I’m not going to argue that it’s a positive for the Democrats to have disappointing voter registration numbers in several key states, but I do want to warn against thinking too hard (or not hard enough) about this data. Voter registration numbers are highly sensitive to factors that have little to nothing to do with candidate preference.
For example, in my home state of Pennsylvania, you cannot participate in a primary unless you are registered with that primary’s party, so there was a big spike of Democratic registration in 2008 as the Obama vs. Clinton contest was the only thing on the calendar for about five weeks after Mississippians went to the polls. The Republican contest was nowhere near as compelling in that window of time, so lots of independents and even some Republican mischief-makers went and registered with the Democratic Party so they could participate in deciding whether “Bitter Clinging” Obama would be the left’s nominee. In the end, Clinton won a strong victory but that didn’t prevent Obama from easily carrying the state in the general election against John McCain.
This year, despite a lot of interest in the Clinton/Sanders fight, there was much more media attention on Donald Trump and his battle against the Republican Establishment. His celebrity inspired a lot of people to get involved who don’t typically vote in primaries.
On top of that, there’s been a lot of growth in non-aligned voters in states where people can vote in primaries. And Southern States, like Florida, have long had tons of Republicans who never bothered to drop their Democratic Party registration. We see the same thing in non-battleground states like West Virginia and Kentucky, where political attitudes changed much faster than the registration numbers.
To understand the meaning of registration data, you really need to look at all the peculiarities of each state. Republican registration growth in Pennsylvania is not worrying for Democrats here, but it might be in Florida. The growth of non-aligned voters in North Carolina is probably bad news for the GOP even though it seems to be coming at the expense of the Democrats. That’s because the influx of new non-southern (and returning black) voters isn’t politically in tune with the conservative Republicans in the Tarheel State or with Donald Trump.
Still, overall, it’s better to be the party registering the most new voters.
OT:
Ramen noodles are overtaking tobacco as the most popular currency in US prisons, according a new study released on Monday.
A new report by Michael Gibson-Light, a doctoral candidate in the University of Arizona’s school of sociology, found the decline in quality and quantity of food available in prisons due to cost-cutting has made ramen noodles
“[Ramen] is easy to get and it’s high in calories,” Gibson-Light said. “A lot of them, they spend their days working and exercising and they don’t have enough energy to do these things. From there it became more a story, why ramen in particular.”
Gibson-Light interviewed close to 60 inmates over the course of a year at one state prison as part of a wider study on prison labor. He did not identify the prison to protect the confidentiality of the inmates.
He found that the instant soup has surpassed tobacco as the most prized currency at the prison. He also analyzed other nationwide investigations that he says found a trend towards using ramen noodles in exchanges.
“One way or another, everything in prison is about money,” one soft-spoken prisoner named Rogers said in the report. “Soup is money in here. It’s sad but true.”
Ramen noodles have long been known to be a popular dish in prisons. Gustavo “Goose” Alvarez, who spent more than a decade incarcerated on a weapons charge, wrote a book on its popularity, Prison Ramen: Recipes and Stories From Behind Bars.
He was inspired to write the book after a race riot in 2009 led to a standoff between a group of Hispanic and African American inmates. An older inmate quelled the dispute and the two groups resolved the tensions by cooking a feast together, largely with ramen noodles.
The book, released last year, includes several recipes such as Ramen Tamale, using Doritos, canned pork and beans, and ramen. It recommends mixing strawberry jelly with soy sauce to make teriyaki, to go with Cheesy Meat Tacos. The book also includes the favorite ramen recipes of celebrities such as Shia LeBeouf and Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash.
The study paints a bleak picture of the state of food available at the prison. Gibson-Light found that black-market food became more valuable after control over food preparation switched from one private firm to another in the early 2000s.
“That change was part of a cost-cutting measure,” Gibson-Light said. “With that change that resulted in a reduction in the quantity of the food the inmates were receiving.”
Inmates at the prison Gibson-Light studied went from receiving three hot meals a day to two hot meals and one cold lunch during the week, and only two meals for the whole day on the weekend.
The phenomenon is described by Gibson-Light as “punitive frugality”. Spending on corrections has not kept pace with the number of inmates in prisons since 1982, the report found.
Policing for Profit.
And taxpayers unwilling to see property taxes raised for any reason at all if they can manage to make “crime pay” in a new way.
awful; just awful- although the reconciliation feast good to hear about
Curious, do you think this will set records for low turnout? 2012 did, for sure.
