# John B. Judis: I argued that demographics favored the Democrats. I was wrong. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 14, 2017, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320 "2017-09-14T14:27:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [September 19, 2017, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/61 "2017-09-19T19:25:18Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > There is nothing wrong with the Democratic Party that a likable candidate with a clear and convincing message wouldn’t cure. Hillary made the mistake of treating the campaign like a legal case or a geometry proof. Voters don’t want seventeen point plans that spell out in exhausting detail what Republicans are going to block in Congress. What voters want are simple answers. They don’t seem to mind if you lie your ass off, just tell them the jobs will magically come back. At the very least make the working class voters feel that you understand their needs. That doesn’t mean cater to racists and white nationalists. Most working class voters aren’t racist and would respond to a hopeful message that doesn’t look like it came out of a think tank. Biden can do this and he would have won easily last year. The working class white voters also have a soft spot for underdogs and Hillary was never an underdog. She has been inevitable for too long (I know ironic, right?) Trump for all his faults was an improbable candidate. Bernie was an improbable candidate. An Aww schucks Biden would have been able to pull it off Hillary would never have made a better appellate attorney than trial attorney, she would make great reasoned arguments and juries would still hate her because she just isn’t very smooth. ---
**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:** [September 19, 2017, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/62 "2017-09-19T19:27:26Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Not that difficult. They just need to run a black candidate. Obama was the exception in black turnout and Clinton was a return to the norm. The Democratic party never had these 7% of black voters, Obama did. > > Presidential elections are mostly about turnout. There’s a relatively small number of true swing voters and it’s very hard to beat your opponent by a significant margin. The same was true in 2016. True, a significant portion of WWC voters switched from Obama to Trump, but that number was smaller than the number that simply didn’t vote or voted 3rd party. These two cites have good numbers: > > [Black voter turnout fell in 2016 US election | Pew Research Center](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/12/black-voter-turnout-fell-in-2016-even-as-a-record-number-of-americans-cast-ballots/) > [The myth of the Rust Belt revolt.](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/12/the_myth_of_the_rust_belt_revolt.html) I know a shitload of swing voters, but I know a lot of Asians so maybe its just the people I know. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/63 "2017-09-19T21:50:06Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > As for the main thesis, it was always a bad idea to rely too much on demographics. The primary reason is simply human nature. A party that assumes that people will just vote for them based on identity is a party that isn’t going to try very hard to win elections. Such a party will especially show a lack of interest in winning persuadable voters. > > In 2020, it probably is true that identity will matter a great deal, and that a base turnout strategy might be the path to victory for Democrats. But this may not be true in 2024 and beyond. And it has nothing to do with how racist the GOP is. One of the things that has surprised me is that the GOP has chosen to fully embrace identity politics. The thing is, though, when you are practicing identity politics on a 70% majority, you WIN! Countering that with identity politics on the remaining 30% of the population is not likely to yield the results you are looking for. In fact, it’s more likely to make the GOP’s majoritarian identity politics more effective. While whites without a college degree keep moving to the right, whites with a college degree are not. Also whites are not a monolith. I know people like to say minorities are not a monolith, but whites really aren’t. White liberals (highly educated, liberal on economic and social issues) make up maybe 15% of the electorate (probably 50% of this board) and vote pretty reliably leftward. Right off the bat, about 1/4 to 1/5 of white people are liberals and will not vote GOP. If you watch any of the neo-confederacy marches, not only are all the neo-nazis and neo-confederates white, but the vast majority of the antifa fighters are white too. Latinos may not be a monolith, but they are pretty reliable democrat voters for the time being. Whites on the other hand can be 90% democrat or 90% republican in large numbers based on geography or ideology. I don’t think this kind of spread exists in minority groups. In fact of the 5 racial groups that exit polls followed, whites had the smallest spread for one party over another (57-37 for Trump). that 20 point spread is much smaller than the 38 point spread for latinos or the 81 point spread for blacks. Trump lost college educated white women 51-44, he won high school educated white men 71-23. That is a pretty big spread just based on education and gender going from -7 to +48 based on these 2 factors within white people. White men w/o a college education now vote as partisan as LGBTs, who generally prefer the democrats 3-1. Also Hillary won the popular vote, she just won it in the wrong states. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/64 "2017-09-20T14:28:57Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > … > Also Hillary won the popular vote, she just won it in the wrong states. If there’s one lesson I would have thought was seared into the minds of Democrats everywhere after Gore lost, it would have been that winning the popular vote doesn’t mean shit. That doesn’t seem to be the case though. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/65 "2017-09-20T14:32:00Z")
For purposes of the discussion in this thread, winning the popular vote is significant. ---
