Biden and White Noncollege Voters

Biden's spike in the polls is well-documented. His current popularity with black voters is striking as has been noted. Less has been written about how he's doing with white noncollege voters, but the results here are also of significance. Harry Enten notes in his latest CNN column:

"Whites without a college degree still make up a substantial portion of the Democratic Party. Despite much noise about how whites with a degree are the future for Democrats, each group is about 30% of the party. Nonwhites, both with and without college degrees, are about 40% in total. [Note: these figures agree with my own States of Change data.]....

Our latest CNN national poll shows Biden is strong with non-college educated whites, as well [as with nonwhite voters). Biden jumps from the low 20s among whites with a college degree to the mid 30s among whites without a college degree. Comparably, his lead over Sanders increases from only 5 points over Sanders among whites with a college degree to about 20 points among whites without a college degree. Sanders polls in the mid 10s with each group....

Biden's ability to breakthrough with non-college whites marks perhaps the biggest difference between the 2016 and 2020 primaries. In 2016, Clinton actually lost white voters without a college degree in the primary. Sanders beat her by 7 points among this group in the median Democratic nomination contest with an entrance or exit poll, even though she won college educated whites by 7 points in these same contests."

This pattern clearly could help Biden secure the Democratic nomination. But does this mean Biden is the most "electable" nominee against Trump?

Not necessarily and for two reasons, which are frequently confused. One is that superior appeal to one group of voters does not mean that more voters may not be lost by inferior appeal among another group. Using Biden as an example, perhaps whatever he gains among white noncollege voters relative to other potential candidates will be more than counterbalanced by losses from unenthusiastic support and turnout among young voters and possibly some other Democratic constituencies.

Therefore, electability is always and inevitably about trade-offs. No candidate will be without them so people should be asking: who has the highest net, given potential gains and losses, and therefore the best chance of beating Trump overall and in the states that are likely to count the most. This is always hard to do given data limitations but that is really the argument we should be having.

The second reason to be cautious about Biden's electability is that, even if one is taking proper cognizance of the various factors that may increase or decrease a candidate's appeal, it is hard to make these judgments and harder still this far in advance of the actual general election campaign, when data are sparse and less reliable. Put more bluntly, a lot of early judgments about electability, by voters and pundits alike, turn out to be wrong.

Does that mean we shouldn't care about electability and, since no one knows anything (as they say in Hollywood), just roll out who we like the best and hope they win? I don't think so, especially given the 2020 stakes. But we do need to think about it in a sophisticated and, to the extent possible, in a data-driven way.

That's it for my plea for rationality. Back to the usual heated and intemperate debate who's the best candidate!

About this website

CNN.COM

How Joe Biden is eating into Bernie Sanders' coalition

Since officially jumping into the 2020 race less than two weeks ago, former Vice President Joe Biden has reshaped the Democratic primary. His polling numbers have risen from the high 20s to the low 40s since declaring his candidacy two weeks ago. In doing so, Biden has, for the moment, left the rest...

2018 Turnout Data-palooza

My friend and frequent co-author Bill Frey has issued a nice report on the Brookings site on 2018 turnout. In the report, he mines the recently released Census Current Population Survey voter supplement data to provide detailed findings on turnout and vote share in 2018 by key demographics.

By and large, the general patterns found in the Census data agree with those found in other data sources like Catalist (previously posted), even if specific levels may differ (white noncollege share, for example, is significantly lower than Cataist in the Census data).

"[T]he new data shows groups that voted Democratic last November also displayed some of the biggest increases in voter turnout. Young adults ages 18 to 29—the age group that voted most strongly Democratic—saw a rise in their turnout rate by 16 percent from 20 percent in 2014 to 36 percent in 2018. Of course, older voters, ages 65 and above, continued to display the highest voter turnout levels at 66 percent; but the bigger 2014 to 2018 increase among young adults served to narrow the young/old turnout gap.

All major racial/ethnic groups turned up at the polls in higher numbers, but the biggest gains accrued to Democratic-leaning Hispanics and Asian Americans—up 13 percent since 2014. And while white citizens, overall, exhibited higher turnout rates than other groups, both the turnout level and recent rise were highest for white college graduates—a group that, nationally, supported Democratic House of Representatives candidates in November’s election."

