All states where the GOP will easily win even if Clinton does better among white voters than Obama did. Meanwhile, she’s hurting the most in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, very white states. And not just against Sanders, but against Republicans as well. She trails some Republicans in IA and NH, two Obama states despite their whiteness, but which aren’t all that interested in Clinton.
To be clear, Clinton can and will do better among racist whites than Obama did. Which will be offset by her doing worse against non-racist whites who liked Obama because they thought he was different. One thing Clinton will never be able to do, is make a case that she is different. You can’t get much more “same old politics” as Hillary Clinton.
There’s always an old white person at the top of the ticket – there has been, on one of the sides, in every election. As for the Democrats, there’s never been a woman, and there’s never been a Jew, at the top of the ticket. There’s no “normal” for that, just like there was no normal for Obama.
I think it’s highly likely that some significantly increased black voter turnout for presidential elections is the new normal – voting is pretty easy, and I think once people start voting (for president, at least), they find little reason to stop.
I think that’s a bad prediction, but we’ll see. IIRC, you also predicted this for 2012.
If it’s reasonable to assume that many white voters wouldn’t support Obama because he was black, then it’s reasonable to assume that many black voters won’t support Clinton because she is white(or will at least stay home), and many black men won’t vote for her because she’s a woman(sexism is not a “white thing”, it cuts across all races.)
Then why did turnout drop in 2012 by 3 million voters?
Yes I did. I thought that everyone saw Obama as the big fake that I did. I was wrong, although apparently many did see it, which is why his support dropped between the elections. Just not enough.
But we’ll see. Can an old white lady(or old white man) bring out young and black voters? I’m betting no.
Then why couldn’t Kerry? And I realize you don’t like comparing midterms, but are Congressional and state Republicans not threatening enough to motivate minority turnout?
My theory still stands: voters come out when they are voting FOR something, not against something. No matter how scary Republicans are, people won’t vote for Democrats unless the Democrats they are voting for take positive action to get their votes.
Kerry didn’t run post-Obama; Kerry ran a lousy campaign; the demographics are much more favorable today; and Kerry came very close to winning. If Hillary gets the exact same proportions as Kerry did, I’m pretty sure Hillary wins.
Yes – far less money spent, and far less national media involvement.
Obama’s 2012 campaign was pretty damn negative and it worked. I don’t think your theory stands very well for 2016, but we’ll see.
I think you still don’t get your own considerable bias and how much it warps your thinking.
I certainly have my own bias, but then I’m not trying to convince others that my predictions are perfectly valid and must be accepted as such. I’m sure my biases play a role in my predictions, even as I try to minimize them.
It is positive to get minorities or women into positions of power, and if Hillary is the nominee we know were the support will go, currently Clinton is ahead among women by 60% to 37%
As pointed before it is not likely that women will sit this one. And if Trump is the nominee for the Republicans then the Republicans have also a problem similar to the one they have against hispanics.
The Gallup poll already cited shows that Hispanics also favor Hilllary.
Yes she would. I was just saying that a hated Republican on the ticket doesn’t bring Democrats out. That was an assumption that many “skewed polls” Kerry fans made that was wrong.
It worked at getting OBama the win. It reduced turnout though.
This is silly because you are comparing a sitting incumbent president to a loose cannon of a candidate, in any case Hispanics and women support Hillary in huge numbers, even if we assume that hate will not be an important driver in the election the positive action will remain important.
Right – so even if Hillary (or any Democratic candidate) only motivates Democrats in the same proportions as Kerry, they win. When Kerry’s campaign is above the minimum necessary to win, then Democrats can be pretty optimistic.
Turnout was still pretty high, just not as high as 2008.
You’re right, there are no similar voters in other states where the election might be closer (e.g. VA, NC, OH). So no need to think about this anymore.
The problem is, there is no enduring ‘normal.’ The political world of 2004 and 2000 is gone forever, even more so than the political worlds of 2012 and 2008.
Here would be my assumptions about a Hillary v. Whoever race:
Meta-assumption: the larger and more heterogeneous a group is, the harder it is to change its behavior by the same percentages as with a smaller and more homogeneous group.
Black turnout will drop off from 2008 (64.7%) and 2012 (66.3%), but there’s no reason it should return to 2004 levels (56.3%). Some of the additional voters will stop voting once a black is no longer on the ticket, but some of them will have picked up the habit of voting, at least in Presidential elections, and will be back in 2016. So say 60% black turnout. But there’s no reason to think that the D/R percentages will change appreciably from recent, as GOP hostility towards blacks remains all too blatant. So I’ll leave that as it is.
I left Hispanic and Asian turnout at 50%, even though I suspect that GOP xenophobia may drive their numbers higher. At this point, it’s just a suspicion. I also stayed with RCP’s assumption that GOP shares of the Hispanic and Asian votes would continue their gradual slide, to 25% and 30% respectively.
I think Hillary’s candidacy will increase both women’s turnout and Dem vote share. I doubt that Hillary-haters will turn out in appreciably greater numbers, because I expect the vast majority of them are already in high-turnout groups, and enthusiasm won’t give any of them a second vote.
The non-Hispanic white vote already has high turnout numbers, and this group has been steadily shifting towards the GOP column. All other things being equal, I’d expect that to continue, with the GOP vote share increasing to ~62%. I think the effect of #3 will be to increase overall turnout, while somewhat reducing the increase in GOP vote share. So say 67% turnout, and 61% GOP vote share.