I’m glad you wrote about this because I made a comment the other day about North Carolina’s voter registration numbers, inquiring if the numbers I heard about were true (couldn’t find them myself at the time). No one seemed interested in talking about it, rather spend more time wanking and mocking or “tl;dr”.
Which brings to the second half of what you posted about (what it means) has any analysis even been done with regard to what this portends for the future when compared with the past? We can talk about closed primaries/open primaries and their differences, as to this being why, but without any mapping of these correlations with data it’s just a “guess”. And doesn’t tell me anything about voter behavior.
There’s a growth in non-aligned voters. That is the focal point and what matters. So then we should ask why that is, and why is it especially true of young people?
what does “tl;dr” mean?
“Too long, didn’t read”. In specific reference to commenters who in discussions post “tl;dr” rather than, you know, ignoring the post.
Anyway, was referencing this thread full of wankery, as oaguabonita pointed out.
thanks; I especially read the “too long” posts by Tarheel Dem. they could be even longer.
links don’t work, but I believe I read that thread
Gah, sorry. Apparently adding “https” made the links break even though that’s usually required. Was the Sanders coalition thread.
definitely want to read that – [if I missed it before]
or maybe it was just piling on Sanders supporters
IHMO on progressive blogs, it means low information voters trying to enforce their standards on commenters.
Ignoring a long comment (or any comment for that matter) silently satisfies reading. Writing tl;dr tries to enforce a standard on comment writers.
Progressive blog comments really don’t need ideological, stylistic, or length enforcement unless they are obvious trolling for empty controversy.
Yes. This.
And that is why the results of voter registration drives pre-election never predict the winner of the election even when they appear to.
You think that the Obama years have turned the Jessecrats to being non-aligned and some Democrats in red counties to non-aligned and still likely Democratic voters?
Interesting!
Trump casts inner cities as `war zones’ in pitch to minority voters
August 22, 2016, 08:42 pm
Donald Trump cast inner cities as “war zones” where blacks and Hispanics live in constant fear for their lives as he took his “law and order” campaign to minority voters in Ohio on Monday.
Speaking at a rally in Akron, Trump painted a bleak picture of inner city life and blamed Democrats for what he described as a festering epidemic of murder and violence in crumbling minority communities across the nation.
“The Democrats have failed completely in the inner cities,” Trump said. “For those hurting the most, who have been failed and failed by their politicians, year after year, failure after failure, worse numbers after worse numbers, poverty, rejection, horrible education, no houses, no homes, no ownership, crime at levels that nobody has seen. You could go to war zones in countries that we’re fighting and it’s safer than living in some of our inner cities that are run by the Democrats.
“It is a disaster the way African-Americans are living in many cases and in many cases the way Hispanics are living,” Trump continued. “And I say it with such a deep felt feeling, what do you have to lose? I’ll straighten it out. I’ll bring jobs back, We’ll bring spirit back. I’ll get rid of the crime, so you’ll be able to walk down the street without getting shot. Right now, you walk down the street, you get shot.”
A Shift in Battlegrounds
by Nancy LeTourneau
August 19, 2016 9:00 AM
In recent presidential elections, we’ve gotten used to the fact that it all comes down to states like Ohio and Florida. We tend to not pay much attention to what is going on in deeply red or blue states because everyone knows the outcomes. The closer the election gets – the more we focus on the battleground states. But this year there has been a pretty big shift in which states are included on that list. So let’s take a look. I’ll be using the polling averages from Real Clear Politics – which tend to be the most conservative.
First of all, there is a group of states that have sometimes been included, but really don’t belong there anymore. Clinton has big leads in:
Michigan (+7)
Pennsylvania (+9)
Virginia (+11)
Colorado (+10)
Next come the traditional battlegrounds where Clinton has a small lead:
Ohio (+2)
Florida (+4)
North Carolina (+2)
Nevada (+2)
But the real battlegrounds – where it is not clear who is leading – are new to the list. And both of them used to be considered red states.
