles about how Dems ignore the heartland. We don’t have to this to win so let’s not do it, is all I’m saying. We should run a candidate that is strong not necessarily “safe”. This means not assuming a white man has to be the savior. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1730 "2019-07-06T01:31:52Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It kind of blows my mind how you basically whooshed yourself and proved my point. How on Earth did Corbyn lose the general election? You are mystified. Somehow you don’t see what is so plain to me and [has been for years:](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21386367&postcount=2259) …I didn’t “woosh myself” and I didn’t “prove your point.” Corbyn was a boring white man who held wishy-washy positions on things like Brexit and (get this) he lost to a woman, something that you seem to think is inconceivable. He is “old-school” left, not “new school-progressive” left. Corbyn was not and is not “an outsider”: he’s part of the political furniture. He wasn’t an “agent of change.” [David Lammy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lammy) would be the sort of candidate that would be the opposite of Corbyn. He doesn’t “tick your box” of having to be a “white man”. You can be a white man and go up against Trump and you can lose. > [@](#): > > Jeremy Corbyn is exactly the kind of cringe-inducing walking self-parody who blows elections a normal-acting center-left party would win in a walk. :smack: Joe Biden is exactly the kind of cringe-inducing walking self-parody who has failed to get the nomination for President twice already. And there is a chance if he does get the nomination and he goes up against Trump and he will lose again. We need to talk about that. Not pretend that it isn’t a possibility. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1731 "2019-07-06T03:38:50Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > There’s compelling evidence in that article, so I’m less skeptical of the “play it safe” strategy than I was before reading it. Glad it had at least some impact. Now, BB: seems like we are talking past each other a bit. I get a strong sense you take me to be a “white guys only” voter, most especially if it’s a really old, handsy white guy from Scranton. Not so. My preferences have evolved this year, and I cannot rule out further change; but let me catch you up on where I have been and where I am as of now: > [@Joe Biden's in](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joe-bidens-in/833042/442): > > In case you’re not familiar with my posting history, Biden is one of my least preferred candidates. Beto, Inslee, or Booker would be my preference. But Biden’s a smarter bet, at least, than Buttigieg, Warren, or especially Sanders. > [@How good would Harris be in the general?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-would-harris-be-in-the-general/836218/64): > > I understand the nervousness about nominating another woman against Trump, I really do (I don’t think being black is an issue after Obama—a reason Booker has been one of my favorites all along). And I think the other female candidates, especially Warren, would be weaksauce against Trump. My bias has been to look for someone tall and imposing. Beto and Inslee were the other two in my top three. > > BUT after seeing this debate, I am now convinced that she has a special kind of toughness that overrides these concerns. She got a huge surge of donations in the 24 hours after the debate, 58% of which were from people who never gave to her before. I was among that 58 percent, and she is now my top choice. “She” refers to Harris, just in case it’s not clear from the context. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1732 "2019-07-06T04:25:02Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1733 "2019-07-06T15:03:20Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I never said they are. My disruption/newshiny theory applies to Obama-Trumpers. > > Yes, it was great that Dems blew up the polls in 2018. I’m encouraged by that, but I don’t think we should take it for granted they will do that in 2020. Because Russians. > > Based on that WP article I linked to earlier, only 34% of that 5% have the good sense to even disapprove of Trump right now. If the election was held tomorrow, we would expect only a fraction of these voters to be swingable. That’s a whopping 1.7% of the electorate, if we’re generous. Should we completely ignore this fraction of the population? Of course not. All the hand shaking and baby kissing needs to be done where they live. But dumbing down the dinner menu to accommodate them because of the assumption they will only eat chicken nuggets and and oh, how we want them to like us, oh how it hurts our feelings when they don’t like us…all the while everyone else at the table is thinking “Chicken nuggets again? Why do I keep coming to this restaurant?” And then when the Obama-Trumpers throw the chicken nuggets on the floor and eat their own shit instead, cue the overwrought articles about how Dems ignore the heartland. > > We don’t have to this to win so let’s not do it, is all I’m saying. We should run a candidate that is strong not necessarily “safe”. This means not assuming a white man has to be the savior. I agree that we cannot depend on that turnout, even if we can hope for it. And nice to hear that you don’t think they were or will be motivated by either “disruption” or “newshiny”. It was anti-Trumpism and a greater understanding of what is at stake that motivated that turnout. Let’s hope they stay energized. It may be flagging some but we’ll see. I think however you under-appreciate the importance of over a third of the 5% coming back home and voting D again. 