Oops. I should have made it clear that I was agreeing with HuffPo that those three states had generally been in the GOP camp in the past. That’s what I was disagreeing with in the cases of NM and NV.
I think you’d have to assume that not only does their turnout drop to 2004 levels (can’t say it won’t happen, though I’d expect to see partial rather than complete reversion to old black turnout levels), but also that the GOP gets the same share of the black vote as it did in 2004.
And that’s just not gonna happen. The GOP has all but declared war on blacks. When even the most prosperous blacks know that their sons could die as a result of the most casual interactions with the police, and they see that the GOP has lined up foursquare behind the police, the GOP will be lucky to get the 6% of the black vote that they got last time. Black lives damned sure do matter if you’re black.
I’ll bet anyone a nice stack of greenbacks that the 2016 GOP share of the black vote is more likely to be at or below 5% than it is to be at or above 7%.
It is nearly always fallacious to say that any given demographic “doesn’t matter” in the election. Elections these days are won by margins of a few percentage points (let’s say 3%). Any demographic that consists of 3% or more of the population, then, matters, because any of them can sway the vote. So blacks matter. Hispanics matter. Nonreligious people matter. Left-handed people matter. Homosexuals matter. All sorts of demographics matter. Now, you may be able to lose most or all of some of these demographics and win, but only by making up for those losses with other demographics. There are many paths to victory, but the more demographics you write off as “irrelevant”, the fewer paths are available to you.
This is part of why Obama’s fifty-state strategy worked so well in 2008. He (and his team) wasn’t focused on any individual path to victory. He was focused on having as many paths as possible, all of them as likely as possible, by appealing to as many people as possible. Do that, and one of those paths is sure to come through.
Adaher no question that the winning path for a GOP presidential candidate depends on low turn-out of Blacks and youth, while both doing less poorly in those groups and both increasing the White share its turn-out. And that could happen depending on the candidates involved. We are discussing with Clinton and one of the current GOP hopefuls and with current demographic trends.
The uphill battle for the GOP includes that there are relatively fewer White voters in 2016 than in 2012. Cook cites a drop from 72 to 70% of the voting electorate. (They went to Hispanic and Asian.) The app (and again a fun app it is) used 2012 numbers, but given changing demographics the Democrats start off 1.5% higher nationally with the same turn-outs: “If President Obama had won the same share of each group’s vote but the composition of the electorate were adjusted to 2016’s breakdown, his national margin over Mitt Romney would have expanded from 3.85 percent to 5.4 percent.”
And within that White demographic more are college educated, younger, and less socially conservative than before.
Historic trends in non-Hispanic White share for the GOP candidate:
So getting up to 62% or more of the White share in a Presidential election historically happened in 1984.
No question that the GOP delivers at midterms and that many Democratic voters stay home. It is a problem for the Democratic party. But it is clearly not a function of Obama being or not being on the ticket; it is a function of a Presidential election being in play or not.
So given that hypothetical Clinton v X is not a McGovern v Nixon or a Mondale v Reagan affair how do you do it? How does she do much poorer with Whites than Obama did? And at the same time keep Blacks at home mostly while those who come go up to 11%? 2004 GOP was at 7%, and in 2000 was 3%. (Same Gallup cite.) Both non-Obama elections. Before that Gallup lumps all non-White together.
An apathetic election. Put turn-out numbers all groups down to the 2000 election cycle levels. Move Black GOP share to 11. Grant that more of the Whites who don’t bother are more likely Democratic (Millennials don’t bother to vote this time) so the GOP White share goes up all the way to 62, a number unprecedented except in huge blow out elections as in against Mondale or McGovern. The GOP wins the popular vote 58,900,713 to 57,042,589 (50.8 to 49.2%, a 1.6% margin) but still loses the electoral college 266 to 272.
Now increase the Hispanic share a smidge, to 29% (from 27.6), and it flips the Electoral College result. Even with low voter turn-out and generous increases in GOP share above historic baselines in both White and Black demographics the GOP presidential nominee loses without also making some inroads among Hispanic voters.
Seriously, I do agree with the fifty state strategy for my preferred next President, Hillary Clinton. However, it has nothing to do with her having a path that goes through Utah. She doesn’t. But campaigning, at least once, in Utah, sends the message that she will try to be the President of all the people, even those who didn’t vote for her. It’s hokey, but some swing voters, in states that are really in play, will like it. Heck, I think I like it.
We don’t know whether it is or not. Midterms weren’t always dominated by the GOP. That’s purely a function of the Obama era. Things could very well return to a more normal paradigm starting in 2016.
Part of me actually hopes things do stay the same. The Democrats can have the White House. Two or three more midterms like 2010 and 2014 and the Presidency will become irrelevant except on foreign policy.
Clinton just went on record as being willing to “look into” mandatory gun buybacks. There goes Colorado and Pennsylvania. She actually is willing to take away our guns.
More likely she just has no idea what the Australian gun control effort actually was(Obama has displayed similar ignorance), but if you’re going to be ignorant it’s fair game to pounce.
And they are finding out to african americans illegal immigration is a BIG issue, much bigger than most people realized and Trump has shown surprising strength because he is the only candidate really pushing kicking out the illegals.
Specific item under discussion in the GOP share of the White and Black votes and your stated belief that the easiest path to victory for the GOP depends on increasing their share of the White vote in the presidential election by 3% (to 62%) … while also getting Black turn-out to drop and GOP share of Black turn-out to increase.
Midterms elections and Presidential elections are different beasts: turn out is less (usually 10 to 20% less) and turn out is different (usually going against the party that controls the Presidency). We do know that. And we know that 62%+ share of the White vote for President going for the GOP is simply not something that has occurred very often … only twice out of 11 presidential elections and those were the Mondale and McGovern blow-outs.
And actually now looking at what she said, she in no way endorsed a mandatory buy back, and spinning that as “gun grabber” is an intentional distortion by Fox (shocking aint it) … stating that it is reasonable to look at what other countries have done, admitting that she doesn’t know enough detail about Australia’s program, but that maybe something modeled on “cash for clunkers” would be possible here, is not saying she wants to take away guns.
But the political question is another one. Of course ads will run that claim she is “a gun grabber” in a general election … would no matter what. And definitely *some *are litmus test voters on gun rights. But for many at this point polarized hyperbole and distortions of actual positions on the gun discussion has become a less central item. I am sure that Colorado governor Hickenlooper would have been re-elected by a wider margin if not for a backlash against his proposed gun control legislation and his reprieve of an inmate on death row … but he was re-elected. (Polls had him down 10 … but also had guns ranked well below the economy, energy/environmental issues, and education in importance.)
Sorry to be multiposting so much but dang that app is fun. And it does illustrate the conundrum that the GOP is in for the Presidency.
According to the app’s calculations the GOP can prevail while keeping the White turn-out and share exactly the same but then they need to have Black turn-out regress to 6 points behind White turn-out, get an 11% share of those votes, and hit 44% of a Hispanic share … which Bush apparently did achieve in 2004. All individually have precedence. Alternatively if their White share drops just a bit, from the app’s 60.2 to 59, then they lose even with that lower Black turn-out, increasing their Black share all the way to 20% and getting a 49% share of the Hispanic vote.
Seems to me if her strategy is to make the hearing as boring as possible, she’s succeeding. Doing a good job of maintaining composure and seemingly avoiding any trip ups.
I’m following a live-blog (here). So far it seems like nothing new, nothing that will stick, and a bunch of opportunities for Hillary to look like the adult in the room.
It has to do with the political messaging after the attacks, which she seemed more concerned about than actually getting to the bottom of what happened.