Georgia (Clinton + 0.3)
Arizona (Trump + 0.3)
Here is where it gets interesting. If you include the non-battleground blue states that Democrats have historically won with wins in that first four (where Clinton has big leads), she’s already at 272 electoral votes. Did you see what we did there? Clinton could lose Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Nevada and still win. That is how overwhelming the Democratic majority is in the electoral college right now. The much-ballyhooed battlegrounds are gravy and – at least in the era of Trump – Democrats are starting to play on Republican turf (Georgia and Arizona). Beyond that, states like Texas and South Carolina are trending towards being battlegrounds.
I have begun looking at Nate Silver’s Polls Plus model (which discounts the economic news) as probably more realistic this far out.
Arizona and Georgia are where Trump’s firewall begins. North Carolina is where Clinton’s firewall begins.
But Clinton’s firewall consists of New Hampshire, Nebraska-02, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and North Carolina, but Trump’s firewall is such that he still loses.
And it is possible that Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, and South Carolina could be put into contention with Trump’s erratic behavior, leaving Trump’s core firewall as Indiana, Texas, Montana, South Dakota, Mississippi, and Nebraska-01. If Trump loses Wyoming and Nebraska-03, it will be the worst drubbing in American history — a complete running of the tables.
That likely happens when folks stay home instead of voting for Trump and are less anxious about Clinton’s election as President. Or when Gary Johnson picks up the second place in the general election.
The Trump campaign attempt to prevent this will be the shitstorm of attacks on Clinton from Labor Day to the day of the election. The current trial runs are: the emails, Clinton’s health, Bill and Monica, the Clinton Foundation. And Clinton’s best attack is how Trump treats Gold Star families, veterans, and those who received the Purple Heart. (Apparently there is a contingent of conservatives who consider the Purple Heart a medal for wimping out. We firs saw this attitude with the purple heart bandaids in 2004.)
It is interesting that 175,000 votes in each Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana,and each of the Nebraska districts (and other single House member situations) would allow Clinton to run the tables. And there is history of those districts sometimes coming close to that vote for Democrats even since the red-state-blue-state meme of PVIs.
Speaking of Missouri:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/mo/missouri_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson-6077.
html
Those most recent margins are jaw-droppers; Trump should be cleaning Clinton’s clock in that state.
If one would judge by party registration.
Missouri is a complicated former swing state that just got more complicated by being the homeplace of the LImbaugh clan and by having gone through the protests in Ferguson and scandals in other towns of the St. Louis suburban ring.
Add to that the fault lines between Republicans, Tea Party, Freedom Caucus, and Trumpistas in the current campaign and Trump’s own personal style. He likely kills 10% at the margin just with his style. He gains that back to the extent he can hide who he is and how he will not change if elected.
Your fingertips to FSM’s . . . er . . . noodly auditory appendage?
Michael Shedlock’s (Mish) best case for Trump. He can make it up to 3 electoral votes short of a tie and four electoral vote short of a win. And that’s if he gets all of the gettable voters out there.
Analyzing Trump’s Election Chances: What Does Trump Need To Do To Win?
In the last map, notice which states come up Lean Democrat. Then look at Trump’s campaign schedule going forward.
Mish picks Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada as for likely tipover states. 538’s tipover probability (PollsPlus) for those states are:
Michigan 5.9%
Minnesota 4.7%
New Mexico 1.3%
Nevada 3.2%
Nevada’s D+3.1 is the closest one of those 4 tipover states.
And doing all the work to make this a perfect break toward Trump is what one has to accept to buy Mish’s analysis:
11% of Republicans say they will vote for someone other than Trump or Hillary
9% are unsure or refused to answer.
22% of Independents say they will vote for someone other than Trump or Hillary
12% of Independents are unsure or refused to answer.
That’s one heck of a lot of votes. And they are far more likely to break for Trump than for Hillary.
But that is Mish’s point. If turnout matches estimates and voting matches estimates, Trump cannot win.
That is why Hillary Clinton must start promoting the downticket wave in order to give volunteers and voters something to fight for. Inevitability depresses votes as surely as intimidation or legislation does.
Like it or not, the Clinton campaign must win a solidly Democratic Congress with as much progressive tendencies as are baked into the registered Democratic candidates on the ballots.
I guarantee that Democratic control of the Congress will produce a less conservative and Tea Party and Freedom Caucus Congress than currently exists. And that Democratic politicians will not have the excuse for not serving the public interest.
It doesn’t really matter whether Mish’s taking likely voter or registered voter estimates in this case.
ICYMI
Hillary’s Problem: Explained by Technology
And some conventional Democratic-side analysis.
Worth the effort.