**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:** [September 20, 2017, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/66 "2017-09-20T14:33:17Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > If there’s one lesson I would have thought was seared into the minds of Democrats everywhere after Gore lost, it would have been that winning the popular vote doesn’t mean shit. That doesn’t seem to be the case though. In terms of becoming President or not, it doesn’t mean shit. In terms of political mandate, influence, and such things, it can be quite influential, purely because of the optics. If Trump had won 55% of the popular vote, Congress and both parties would likely be much less resistant to many of his policies. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/67 "2017-09-20T15:40:07Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I know a shitload of swing voters, but I know a lot of Asians so maybe its just the people I know. About 5-10% of the population are true swing voters, compared with 15-20% who are sometimes voters. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/68 "2017-09-20T22:38:08Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > In terms of becoming President or not, it doesn’t mean shit. In terms of political mandate, influence, and such things, it can be quite influential, purely because of the optics. If Trump had won 55% of the popular vote, Congress and both parties would likely be much less resistant to many of his policies. Fair enough. One has more political capital the larger one’s margin of victory. I agree. BTW, **Wesley Clark** , I hope my earlier post didn’t come across as hostile. I’ve really enjoyed reading your posts in this thread. They’re packed full of information and thoughtful analysis. That last line on your latest struck me as weirdly out of place, but that’s probably mostly due to my annoyance with HRC’s latest round of _What Happened_ blame-shifting than anything else. ---
**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:** [September 20, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/69 "2017-09-20T23:27:15Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > As I have pointed out elsewhere, the seven percentage point decrease in black voting in 2016 accounts all by itself for Clinton’s margin of loss, both nationally and in the states she was expected to win. Getting those voters back will be difficult, but they’re not going Republican. What was that national margin of loss again? Negative three million votes? ---
**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:** [September 20, 2017, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/70 "2017-09-20T23:36:53Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > If there’s one lesson I would have thought was seared into the minds of Democrats everywhere after Gore lost, it would have been that winning the popular vote doesn’t mean shit. That doesn’t seem to be the case though. It actually _should_ mean something, but to the “winning” party. It should mean that if this is the way you _have_ to win (getting the electoral vote, but not the popular) that maybe _your_ party is the one with the problem. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/71 "2017-09-20T23:56:08Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > It actually _should_ mean something, but to the “winning” party. It should mean that if this is the way you _have_ to win (getting the electoral vote, but not the popular) that maybe _your_ party is the one with the problem. Obviously I’d prefer it if the Republican candidate won both the popular vote and the electoral college vote, but if I had to choose between him winning one and not the other, I know which one I’d pick. ETA: and any “problem” that represents is dwarfed by the “problem” of losing the election in my eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/72 "2017-09-21T00:44:48Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > If there’s one lesson I would have thought was seared into the minds of Democrats everywhere after Gore lost, it would have been that winning the popular vote doesn’t mean shit. That doesn’t seem to be the case though. Why do you assume we needed to learn this lesson? Elections are about what the public wants, and by 3 million votes the public wanted Hillary Clinton as president. She just won those votes in the wrong states. Things like that are important about determining the wants of the electorate. The post mortems about the election keep acting like Hillary was some deeply unpopular candidate who barely showed up. She won 66 million votes, she just didn’t win them in the right places. ---
**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:** [September 21, 2017, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/73 "2017-09-21T01:33:06Z")
People are prepared to accept it when the popular and electoral votes part company, as long as it doesn’t happen too often. 2000, yeah, a fluke. 