Campaign 2020

Okri
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Okri »

I'd be curious if if David Shor's analysis resonates strongly with people here.
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by taki15 »

Bush took 44% of Hispanics and 12% of blacks in 2004. Four years later, the guy who literally wrote the immigration reform bill collapsed to 31% running against Obama (who got crushed among Hispanics in the Democratic primary). I don't know why Hispanics (and to a lesser degree black men) gravitated towards a guy who treats them like shit, and I'm very interested to find out. But right now nobody knows if this a permanent shift or just another aberration that will go away along with Trump.

The biggest question for me is whether the deplorables who came out of the woodwork to vote for their dear leader will reappear for any other Republican candidate(s) or will they retreat back to the swamps where they came from. They stayed home in 2017, 2018, and 2019, when Trump wasn't on the ballot, even while he was imploring them to vote for his preferred candidates (Ed Gillespie, Roy Moore, Matt Bevin, etc.).
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Re: Campaign 2020

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Mister Tee wrote: I'd say you can believe two things at once about the all-important Hispanic vote: it was not as potent a force for Biden as it was for Hillary, and the growth of such vote will continue to be a plus for Democrats. The first, possibly because certain male Hispanics may have been attracted by Trump's machismo enough to shave margins (and cost Dems some seemingly-winnable seats). The latter because, even if Dem margins in the demo were smaller than they were in 2016, they were substantial -- in the range of 60%-30%. Bringing new such voters into the electorate (while older, much more predominantly white generations die off) will bring steady improvement for Dems, even if not at the same rate were they adding black voters (who break 90-10). It's the reason CO and NV have become Dem mainstays, why AZ and GA came along this year. (Forget FL. The Cubans are their own category, and the state is the only one that adds cranky old white voters every year.)

There's lots more to address, but, as I say, I'm waiting till I know the actual numbers.
But Biden made substantial gains among white voters, which helped offset the loss among Hispanics. Another Democrat might not be so lucky. 60% is not so great when 75% would be even better ESPECIALLY in a state like Arizona, where Biden barely won by 11,000 votes, and where heavily Hispanic counties also shifted Republican. Not as dramatically as Texas or Florida, but too many states this year have had super-close outcomes, so the shift can be significant enough without being dramatic in order to have an effect.
Last edited by Sonic Youth on Fri Nov 13, 2020 4:48 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Mister Tee »

I've told Sabin elsewhere that I'm waiting to write anything sweeping about the election until final numbers are in (and also till I get more comfortable in a family situation). But I would caution that I'm not sure this is an election anyone wants to draw lasting conclusions from -- because of the humongous turnout (which will be difficult for either side to easily replicate), because of the new methods/breakdown of voting (and great uncertainty about exit poll data garnered from it, haphazardly and perhaps misleadingly), because of perhaps-unique particulars in certain places (like El Paso, where super-high COVID right at election time might well have cut down participation), and just because of Trump, who evokes more passion at either end of the scale than any candidate I've ever seen, and has probably skewed everything in both his elections.

I'd say you can believe two things at once about the all-important Hispanic vote: it was not as potent a force for Biden as it was for Hillary, and the growth of such vote will continue to be a plus for Democrats. The first, possibly because certain male Hispanics may have been attracted by Trump's machismo enough to shave margins (and cost Dems some seemingly-winnable seats). The latter because, even if Dem margins in the demo were smaller than they were in 2016, they were substantial -- in the range of 60%-30%. Bringing new such voters into the electorate (while older, much more predominantly white generations die off) will bring steady improvement for Dems, even if not at the same rate were they adding black voters (who break 90-10). It's the reason CO and NV have become Dem mainstays, why AZ and GA came along this year. (Forget FL. The Cubans are their own category, and the state is the only one that adds cranky old white voters every year.)

There's lots more to address, but, as I say, I'm waiting till I know the actual numbers.
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Re: Campaign 2020

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It's all very scary. Without control of the Senate, nothing will really change.

Biden can do a lot of temporary good through executive orders, but unless they become law they can and will likely be reversed by the next Republican president who could be installed as early January 2025.
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Re: Campaign 2020

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Big Magilla wrote:
Yes, Hispanics other than Cubans voted for Trump as did a number of Asian and black men which helped keep Texas from turning blue but it's getting there.
I don't know. I see things like this, and I'm not so sure.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... sults.html

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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Sabin »

Really fun article. This is my fear.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/1 ... ion-435208
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Re: Campaign 2020

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The site I view for electoral news electoral-vote.com had some fascinating analyses on this very subject today and I think they may have hit the nail on the head. The kind of people who would vote for Biden were more likely to be working at home than those who were still having to go into work (white collar vs. blue collar). They talk about two other contributing factors, namely Trump voters being told to distrust the media and being more likely to hang up on pollsters, thus creating a serious under-sampling of that support demographic and white liberals who are more than happy to share their opinions with pollsters, thus creating a gap between poll respondents and non-respondents.

