the tenuous blue wall
December 4, 2015 5:58 AM   Subscribe

"There’s no question that recent demographic trends have aided Democrats enormously. In 1980, Ronald Reagan won 56 percent of all white voters and won election in a 44-state landslide. In 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney carried 59 percent of all white voters yet lost decisively. What happened? African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and other non-whites — all overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning groups — rose from 12 percent of voters in 1980 to 28 percent in 2012.

It’s true that if every demographic group were to carry its 2012 levels of turnout and party support into 2016, Democrats’ lead in the national popular vote would expand from 3.9 percentage points to 5.1 points based on population trends alone. But, as FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver and others have argued, Democrats’ advantage in the Electoral College is much more tenuous than it’s often portrayed
." Run your own simulation with 538's Swing Tracker.
posted by Potomac Avenue (33 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Congratulations to our first black vice-president: Guy Fromthesouth.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:00 AM on December 4, 2015 [4 favorites]


To counter the horror story about what happens if black turnout declines, this also assume white turnout stays steady. If no-college white turnout declines even 1%, black turnout would have to plunge 36 points to 30% to lose PA and the election.

My point being, if the Dem nominee is less inspiring to black voters BUT also a less GOP base-angering candidate like Hillary, and turnout goes down in those demographics, Dems still win. That's why I think it's hard to see a scenario where the Republicans can get a huge groundswell from their base alone to counteract the steady build of the emerging majority minority. My favorite scenario.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:31 AM on December 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


Suppose African-American voters were to return to pre-Obama, 2004 levels of turnout and partisanship . . .

Why that is not going to happen.
posted by ND¢ at 6:38 AM on December 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


Congratulations to our first black vice-president: Guy Fromthesouth.

From the south? Why would you want a black southerner when Alan Keyes is available?
posted by Talez at 6:43 AM on December 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


Potomac Avenue: "My favorite scenario."
Captain, please?
posted by brokkr at 6:46 AM on December 4, 2015


Why would you want a black southerner when Alan Keyes is available?

I was saying Hillary's people are likely looking at the same Demographic info and will try to get an African American from the South as VP candidate to ensure the same turnout. Alan Keyes probably isn't it. I can think of one guy at least who is available.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:49 AM on December 4, 2015 [1 favorite]




I have a real question as to whether this tracker considers the actual people running, though.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:58 AM on December 4, 2015


Man, the Republicans hate Jackson as much or maybe more than they hate Clinton. Him on her ticket may cause large swathes of conservatives to spontaneously combust from white hot rage.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:59 AM on December 4, 2015 [5 favorites]


Why would you want a black southerner when Alan Keyes is available?

Keyes is responsible for The Crazification Factor, so I can't hate him nearly as much as he deserves.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:00 AM on December 4, 2015 [7 favorites]


Keyes is responsible for The Crazification Factor, so I can't hate him nearly as much as he deserves.

Exactly why I thought he'd be perfect for a Republican candidate. This man forsook his own lesbian daughter for the love of Jesus Christ™! He has true bona fide Christian™ credentials.
posted by Talez at 7:03 AM on December 4, 2015


I can think of one guy at least who is available.

I guessed you were talking about Kasim Reed.
posted by andoatnp at 7:12 AM on December 4, 2015


This man forsook his own lesbian daughter for the love of Jesus Christ™!

Which is surprising- I first assumed he'd disowned her for being black.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:14 AM on December 4, 2015 [6 favorites]


Hopefully, now that a Respected White Guy is pointing out the Democrats' extreme dependence on the black vote to get anywhere electorally, their candidates will start paying serious attention to the Earn This Damn Vote Or Lose crowd. As it stands, they're at serious risk of making the same mistakes they made in 2000 and 2004 of chasing the mythical White Moderate vote so hard that they alienate their core constituents.

My ideal utopian outcome of current trends is that social media destroys the current obsessions with horse race nonsense and brings about an era where candidates are courting key voting demographics based more on policy positions than crafting the right image via media-handling shenanigans. I mean, I'm sure what we actually end up with will be more like Johnny Smith's dark visions of the future from The Dead Zone, but a guy can dream.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:10 AM on December 4, 2015 [6 favorites]


60% of white people voted for Romney?

As a white person I find that very depressing.
posted by freakazoid at 8:11 AM on December 4, 2015 [20 favorites]


My ideal utopian outcome of current trends is that social media destroys the current obsessions with horse race nonsense and brings about an era where candidates are courting key voting demographics based more on policy positions than crafting the right image via media-handling shenanigans.
tobascodagama

Social media concentrates and amplifies all the worst, ugliest aspects of campaigning: the tribalism, the sound bites, mud-slinging, style over substance, image over all. It's almost guaranteed that social media campaigns will be nothing but "crafting the right image via media-handling shenanigans".