1.7% of the electorate voting D instead of R, concentrated to very significant degrees in the must-win Rust Belt states? That would be a 3.4% shift in popular vote _supersized_ in the states that are most vital. In a close election that is game set and match. If Trump loses even that third of them he has lost. And others have estimated the Obama-Trump voters to be a larger figure, 9% as referenced below. If true virtually double that impact. The other side, the 2016 non-voters who had voted in 2012, [“the missing Obama millions”.](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/obama-trump-voters-democrats.html) > [@NYT 3/10/2018](#): > > Our analysis shows that while 9 percent of Obama 2012 voters went for Mr. Trump in 2016, 7 percent — that’s more than four million missing voters — stayed home. Three percent voted for a third-party candidate. … Let’s pause there. By there apples to apples analysis Obama-Trump voters were a significantly larger group than Obama-nonvoters, 28% more of them, and the impact of a _switched_ vote is twice as large as the impact of a stayed home vote (that should be pretty obvious). Gaining that third of the Obama-Trump voters back is of more impact than getting well over half of the Obama-nonvoters voting again. Again, the ideal is someone who can do both, and help motivate other previous non-voters to come out, like they did in 2018, for centrist and progressive candidates alike. So where do those two groups overlap and where do the diverge? What emphases can get both to vote D and which lose one to make gains in the other? Tghe article documents where the groups each tend to stand. _100% agree_ that there is no need for a white male. Both these groups voted for Obama after all! Obama-Trump voters will vote for a person of color if they like what is being said. And I do not buy that their misogyny is much greater. Conversely can we expect Obama level turn-out from younger poorer Black voters, who are over-represented as Obama-nonvoters, without Obama on the ticket? I personally doubt another person of color would even get that again but I think of the top contenders who actually are in the race, either Biden (unless he gets too wounded by another D) or Harris could do fairly close … with Obama campaigning for them. Sanders or Warren? No. **On issues** it turns out there is some overlap in that over 50% of both believe in regulating greenhouse gases, believe in an increase to the federal minimum wage, and support an end to mandatory minimum sentences. Beyond that article we can find polling that shows that [pollution and environmental protection](https://www.pollingreport.com/enviro.htm) have grown as salient issues across the board. Reversing Trump’s give-away to the very wealthiest and supporting a living wage, more broadly addressing the increasing wealth gap between the very wealthiest and the rest, would resonate with both. Obama-Trump voters were more against the ACA but that would bear further analysis. I suspect there is broad agreement between both groups in something better than what we currently have. They’d likely diverge on eliminating private insurance, but an expansion of Medicare that has a path to prove itself and progress to opt-in and then to Medicare for all? That might get both as an attractive item compared to Trumpism’s just screw em all. Immigration? The article points out that Obama-Trump voters were more in support of deportation of those here illegally. But not in that article is the broad disapproval across groups of how inhumanely asylum seekers are being treated. Getting pegged as “open borders” may be a mistake an emphasis on reform and dealing with the issues in ways more meaningful than an ineffective and expensive wall can appeal across the board. But yes I come back to a candidate being able to convince voters that they actually understand and care about their problems and that they matter. A candidate who can at the same time convince groups from Black urban voters to suburbanites to less educated white voters in both rural and less rural settings (again very different groups in many ways) of that has it won. Can you message to one without losing the other? Do you message it by identity alone? Those are questions of significance. I think yes to the former for sure and I think messaging by identity can be only a small part of it. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1734 "2019-07-06T17:36:35Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I think however you under-appreciate the importance of over a third of the 5% coming back home and voting D again. I think you’re overestimating how at “home” they are with Democrats. They are largely attracted to new and shiny objects and disrupters. _That’s_ their political party. Agreement on policy issues has never stopped people from voting against their interests. In 2000 and 2004, who did these jokers vote for? Who the fuck knows. I can very well imagine most of them staying at home. Or voting for Nader (and Paul) because they were the new and shiny things back then. Lining up to vote for oatmeal flavored Gore and Kerry, I just can’t see unless you can bring data to the fore. Don’t take issue with the rest of what you wrote. I agree that we need someone who strongly resonates with swing voters and the Dem base. As long we’re not forced to accept a milquetoast moderate whose entire campaign rest on being not-Trump, I will be able to sleep at night. But Biden is giving me these vibes right now, and that’s why I’m getting antsy if others aren’t seeing what I’m seeing in his potential candidacy. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1735 "2019-07-06T18:22:27Z")
Found this article that discusses more these wild and crazy Obama-Trumpers and the mentality behind their voting behavior. [The Voters Who Put Both Obama and Trump in the White House](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4w5npj/the-voters-who-put-obama-and-trump-in-the-white-house) Read this about a guy who supported Obama in 2008, but hadn’t been old enough to vote for him: > [@](#): > > Paulmier refused to be one of those disillusioned Bernie supporters who was resigned to voting for Clinton. Conventional partisan wisdom holds that if your candidate loses in a heated primary campaign, you eventually get over it and stand with the party in the end like a good soldier. Clinton herself went to work for Obama as secretary of state while plotting her comeback to electoral politics. > > **But Paulmier didn’t have that kind of loyalty to the Democrats.