Frey also provides detailed tables that include turnout rates by race for every state, comparing 2014 and 2018, as well as vote share by race and white college/noncollege for every state. These tables alone are worth the price of admission!

https://www.brookings.edu/…/2018-voter-turnout-rose-dramat…/

The Five Don'ts of the 2020 Democratic Campaign (Updated)

Recently Bernie Sanders called for giving the right to vote to all prisoners. This is--how can I put this delicately?--not very popular. As Nathaniel Rakich notes on 538:

"[T]he idea of allowing all felons to vote does not have much public support. In a March 2018 poll for HuffPost, YouGov found that 24 percent of U.S. adults supported restoring felons’ voting rights while they are in prison and 58 percent opposed it, including 41 percent who were “strongly” opposed. And a Quinnipiac poll conducted just last week found that only 31 percent of registered voters support allowing prisoners to vote — 65 percent were opposed."

So, in Bernie's honor, I am revising my "Four Don't of the 2020 Democratic Campaign" to include five don'ts. As I said earlier, whoever the Democratic nominee is going to be in 2020, that nominee has to avoid unforced errors to maximize their chances of beating Trump. Advocating giving the vote to all prisoners would be another one of these errors.

Here's the current list of five (and counting!):

1. Reparations for the descendants of slaves. Preferred: social programs that disproportionately benefit blacks because of their income, education or geographic attributes.
2. Abolish ICE. Preferred: Reforming ICE + a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants + an actual immigration policy that includes border security and policies about future immigration levels.
3. Medicare for All that eliminates private insurance. Preferred: Medicare for Anyone or Medicare for All (Who Want It). Currently embodied in the DeLauro-Schakowsky Medicare for America bill.
4. A Green New Deal that commits to 100 percent renewable energy within 10 years. Preferred: A Green New Deal that focuses on jobs, infrastructure, research and promoting clean energy in all forms.
5. Giving the vote to all prisoners. Preferred: Restoring voting rights to all felons who have completed their sentences, as in Florida's Amendment 4, which passed easily.

I still haven't up my mind about Biden but one of his great virtues is that he has a perfect record on the five don'ts. Of course, he still needs a strong positive case, but his avoidance of these pitfalls is a real strength. Democratic voters--and Biden's Democratic rivals--should take note.

About this website

FIVETHIRTYEIGHT.COM

How Americans — And Democratic Candidates — Feel About Letting Felons Vote

Last month, during a CNN town hall featuring several Democratic candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders helped reignite a national conversation when he said people in p…

Why the Democrats Need Biden (or Someone Who Can Do the Same Things Biden Is Supposed To Be Able To Do)

Two new articles highlight two ways in which Biden might maximize the Democrats' chances of beating Trump. I emphasize the "might"--it is possible Biden is not the best Democratic candidate to do these two things. But it seems to me unarguable that the Democratic nominee, whoever it is, must do very well in both of these areas.

1. The White Working Class Vote. The subtitle of Ron Brownstein's new article is "Joe Biden’s candidacy is a proxy for the larger question of how the party can best rebuild a successful presidential majority." As, Brownstein puts it:

"No choice in 2020 divides Democratic activists more than the question of whether the party needs a nominee best suited to winning back these white voters, who have been drifting away from the party for decades, or one best positioned to mobilize the party’s new alliance of minorities, young people, and white-collar whites, especially women."

After noting the ongoing decline of the white working class share of voters, as underscored by recently-released Census data, Brownstein makes the following indisputable observation:

"The long-term erosion of blue-collar whites as a share of the national vote is unmistakable and irreversible. That trend has ominous long-term implications for a GOP that is relying more heavily than ever on squeezing greater advantage from that shrinking group. But those white voters are disproportionately represented in the pivotal Rust Belt battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (as well as in Ohio and Iowa, which have trended further away from Democrats). Democrats wouldn’t need to focus as obsessively on those states, and on courting their large working-class white populations, if they could tip some of the diverse and growing Sun Belt states where those whites are a smaller share of the vote, such as North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, much less Texas. (Arizona, probably the top new Sun Belt target for Democrats in 2020, actually houses an elevated number of non-college-educated whites because it attracts so many white retirees.) But until Democrats can reliably flip some of those Sun Belt states, they can’t downplay the Rust Belt in presidential contests."

To bring this point into focus, projections indicate the voting electorates in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2020 will probably be, respectively, 56 percent, 52 percent and 49 percent white noncollege. If turnout patterns are particularly favorable to the Democrats, you might knock another point off these levels. But that's still a lot of voters. Biden says he can reach these voters better than Clinton did in 2016. Maybe he's right. Maybe he's wrong. But his Democratic rivals need to make the case that they'd be as good or better than Biden among these voters. Otherwise, they're asking Democratic voters to draw to an inside straight.

