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.
Or Bernie and Joe driving around elementary schools in an ice cream truck.
Creeeeepy!:eek:
Let’s start from the top.
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. 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.
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 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), and in a few that matter lots for the Senate (Maine and Iowa).
Specific states. Yes the specific states matter.
As to SlackerInc’s claim, there is this Vox bit that somewhat addresses it -
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.
I see DSeid partially ninja’d me, but I don’t feel like editing. Enjoy a partial repeat:
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:
And a Republican who switches counts twice as much as a Democrat who was motivated to come out after previously staying home.
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.
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:
Alienate independent (mostly white) voters
Kill enthusiasm among Latino and Black voters
Have front-runners take positions so far out of the mainstream that they can’t pivot or water them down later
…another person that holds the same opinion as your original cite:
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.
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: 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:
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 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 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.
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.
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:
“She” refers to Harris, just in case it’s not clear from the context.
NM
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”.
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 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.
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.
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
Read this about a guy who supported Obama in 2008, but hadn’t been old enough to vote for him:
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.
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.
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. Also graphically in this Pew report.
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.
Good stuff!
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.
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.