Conclusion: Playing with the tool starting with these assumptions, the GOP getting 62% or less of the non-Hispanic white vote is pretty much a lock for the Dems, while the GOP getting 64% or more is a lock for the GOP, with 63% leaning GOP but depending on turnout assumptions of whites and other groups.
I just don’t see the GOP share of the non-Hispanic white vote going to 63% this year, given that it was 60.2% in 2012, and was 56.7% all the way back in 2000, so it’s not increasing that fast.
Here’s the reason why Democrats could end up being tarred as the anti-white party:
Let’s go back to 1992, when Bill Clinton ran for President as a “different kind of Democrat”. The Democrats had lost the white working class going back to 1980, so the Democrats went with a guy who was able to win those voters over, and it worked. Really well.
Fast forward to 2015, and Democrats are back to losing the white working class again. But now things are a little different. That voting bloc isn’t critical anymore, so long as Democrats can win at least 40% of white voters, and in each succeeding election they’ll need less. 38-39% might be enough in 2016, maybe only 35% by 2024. And that’s fine. We live in a majority rules country, so if the same voters that used to decide elections no longer do, that’s just life in a free country.
But here’s why Democrats might have trouble getting to the 35-40% that they’ll need over the next 8-16 years:
If you act like you don’t need voters, they’ll pick up on that. If you don’t ask people for their votes, you won’t get them. Democrats are showing signs that they are giving up on white working class voters. As a general rule, if Democrats were trying before and getting 40%, then not trying will lead to doing even worse.
Democrats are starting to choose against the white working class on issues where there is conflict within the Democratic Party. In the 90s, the Democrats would always come down on the side of white working class interests: crime, welfare, taxes, immigration, spending, etc. The lone exception was trade. Now Democrats are poised to flip on at least half of those issues, with signs they may flip on the rest in the not too distant future. Also as a general rule, the lowest special interest on the totem pole tends to look for greener pastures. If the Democrats aren’t willing to come down on the side of the white working class and Republicans are, then Democrats won’t be able to keep winning 35-40% of white voters.
“Welfare queen” = dog whistle for “those lazy blacks are living high on the hog on YOUR money, whitey!”
“Tough on crime” = “we’ll keep incarcerating blacks for minor offenses”
“Cut taxes” = "we’ll cut income taxes on the wealthy while we raise sales, cigarette, and liquor taxes that hit low income (and thus minority) people disproportionately.
“Cut spending” = “we’ll let the roads crumble, lest some of you poor folk earn an honest living in construction”
I don’t think the Hubbell telescope can find the planet on which Republican policies benefit the working class.
They’re probably not popular with them. I don’t think that’s necessarily the same thing as being “against” them.
But that brings up an interesting point – I think the reason the Republican party is seen by many as anti-black and anti-Latino has to do more with rhetoric – the Republican party explicitly went after racist white voters for decades (as the Democratic party did before them). And even in recent years, the Republican party has been fine with prominent members (like, say, Steve King) saying racist and bigoted stuff.
There’s certainly a way to frame various issues as being “for” or “against” various demographics on both sides… immigration is good for working people because it brings new skills and innovations and people that will start small business and bad because it can bring wages down and undercut people in low-skill jobs; harsh crime policies are good for minorities because they are more often the victims of crimes and bad because they get unjustly swept up in the crackdowns; and so on.
But the Republicans went after the racists, and still are okay with them. The Democrats have no such parallel in recent years with people who are racist against working white people (of which there are few, and none with any political significance). The parties are not comparable on this.
As I noted in post #40 going for whistles and memes made by white nationalists, white separatists, white supremacists and their ilk is not really a good idea, far from being that way most white Americans do know that prejudice is not what America is all about. And even the south is beginning to drop the confederate flag.
The nativist and racists that pushed lawsuits like the ICE one against the dreamers should had show the Republicans that it only leads to even conservative Hispanics (And lots of them are white BTW) to realize that Republicans not only do not care about our votes, but also that Republicans continue to condone and allow white nationalists, white separatists, white supremacists, nativists to set the agenda in the party. And I already had a discussion about that with you, as usual you did not learn anything but you wilfully ignore what kind of groups you are making an effort to support.
The context here is the Hispanic (and other minority and women’s voters too), and as I pointed before you are ignoring what Hispanics have told you about Republicans like Kris Kobach (Who I pointed in the other thread at as one of the main guys behind the dumb anti dreamer ICE lawsuit), Joe Arpaio and Donald Trump.
The group of white voters that go for hate is not increasing, but in the days were winning elections usually goes to very small percentages it is still a group that the Republicans will continue to at least keep whistling.
While the democrats are more active to minimize their prejudice the Republicans are increasing the pandering and now a good chunk of the Trump supporters are getting a taste of the control and attention that they had in “the good old days”. And a good part of why this is happening is coming thanks to the pandering that Republicans did for many years to haters.
Like if Romney’s “47%” excludes all of the white working class. Really, it has been mostly the sorry propaganda from the Republicans that has seeded doubts on Democratic programs that in reality benefit a lot of them, and many of them do agree. It may not be the majority but once again the horse race that media sets, no matter who the candidates are, means that a good chunk of the white working class that knows that the Republicans really are not supporting them will make a difference in the next election.
While those would be things I would agree are the perception many may have about immigrants I would disagree those perceptions are in anyway valid. Just because there are a large number of people who think those things are true doesn’t make them so. Most of those attitudes are based on bigotry and fear. Demagogues happen to be very good at exploiting such fears to their personal benefit.