2016, the second time, starts to look like a pattern. If it happens again, you’re gonna start bumping up against that whole “consent of the governed” thing. Not a threat, just a prediction. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/74 "2017-09-21T01:36:10Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Why do you assume we needed to learn this lesson? Elections are about what the public wants, and by 3 million votes the public wanted Hillary Clinton as president. She just won those votes in the wrong states. Things like that are important about determining the wants of the electorate. The post mortems about the election keep acting like Hillary was some deeply unpopular candidate who barely showed up. She won 66 million votes, she just didn’t win them in the right places. But that’s my point. She didn’t learn the lesson of Gore’s defeat. Take a look at [this handy 538 gif](https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/campaign.gif?strip=info&w=575) and you’ll see that she made more stops to California than Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Maine’s second congressional district. Yes, she won more votes in the wrong places, but that’s because she _campaigned_ in the wrong places. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/75 "2017-09-21T12:23:07Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > While whites without a college degree keep moving to the right, whites with a college degree are not. That further complicates the Democrats’ coalition conflicts though. College educated whites are kept in the fold primarily by Democrats’ recent line in the sand about taxes for anyone making under $400K or so. I don’t think they’ll stick to that forever, or they may miscalculate and think they can get away with raising middle class taxes. > [@](#): > > Also whites are not a monolith. I know people like to say minorities are not a monolith, but whites really aren’t. White liberals (highly educated, liberal on economic and social issues) make up maybe 15% of the electorate (probably 50% of this board) and vote pretty reliably leftward. Right off the bat, about 1/4 to 1/5 of white people are liberals and will not vote GOP. If you watch any of the neo-confederacy marches, not only are all the neo-nazis and neo-confederates white, but the vast majority of the antifa fighters are white too. Well, one thing that hasn’t changed about American politics is that the discussion is primarily between white people of a left ideological bent vs. white people with a right ideological bent. As long as that continues, minorities will just kinda be tagging along, and whites will remain not a monolith. That changes in a big way if the discussion morphs into white right-wingers vs. Latino left-wingers. We live in an ideological time, but historically American politics has revolved more around race and region. We’re starting to see a shift back in that direction and the more whites leave the Democratic Party the most likely we’ll see a leadership vacuum in the party that will be filled by the 2nd largest racial minority, which will soon be Latinos. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/76 "2017-09-21T12:26:09Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > People are prepared to accept it when the popular and electoral votes part company, as long as it doesn’t happen too often. 2000, yeah, a fluke. 2016, the second time, starts to look like a pattern. If it happens again, you’re gonna start bumping up against that whole “consent of the governed” thing. Not a threat, just a prediction. Not really, because all of the anger will be concentrated in just a few places. If those few places want to secede or demand more self-governance, I think many would be prepared to listen. ---
**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:** [September 21, 2017, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/77 "2017-09-21T12:27:45Z")
There’s no level of taxation that could induce me, or most of the white Democrats I know, to join an all-white or nearly all-white party like the Republicans. If some large American organization in America is all-white or nearly all-white today, then there’s a reason for it, and whatever those reasons are would make it anathema to the vast majority of American cultural liberals. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/78 "2017-09-21T12:51:25Z")
That depends on what counts as all white to you. Even now, the GOP gets 10% of African-Americans, 30% of Latinos, and 30-40% of Asians. Also, would you be a member of a party where your views weren’t represented? ---
**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:** [September 21, 2017, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/79 "2017-09-21T13:04:08Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > That depends on what counts as all white to you. Even now, the GOP gets 10% of African-Americans, 30% of Latinos, and 30-40% of Asians. Also, would you be a member of a party where your views weren’t represented? Looking at the overall demographics of Republicans, yes, this counts as “nearly all-white” to me. ---
**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:** [September 21, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320/80 "2017-09-21T13:34:55Z")
> [@treis](#): > > About 5-10% of the population are true swing voters, compared with 15-20% who are sometimes voters. If you divide it up along racial lines, Asians swing their vote more than almost any other racial group. That’s all I meant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-b-judis-i-argued-that-demographics-favored-the-democrats-i-was-wrong/796320.md?page=5)