The only difference will be media-handling micro-targeted at different demographics rather than attempts to appeal to some general audience. You can already kind of see this on the Republican side, where Presidential candidates have to walk a schizophrenic line between showing themselves to be the Truest of True Conservatives to appease the hard core of the base and a reasonable moderate to appeal to everyone else.
posted by Sangermaine at 8:23 AM on December 4, 2015 [5 favorites]


My point being, if the Dem nominee is less inspiring to black voters BUT also a less GOP base-angering candidate like Hillary

I am not at all convinced that the GOP base hates Hillary Clinton less than they do Obama.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:36 AM on December 4, 2015 [19 favorites]


> 60% of white people voted for Romney? As a white person I find that very depressing.

I can say without hesitation that on the whole white people tend toward being awful — largely because we're incentivized to be awful. The thing that really surprises me, though, is that this awfulness wasn't just among white men; white women voted for Romney too, with the breakdown being something like 54-46.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:50 AM on December 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


> 60% of white people voted for Romney?
> As a white person I find that very depressing.


May I recommend you question your classification a "white person"? Join the race traitors.

/Or just chuck the whole idea that your ethnic background, age group, or favorite type of ice cream will define your political orientation.
posted by benito.strauss at 8:55 AM on December 4, 2015 [6 favorites]


I'm pretty confident that demographics will eventually catch up to the Republicans, killing them as a national party but I'm also pretty sure that they'll do their damn best to burn the place down before giving up power.
posted by octothorpe at 8:57 AM on December 4, 2015 [5 favorites]


Does the GOP base hate any Democrat less than they hate Clinton or Obama?

I'd say so. Republicans for Bernie Sanders: Why the Democratic socialist is sweeping his home state (Salon) yes not actually a Democrat but running for the Democratic nomination
posted by scrowdid at 9:40 AM on December 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


tobascodagama: "I'm sure what we actually end up with will be more like Johnny Smith's dark visions of the future from The Dead Zone"

Greg Stillson for President!
posted by Chrysostom at 9:48 AM on December 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


I can think of one guy at least who is available.

Jesse Jackson has lived in Chicago for almost 50 years now. From the south a half century ago might not have the pull Clinton needs.
posted by srboisvert at 10:04 AM on December 4, 2015




Greg Stillson for President!

We already elected Greg Stillson and it turned out fine.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:07 AM on December 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


60% of white people voted for Romney?
As a white person I find that very depressing.

As a white person I find that less than expected. Considering the boom in 'white suicide' in the John Marshall article, I can see that number going up in 2016.

I'm pretty confident that demographics will eventually catch up to the Republicans, killing them as a national party but I'm also pretty sure that they'll do their damn best to burn the place down before giving up power.
And 2016 is their last great opportunity. And with any of their contending candidates in the White House, it can be done in one term. Burn, baby, burn.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:54 AM on December 4, 2015 [1 favorite]




white women voted for Romney too, with the breakdown being something like 54-46.

Did they break down married vs. single? Because iirc married women, and especially older married white women, tend to vote like their husbands.

But otherwise, yeah, white people are pretty much crap. My entire (mostly white, some Latino) family pretty much went for Romney. Despite being all lower-middle class and working class and not particularly religious or pro-life or caring much about gay marriage or any other social issue. They voted against their own economic interest - many of them union members - just because Romney had some mystical quality that Obama lacked. Hmm.

In other news, I still think we should focus on turning Texas blue. It is so within the Democratic party's grasp and that would really break the back of the Republican Party which would be delicious to me on a personal level.
posted by bgal81 at 12:11 PM on December 4, 2015 [8 favorites]


oh hell yes. whenever I despair about Texas's influence on American politics as a whole. I remember that until the 1990s California, fucking California, reliably voted for Republican presidential candidates. And, for that matter, inflicted Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, the two worst presidents of the 20th century,1 on the rest of the nation and on the world.

1: yes, I know that Herbert Hoover and Woodrow Wilson were both 20th-century presidents. I still think that Nixon and Reagan were worse.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:20 PM on December 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


At this point, Nixon would be a pretty pleasant surprise as a GOP candidate.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:08 PM on December 4, 2015 [8 favorites]


At this point, Nixon would be a pretty pleasant surprise as a GOP candidate.

No doubt! He'd fit right into the current Democratic party in certain ways. He supported a guaranteed minimum income and comprehensive health care reform that bears a striking resemblance to the ACA. He created the EPA and signed the Clean Air and Clean Water acts (though he wasn't 100% great on those). I'm not trying to argue that Nixon was great at all - just that this country has swung so far to the right since 1980 that even Nixon is barely recognizable as a Republican anymore.
posted by dialetheia at 1:18 PM on December 4, 2015 [4 favorites]


Nixon only supported a GMI on the condition that we kill every other social program, so that then he'd have only one program to drown in the bathtub.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:40 PM on December 4, 2015 [4 favorites]


Sam Wang: Let Math Save Our Democracy
This is a job for statistics. An easy test is available that directly measures overall bias: the difference between the average and the median. This century-old statistic uses math that is in the Common Core standards for sixth grade. It also won this year’s competition for a gerrymandering standard sponsored by the nonpartisan organization Common Cause.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:09 PM on December 6, 2015


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