2. The Union Vote. Nate Silver has a good item in his most recent "Silver Bulletpoints" column. Silver cites CCES data showing:

"Trump’s union support [was not] merely a matter of white men shifting en masse to Trump. While white women and nonwhite men in unions mostly voted for Clinton, her margins with those groups were considerably narrower than Barack Obama’s in 2012.

In fact, the shift among union voters was enough to swing the election to Trump. According to the CCES, Obama won union voters by 34.4 percentage points in 2012, but Clinton did so by only 16.7 points in 2016. That roughly 18-point swing was worth a net of 1.2 percentage points for Trump in Pennsylvania, 1.1 points in Wisconsin and 1.7 points in Michigan based on their rates of union membership — and those totals were larger than his margins of victory in those states."

Again, Biden can make the case that he's the best candidate to appeal to these voters. That doesn't mean he's right but it does mean that other candidates need to show how and why they'd be better than him at reaching union voters. And at the moment I'm not hearing any candidate besides Biden saying things like: “I make no apologies. I am a union man (or woman). Period.”

So Biden--love him or hate him, he's got a real case. I'm ready to hear a better one, but so far I'm not overwhelmed.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/…/silver-bulletpoints-the-unio…/

https://www.theatlantic.com/…/joe-bidens-bid-white-…/588613/

About this website

THEATLANTIC.COM

The Democratic Debate Over Winning Back Trump’s Base

Joe Biden’s candidacy is a proxy for the larger question of how the party can best rebuild a successful presidential majority.

The Politics of Clean Vs. Renewable Energy

I trust that everyone agrees the most difficult part of making progress combating climate change is the politics of generating action, whatever one's preferred policy solution(s) might be. Along these lines, I recommend this recent article by David Roberts on Vox, based on an extensive new poll by the Green Advocacy Project. Here's the key part:

"There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle in the climate policy world lately. On one side: those who believe we should target a future of 100 percent renewable energy. On the other: those who say such a goal is impractical and we should also allow for nuclear power and fossil fuels with carbon capture.

Some states and cities are requiring the former, with renewable energy standards; some (most notably California and Washington) are requiring the latter, with clean energy standards.

Does the public have a preference? The poll tests a series of statements about this.

“We should produce electricity from wind and solar as much as possible.” This gets 59 percent majority support, with 88 percent of Democrats, 40 percent of Republicans, and 41 percent of independents. (Fun fact: 98 percent of Clinton voters.)

“In the future, we should produce electricity using 100 percent renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind.” This gets 55 percent majority support, with 92 percent of Democrats, 27 percent of Republicans, and 55 percent of independents. (Fun fact: 97 percent of Democratic women.)

“In the future, we should produce electricity using 100 percent clean energy sources, such as solar and wind, nuclear, and carbon recapture from fossil fuels.” This more expansive definition of clean energy gets 65 percent majority support, with 87 percent of Democrats, 41 percent of Republicans, and 57 percent of independents.....

Allowing for non-renewable, non-emitting sources of energy like nuclear seems to peel off quite a few squishy Republicans, without losing many Democrats or independents. That might mean a broader majority.

And a more potent legislative force: This strategy of uniting pro-renewables and pro-nuclear camps has worked to get successful clean energy policies in place in Illinois, New York, California, and, most recently, Washington.

There’s also the simple fact that adding renewables and nuclear together yields far more total clean energy."

No doubt this observation will rouse the ire of those to whom nuclear and CCS are anathema and simply a distraction from the righteous path. To these folks, Roberts says (and I concur):

"Climate hawks have different opinions on nuclear and CCS, but in my view, if you don’t think they will compete, why not allow for them to try? As long as they don’t drain attention and resources from options that are cheap and available now, it’s not a sacrifice. Give them their research money; harvest the support of their backers.

Given the urgency of climate politics, being agnostic on how to reduce carbon seems a small but easy step toward consensus."

Makes sense to me. This is not an area in which we can afford the liabilities of purist politics.

About this website

VOX.COM

Americans love clean energy. Do they care if it includes nuclear?

A new poll gets deep into voter preferences on climate policy.

Joe-Mentum?

Morning Consult just released their weekly tracking poll of likely Democratic primary voters and the results for Joe Biden are very good. The rollout of his formal candidacy has widened his first choice lead over Bernie Sanders from 6 to 14 points (now 36 to 22 percent).