As to the Hispanic vote, they talked about that today and it was because the issues of kids in cages and immigration crackdown that drove turnout in 2018 were less energized because Trump and his folk saw it as a losing issue and dialed back that rhetoric. Anyway, there are probably too many mitigating factors to count here, but the nihilism we all share about the future of the senate is probably well founded and unless we can get DC and PR admitted, we're going to be stuck with a Republican senate for decades.
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Re: Campaign 2020

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There may have been some Biden supporters who didn't vote because they thought Biden would win anyway, but I doubt it was significant. More likely, if any didn't vote it was for another reason like, I don't know, they were grieving for friends and relatives who died of Covid.

Yes, Hispanics other than Cubans voted for Trump as did a number of Asian and black men which helped keep Texas from turning blue but it's getting there.

However, I still believe the biggest reason for the discrepancy between the polls and the turnout is that Republicans lie in numbers larger than you might imagine. Like Susan Collins, they may be concerned, but will vote along party lines in the end. And, yes, some are ashamed to admit their love of Trump to pollsters they suspect are liberals smirking at their responses. There are as many reasons for lies as there are liars and with a cult leader who lies every time he opens his mouth or twits a tweet, they think it's the cool thing to put one over on the "libs".
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Re: Campaign 2020

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"Depressed pro-Biden turnout" in a year with "the highest turnout in over a century" isn't computing for me. Sorry, but I doubt the "voter who stays home becuase their candidate is the front-runner" exists, other than in post-election justifications.
I suspect that when polled, they were embarrassed to say they were voting for Trump because deep down they know that that is a shameful thing to do, let alone admit to.
Also no. People love to believe their voting-opposites are in some deep Fustian struggle all throughout election season, and they're so ashamed they can't anonymously tell an anonymous pollster who they're voting for, yet they all backslide by the millions on election day. I think the answer to the poll descrepency is far more simpler. When contacted by pollsters, many more avoid them than answer them. And more Republicans than Democrats avoid them.
Florida is different. Trump successfully targeted the Cubanos and the radical left bullshit worked.
Disregard the "Hispanic vote is shifting Republican" trend at your peril. Hispanics are shifting Republican, period. It may not be uniform nationwide, but it's broad and it's significant, and it's not just Florida and Cubanos.
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Okri »

Christ. If people didn't vote because they thought Biden had it in the bag (aka the 2016 syndrome) I will fucking lose it.

When are the final vote tallies expected to be certified? I'm genuinely curious to see what the turnout is
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Re: Campaign 2020

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I think the constant dominance in polling for Biden did two things: it depressed pro-Biden turnout with people thinking it was in the bag and deciding not to vote at all and it energized Trumpers who thought they had to vote no matter what to keep it from being a landslide.
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Big Magilla »

I don't think the Cubans were ever going to vote for Biden over Trump.

I do know a lot of of people who have been vocal Trump supporters since 2015 but that's when trying to convert non-Trumpers to their way of thinking. I think the way many of them talk to pollsters over the phone that they can't see is is different.

Also, a lot of the anticipated Biden vote was based on 2018 results but they undercounted Republicans who didn't vote in the mid-terms but did in the presidential.
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by Sabin »

OscarGuy wrote
I don't think older voters were afraid to admit voting for Trump, most of the ones I've seen have been very glad to make that known. I think it's also possible that nationally, seniors in major metro areas may have been in favor of Biden and they were overweighted versus seniors in Florida and Arizona who were not. Then there's the debacle of Cubanos in Florida who have a completely fucked up view of communism and Trump very clearly turned those voters against Biden.
We're talking about a massive difference in sustained polling over the course of six months. It's possible that they lied. I'll say this: I'm from Maricopa County. I don't think these people lied. I think they stopped caring about COVID and just kept getting radicalized by FOX News (it's a comfort food), fed into that radical left bullshit, and joined the culture war. Obviously, we're going to win Maricopa and Arizona but it shouldn't have been that close. It's a combination of Don't Tread on Me's, Mormons, and Snowbirds. These are perfect Biden converts. And they did turn... but not remotely as much as I thought.

Florida is different. Trump successfully targeted the Cubanos and the radical left bullshit worked.

Either way, it's stunning.
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Re: Campaign 2020

Post by OscarGuy »

I don't think older voters were afraid to admit voting for Trump, most of the ones I've seen have been very glad to make that known. I think it's also possible that nationally, seniors in major metro areas may have been in favor of Biden and they were overweighted versus seniors in Florida and Arizona who were not. Then there's the debacle of Cubanos in Florida who have a completely fucked up view of communism and Trump very clearly turned those voters against Biden.
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