# Is there any reason to believe 2016 won't be a landslide victory for the Democrats? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 27, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737 "2014-09-27T19:53:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/161 "2014-10-06T21:00:54Z")
If 2012 is a trend and not just a single-election anomaly, then Democrats will continue to win Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada, and will thus continue to breeze into office with electoral totals in the low-mid 300s. There’s no such thing as electoral “momentum”. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/162 "2014-10-07T00:45:55Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > At least he now admits there \*was \*a 2012. Baby steps. IIRC he didn’t post for 3 straight months post-election 2012… ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/163 "2014-10-07T01:13:39Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If 2012 is a trend and not just a single-election anomaly, then Democrats will continue to win Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada, and will thus continue to breeze into office with electoral totals in the low-mid 300s. There’s no such thing as electoral “momentum”. 2012 featured increased minority turnout and lower than expected white turnout. If whites and minorities revert to 2004 turnout levels, with whites continuing to go more GOP, then the Republicans have nothing to worry about. Further if minorities vote for Republicans at 2004 rates, Republicans are golden. I’m VERY interested in seeing how minorities vote when Democrats put a white person at the top of the ticket again. Especially an ancient one. But like I said, let’s see what happens in 2016. This thread is about “any reason to believe 2016 won’t be a landslide victory” and there are many reasons why that might not happen. And since some of you are looking beyond 2016 to some magical fantasy world where Democrats win every election, it’s important to put the kibosh on that too. Not likely to happen. America has been through demographic change before. It never results in one party dominance for very long and it never results in the death of conservatism. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/164 "2014-10-07T01:17:21Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > There \*is \*a fair amount of evidence that the white population is increasingly going Republican, perhaps as a result of the nativist fears they’ve worked so hard to build. Or, it could be that the Democrats just don’t handle that demographic well. Instead of trying to turn white working class people into liberals, they try to appease them with moderate Democrats who don’t vote moderately when they get to DC. Basically, they lie to them and act like they are morons without an internet connection. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/165 "2014-10-07T01:44:50Z")
The Republicans will never get significant %s of the minority vote as long as months of outreach can be wiped out by one mid-level GOP operative dropping a watermelon joke. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/166 "2014-10-07T01:47:11Z")
That’s an issue to be argued out in campaigns and the media. The two highest profile Democrats in the country next to Obama, Clinton and Biden, have both made tasteless Indian jokes and gotten away with it. Everyone gaffes. THe key is to convince people that the gaffes don’t betray a racist nature. Now the white New Mexican gubernatorial opponent of Susana Martinez, who said she doesn’t have a “Latino heart”, that didn’t go as well as he expected. Too bad we can’t nationalize that one. But you need some help from the media for that and the media isn’t helping us. Then there’s Bill Richardson saying Ted Cruz isn’t Hispanic. And white Democrats telling Republican African-Americans that they aren’t authentically black. Heck Harry Reid is probably the most gaffe-prone Democrat alive when it comes to saying stupid things about African-Americans. But we don’t need to win the minority vote. We just need to do as well as we did in 2004. Instead of winning only 7% of the African-American vote as we did in 2012, it would be nice to win 11% as we did in 2004. 15% would be amazing and at 20% we’d never lose a Presidential election again. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/167 "2014-10-07T02:29:21Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The changes are all likely to be on the social issues front. On economic issues, the Democrats are more likely to have to change than the Republicans, as a young to middle aged Latino majority within the party decides whether it really wants 3/4ths of the budget to finance the majority white elderly. Wait. So you’re implying that a younger Latino cohort in the Democratic party is going consider dismantling our social safety net because there are a lot of old white people and the latinos aren’t going to be old for another 20 or 30 years? :dubious: There are two main program for the elderly. Social security is entirely solvent if you lift the cap and apply the social security tax to all earned income. Medicare/medicaid is doomed and will have to be reformed but thats not because the latinos want to throw old whiteies under the bus. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/168 "2014-10-07T02:31:19Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I don’t agree with that at all. I have yet to hear Democrats admit that their policies or performance in office are why they lost. It’s always about “structural issues” like the fact Dems don’t turn out in midterms, or the economy, or the “Bubba vote”, which was called the “angry white man” vote in 1994. > > If Republicans win it all in 2016 I predict that Democrats will say it was “history”, that Clinton could never overcome Obama’s 41% approval ratings, which in turn weren’t his fault either. > > Republicans on the other hand have been spending a lot of time figuring out how to win more minority voters. That debate within the party has been healthy, although it hasn’t resulted in a strategy for actually doing it yet. Meanwhile, Democrats act as if winning back the white vote doesn’t even matter. Which is why by 2030, white voters will have the same relationship with Democrats that black voters have with Republicans. You DO realize that Obama is the first non-white Democratic presidential candidate, right? The fact that Democrats don’t pander to whites to the exclusion of all other demographics doesn’t make them to white what Republicans are to blacks. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/169 "2014-10-07T02:38:26Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Let me just reiterate that I’m not making predictions, only presenting scenarios of how things could be different in ways today’s liberals don’t expect. To assume that nothing else will change but that we’ll have more Democrats is the most ridiculous prediction of all. Things are always changing and very few of us even come close to predicting how things will change. I’m sure my cloudy predictions will be 90% wrong. I’m sure that predictions that NOTHING will change except for increased Democratic support are 100% wrong. Plenty has changed about the two parties in the last 30 years and a heck of a lot more will change over the next 30. You can’t even be sure that any particular minority group will still vote Democrat. Heck, you can’t even be sure that today’s minorities will even BE minorities. Southern Europeans and Irish were once minorities. Today’s O’Connor is tomorrow’s Gonzalez. Latino voting behavior may become indistinguishable from white voting behavior in 30 years. You do realize that there are more Latinos in America than Irish right? There have been more Latinos than Irish In America for pretty much its entire history and yet somehow the Irish have been able blend in a lot better. Is there something that the majority focuses on that might cause a barrier for Hispanics but not for Irish? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/170 "2014-10-07T11:08:16Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > 2012 featured increased minority turnout and lower than expected white turnout. If whites and minorities revert to 2004 turnout levels, with whites continuing to go more GOP, then the Republicans have nothing to worry about. And if black people disappear from the earth, the Republicans will win. What’s the point with these stupid “ifs”, besides making yourself feel better? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/171 "2014-10-07T14:14:57Z")
It’s not just an “if”. 2004 was not an unusual election year in terms of how people voted. 2008 and 2012 were. If there was truly a sea change in how groups voted, then we would see these numbers hold up in special elections and midterms. But take Obama off the top of the ballot, and these groups don’t bother to vote in the same numbers. African-Americans don’t even come close to whites in turnout during midterms and special elections, despite exceeding white turnout in the Presidential election. That’s gotta be an Obama effect and it’s not likely to hold up in 2016. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/172 "2014-10-07T14:56:38Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It’s not just an “if”. 2004 was not an unusual election year in terms of how people voted. 2008 and 2012 were. What is “usual”? Maybe it was “unusual” that minorities had such a low turnout for years, and Obama’s election was sort of a hard reset that inspired many to vote. And studies have shown that, IIRC, most people who vote once keep voting. > [@](#): > > If there was truly a sea change in how groups voted, then we would see these numbers hold up in special elections and midterms. Not necessarily. Presidential elections have shown different turnout from midterms quite frequently in the past. But we will find out. > [@](#): > > But take Obama off the top of the ballot, and these groups don’t bother to vote in the same numbers. African-Americans don’t even come close to whites in turnout during midterms and special elections, despite exceeding white turnout in the Presidential election. That’s gotta be an Obama effect and it’s not likely to hold up in 2016. I know you desperately hope this is the case, but just because you think 2016 will be closer to 2010 than 2012 doesn’t make it so. If Obama campaigns hard for the Democratic nominee in 2016, I think high minority turnout is extremely likely once again. I think it’s likely minority turnout, at least for presidential elections, will be high as long as the Obamas are alive and capable of energetic campaigning (and hopefully long after). I see no reason to believe that this is any more than wishful thinking on your part. Here’s a hint – if your “instincts” just happen to make you inclined to believe that your preferred party will benefit, than there’s a very good possibility that those instincts are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/173 "2014-10-07T19:09:35Z")
Obama’s always trying to get people to turn out in off year elections. He’s not doing a very good job. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/174 "2014-10-07T19:16:16Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Obama’s always trying to get people to turn out in off year elections. He’s not doing a very good job. What “elections”? He’s had the chance to do this in one election so far. Please stop failing so egregiously, **adaher**. If you would just read over your posts and put 30 seconds into trying to actually be accurate, you’d do a lot better. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/175 "2014-10-07T19:58:49Z")
Um, 2010? Wiped that one from your memory? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/176 "2014-10-07T20:15:39Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Um, 2010? Wiped that one from your memory? That’s what **iiandyiiii** said. We have one election as a data point for how well Obama does on off-year turnout. Saying that Obama “always” tries to get people to turn out for off-year “elections” but doesn’t do well is just kind of strange. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/177 "2014-10-07T20:33:11Z")
We also have 2009, 2011, and special elections. Let’s also not forget that his campaign tried to get involved in the Walker recall. ANother failure to turn people out: > **[Obama Campaign Pushes Scott Walker Recall In Wisconsin](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/scott-walker-recall-obama-campaign_n_1508209)** > > Obama Campaign Pushes Scott Walker Recall In Wisconsin ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/178 "2014-10-07T20:57:38Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > We also have 2009, 2011, and special elections. LOL. That’s not what we’re talking about, but nice try. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/179 "2014-10-07T21:48:37Z")
The fact is, when he’s not at the top of the ballot, it changes things dramatically. Maybe it’ll be different in 2016. Maybe Clinton or O’Malley or whoever can bring 'em out just like Obama did. Or maybe not. Another reason why a landslide victory for Dems is far from a sure thing in 2016. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737/180 "2014-10-07T21:53:09Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The fact is, when he’s not at the top of the ballot, it changes things dramatically. Maybe it’ll be different in 2016. Maybe Clinton or O’Malley or whoever can bring 'em out just like Obama did. Or maybe not. Another reason why a landslide victory for Dems is far from a sure thing in 2016. Who’s said it’s a sure thing? Nothing’s a sure thing about 2016. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-believe-2016-wont-be-a-landslide-victory-for-the-democrats/699737.md?page=10)