Interestingly, despite all the brouhaha about the Anita Hill hearings and Biden's overly-familiar physical style, he is doing quite well among women (38 percent support) and, especially, black women (47 percent).

How can this be? I would refer you to the very interesting article by Trip Gabriel of the Times on Biden's appeal in Pennsylvania. Gabriel notes that Biden "has the potential to attract suburban moderates defecting from the Republican Party under President Trump, to invigorate black voters who were underwhelmed by Hillary Clinton and to reverse at least some losses among working-class white voters."

The material on black voters in this article is the most interesting. Most white liberals fail to understand that Ta-Nehisi Coates and like commentators do not represent the median black voter, who comes from a more pragmatic and, in important ways, more conservative place. Indeed, recent public opinion data show clearly that white liberals themselves are now to the left of blacks on many issues concerning race and racism.

Gabriel interviewed black voters in Philadelphia. He found that:

"patrons [of a black-oriented coffee and book shop] universally said Mr. Biden was at or near the top of their list, in no small part because of his eight-year partnership with President Barack Obama....

Kerry Chester, 53, a network engineer working at his laptop, said he voted for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the 2016 Pennsylvania primary. But for 2020 he thinks it is so important to defeat Mr. Trump that Mr. Biden is preferable, even compared to the two top African-American candidates, Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California....

Neither Mr. Chester nor other black voters interviewed said Mr. Biden’s record of championing anti-crime bills — as a Delaware senator in the 1980s and ’90s — that led to mass incarceration were impediments to their support.

“That was 20 years ago,” Mr. Chester said. “I can’t hold everything against him.” He added that compared with other candidates, “I trust him a lot more.”

Nasya Jenkins, 21, who works at a Boys and Girls Club and is an aspiring influencer on Instagram, said she did not penalize Mr. Biden for his treatment of Anita Hill in her 1991 Senate Judiciary Committee testimony. Mr. Biden called Ms. Hill recently to address some of her concerns, a conversation she said left her dissatisfied.

“I’m not really so caught up on what happened in the past,” Ms. Jenkins said. “We’re here now, with all the problems we have. What do you plan on doing to change that — period?”

Sure, this is anecdotal stuff but it seems consistent with preference patterns we're now seeing in the data. It may be the case that Biden could not only do a better job reaching white working class voters than Clinton but also do a better job mobilizing black voters, including women. That's pretty important.

Look, I don't want to go overboard on Biden. He has lots of problems, including possible lack of appeal to young voters. And if I was backing someone strictly on the basis of policy and who would do the best job as President, I'd pick Warren. But the data as they come in do suggest that Biden has a case as the candidate best-suited to Job #1: taking out Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/…/pol…/biden-pennsylvania-2020.html…

No Unforced Errors Please

Make no mistake, it will not be easy to beat Trump. That's why Democrats can ill afford unforced errors like advocating reparations. I get that in the current climate, this is a lot about competing for black Democratic primary voters and that whatever Democratic candidates say now may well be moderated if one of the pro-reparations candidates actually gets the nomination.

But damage is already being done, as Paul Starr argues in the American Prospect. I find little to disagree with in Starr's take, the essence of which is this:

"Donald Trump and Steve Bannon must be smiling from ear to ear and celebrating their good fortune whenever they hear one of the Democratic presidential candidates endorsing a bill to establish a commission to study reparations for descendants of slaves—a proposal that everyone will take as preliminary to support for financial reparations. It's the sort of idea Trump and Bannon can work with, to expand and lock down Republican support among white voters next year....

[E]ven considered just from the standpoint of racial justice, the Democrats’ top priority ought to be winning the election, not running a campaign of moral gestures toward ideas that are overwhelmingly unpopular and might well cost them the White House....

[T]he priority for Democrats has to be ideas that will help them win a majority in 2020, and reparations in any form will not get them there. Endorsing a commission to study reparations is no solution; it will only invite more questions to the candidates about what they support and what taxes they propose to raise to pay for reparations. Leaving those questions open will only seem evasive, and in the general election, leaving them open will allow the Republicans to define the issue.

African Americans may or may not ever receive reparations, but the 2020 Democratic candidates who are moving in that direction have already given Trump and Bannon a priceless gift."

Stern words. But Starr is right. No unforced errors. Please.

About this website

PROSPECT.ORG

Reparations, Really?

Some of the 2020 Democratic candidates don’t have their priorities straight.