2020 Election

David Shor updates analysis of election of on March 3, 2021. Shor, a socialist, is considered one of the "most influential data gurus in Democratic politics — a whiz kid who, at age 20, served as the 2012 Obama campaign’s in-house Nate Silver, authoring the forecasting model that the White House used to determine where the race really stood." In this interview with Erik Levitz, he also maps out a strategy for the 2022 midterms.

Ezra Klein interviewed Ian Hanley Lopez, who has written about racial "dog whistles" in American politics, for an explanation of why so many Black and brown voters pulled the lever for Trump in this election. From the show notes:

In 2017, [Lopez] partnered with the leftist think tank Demos and various polling groups to better understand the effectiveness of racial dog whistles and how Democrats could combat them. The results were sobering, even to the experts who commissioned the polls. As Haney López documented in his 2019 book Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America, 60 percent of Latinos and 54 percent of African Americans have found Trumpian dog-whistle messages convincing, right in step with the 61 percent of whites who did.

This conversation is about the complicated reality of racial politics in America. It’s about the fact that the electorate isn’t divided into racists and non-racists — most voters, including Trump supporters, toggle back and forth between racially reactionary and racially egalitarian views — and a more robust theory of how race operates in American politics that follows. And it’s about the kinds of race- and class-conscious messages that Haney López’s research suggests work best with voters of all backgrounds.

Strange bedfellows. The lefty podcasters on Time to Say Goodbye lashed out at the Democratic establishment for blaming the party's Congressional losses in the House and anemic performances in the presidential and Senatorial elections on progressive Democrats like themselves and AOC. They also played an excerpt from Tucker Carlson's pre-election day show, in which he asks the question "Why do so many people love Trump so much?" Tucker's answer: "They love Donald Trump because no one loves them," especially not the leaders of the Democratic Party.

Politico Interviews Democratic demographer David Shor. The Democratic Party's dream of a permanent majority once we become a majority minority country has been debunked by the election results, he says. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/12/2020-election-analysis-democrats-future-david-shor-interview-436334

Florida is a very instructive push back against this idea of demographics as destiny. More than twice as many Florida voters cast ballots in 2020 as did in 2000. The Florida electorate is substantially less white than it was in in 2000. And yet, it is more Republican than it was 20 years ago....

There is a broader trend, though, that as college-educated white people become a larger share of the Democratic coalition and a larger share of the Democratic voice, they do pull the party on cultural issues. Non-college educated white people have more culturally in common with working-class Black and working-class Hispanic voters. So, it should be unsurprising that as the cultural power of college-educated white people increases in the Democratic Party, non-white voters will move against us.

Niskanen author Steven Teles advises Democrats to stop whining about the undemocratic nature of the Senate and the Electoral college and just deal with it by figuring out how to appeal to rural voters.

The initial step in accepting our federal system is for Democrats to commit to organizing everywhere — even places where we are not currently competitive. Led by Stacey Abrams, Democrats have organized and hustled in Georgia over the last couple of years, and the results are hard to argue with. Joe Biden should beg Ms. Abrams (or another proven organizer like Ben Wikler, the head of the party in Wisconsin) to take over the Democratic National Committee, dust off Howard Dean’s planning memos for a “50 state strategy” from the mid-2000s and commit to building the formal apparatus of the Democratic Party everywhere.

Thomas Edsall Survey's Historians and Political Scientists on the question: What is Trump up to in not accepting the results of the election? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/opinion/trump-concession-transition.html?referringSource=articleShare

Moderate House members like Connor Lamb are blaming progressive Democrats for the party's poor showing in House races. Progressives like AOC are blaming moderates. Thomas Edsall surveys various political experts for their take on the conflict.

The Democrats failed to make any net gains in state legislatures, thus redistricting will again be controlled by Republicans in the States. National Conference of State Legislatures: Legislatures; ballot measures. See also: Nate Silver: "Republicans Won Almost Every Election Where Redistricting Was At Stake."

David Brooks sees hopeful signs in the election results--voters less motivated by culture and tribal identity and more by policy concerns.

The image of a possible future G.O.P. emerged — a multiracial working-class party. Republicans made surprising gains among Latinos, African-Americans and Muslims. Trump won the largest share of the nonwhite vote of any Republican candidate in 60 years. That wasn’t done by Trumpian race-baiting but because of the party’s reputation for championing personal agency and personal responsibility, and for boosting small businesses and economic growth. That can be built on.

Meanwhile, voters told Democrats that they, too, would benefit if they played up policy and played down cultural concerns of their Portlandia/graduate-schooled/defund-the-police wing.

Election results suggest the nation is becoming less racially polarized and more geographically polarized.

The slight but significant depolarization of race didn’t happen out of nowhere. As the pollster David Shor told New York magazine in July, Black voters trended Republican in 2016, while Latino voters also moved right in some battleground states. “In 2018, I think it’s absolutely clear that, relative to the rest of the country, nonwhite voters trended Republican,” he said. “We’re seeing this in 2020 polling, too. I think there’s a lot of denial about this fact.” After this election, the trend may be harder to deny. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/2020-election-results-prove-density-destiny/617027/

WSJ essay argues that Trump's conservative populist movement driven by rural voters is not fluke, but a permanent voting bloc.

Many of Mr. Trump’s supporters have described a deep, personal connection to his unconventional approach to politics, and Mr. Trump has often sought to host rallies in smaller towns. “Trump brought the turnout by going to these places, talking to people, listening to them,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.). https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-rural-coalition-proved-durable-confounded-democrats-11604536974?st=lm87o219xsbickc&reflink=article_email_share

One of the earliest explanations of election results came from NYT columnist Charles Blow: racism and white supremacy explain the surprising strength of Trump, even among Black, other POC, and LGBT voters.

Let me be specific and explicit here: White people — both men and women — were the only group in which a majority voted for Trump, according to exit polls. To be exact, nearly three out of every five white voters in America are Trump voters.

It is so unsettling to consider that many of our fellow countrymen and women are either racists or accommodate racists or acquiesce to racists....

Some people who have historically been oppressed will stand with the oppressors, and will aspire to power by proximity.

AP votecast survey, taken from Oct. 28-Nov. 3. https://www.wsj.com/graphics/votecast-2020/

What if the progressive appeals to race-based issues like policing reform weren't winning over minority voters?

Perceptions of Trump as racist seem to be a core driving force pushing whites toward the Democrats. Why would the opposite pattern be holding among minority voters — i.e. the very people the president is purportedly being racist against?

It may be that many minority voters simply do not view some of his controversial comments and policies as racist. Too often, scholars try to test whether something is racist by looking exclusively at whether the rhetoric or proposals they disagree with resonate with whites. They frequently don’t even bother to test whether they might appeal to minorities, as well. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-vote-rising-among-blacks-hispanics-despite-conventional-wisdom-ncna1245787