** For him, the path from Sanders to Trump— **both of them rebels** —was smooth. “The overlap between the interests of Bernie supporters and Trump supporters was real but not discussed in the media,” says Paulmier. What were those interests? “Mainly ending corporate collusion politics, bringing in domestic industry, establishing a border, which Bernie was in favor of. I think there is a lot of more commonality.” This guy went from literally supporting a socialist (Sanders) to a so-called billionaire who bragged during the campaign about not paying taxes. Sure, he says the two politicians stood for the same things, but this is clearly rationalization. He was seduced by the new and shiny. Here’s another guy, this one older and so should know better. But sadly, no. > [@](#): > > “It was very, very tough,” says Richard Hartman, 59, an insurance consultant who lives in Pleasantville, New York… “I went back and forth so many times. One of the biggest things, every time he’d open his mouth, I’d start to switch and think, You know what? I’ll just vote for Hillary.” > > **In the end, however, Hartman’s affinity for outsiders won out** ; he wanted to see a businessman in the White House. Hartman did what four of his five children wouldn’t do and voted for Trump— **for some of the same reasons he cast ballots for eccentric third-party candidate Ross Perot in 1992 and Obama in 2008 and 2012**. > > “I was all excited when Ross Perot ran. I was tired of the status quo. I was tired of business as usual,” Hartman tells me. Ross Perot. We all remember that guy’s name because he was the new and shiny disrupter in the 90’s. Without him, we might not even have had Bill’s presidency. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1736 "2019-07-07T02:37:09Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > …Ross Perot. We all remember that guy’s name because he was the new and shiny disrupter in the 90’s. Without him, we might not even have had Bill’s presidency. The _NYT_ crunched the numbers after the 1992 campaign and found that Perot drew pretty evenly from both GHWB and Bubba. The only state in which he made a difference in the Electoral College was Maine, which Clinton won; but even had GHWB won the state, he still would have lost the election. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1737 "2019-07-07T02:47:55Z")
Inspired by your post **you with the face** I looked back at the longer term trend for non-college educated white voters. Because it is very clear that if HRC did the same as Obama had done with them she’d have won handily. Were these white non-college educated voters going to Obama because they thought him as newshiny and/or a disruptor? If true then we should see that he did better with them than establishment Kerry did. But it wasn’t the case. Obama '12 had done worse than Kerry had done, who did worse than Gore had done. The decline of non-college educated white voter support for the D nominee is a very long term trend. [Here’s a 2008 Brookings Institute report on it.](https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/04_demographics_teixeira.pdf) Also graphically in [this Pew report](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/15/educational-divide-in-vote-preferences-on-track-to-be-wider-than-in-recent-elections/). Let’s just start with Bill Clinton. He averaged about 41% of the white non-college educated vote and thanks to Perot had a plurality of 1%. Gore was down 17 points. Kerry was down 23 points. Obama '08 back up a little to a 19 point deficit. But in '12 he was down 26 points, worse even than Kerry. That was still good enough to win what with his performance in other groups. HRC though was _37 points down_ in the demographic. Far worse than establishment candidates Gore and Kerry had done before. Far worse than incumbent Obama did. And she did not do well enough with other demographics, even with their increasing size, to make that up. Okay Bill Clinton was part of a response to Reagan’s 26 point win in the group over Carter and while he won his elections it isn’t like he got a majority of the white non-college educated vote either. HRC’s exceptionally bad performance with this group is part of a long term trend for D nominees, amplified. A Democratic presidential strategy does not have to win that group. The Democratic nominee won’t. They will lose the demographic without doubt. But making a better effort for them, might at least get the deficit back into Obama '12 range and no reason to not think into even Kerry range. Do that in ways that do not lose turnout and margins of others, and the win is huge. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1738 "2019-07-07T06:27:35Z")
Good stuff! ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1739 "2019-07-07T09:54:30Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > A Democratic presidential strategy does not have to win that group. The Democratic nominee won’t. They will lose the demographic without doubt. But making a better effort for them, might at least get the deficit back into Obama '12 range and no reason to not think into even Kerry range. Do that in ways that do not lose turnout and margins of others, and the win is huge. Reminds me of the days when we believed we could get lower-class whites and blacks to be political allies, since they both were being oppressed by The Man. It’s just a bit much of a juggling act to come up with a candidate/message that appeals to blacks and millennials, getting them to turn out at higher rates, and simultaneously appeals to non-college-educated whites. Excepting the ones that **you with the face** talks about: the low-information voters who will vote for the shiniest object. But as **ywtf** said, a candidate becomes that shiny object by being an unabashed change agent/disrupter. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1740 "2019-07-07T10:18:14Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > The _NYT_ crunched the numbers after the 1992 campaign and found that Perot drew pretty evenly from both GHWB and Bubba. The only state in which he made a difference in the Electoral College was Maine, which Clinton won; but even had GHWB won the state, he still would have lost the election. True but in a meaningless way. What it measures, in effect, is the difference between the campaign as it actually transpired, and the campaign as it would have been if Perot hadn’t re-entered the race in the fall. What it doesn’t attempt to measure is the campaign as it would have been if Perot had not gotten involved in the 1992 race at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415.md?page=86) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415.md?page=88)