Just prior to the election, I told you that the students at my child’s suburban Philaldelphia elementary school in Chester County, Pennsylvania had voted for Clinton by a healthy 64%-34% margin. When their parents showed up to vote at the school, they also chose Clinton, albeit by a more modest 52.4%-40.4% clip.
I want to put this precinct is some perspective. Four years ago, it went for Mitt Romney 51.6%-47.4%.
In Pennsylvania, we have the option to vote the “Straight Party” line, and more people chose to do that for the Republicans (781) than the Democrats (747). Senator Pat Toomey got more votes here (1587) than his challenger Katie McGinty (1531). The Republican candidate for the U.S House of Representatives won by 305 votes. On the state level, the Republican candidates for the Attorney General, State Auditor, and the House of Representatives all won. Other than Clinton, the only Democrats who carried the precinct were Joe Torsella for State Treasurer (who won by seven votes) and our popular incumbent State Senator Andrew Dinniman who won by 303 votes.
On the surface, this is some impressive ticket-splitting. But the most impressive thing is that Clinton carried the precinct by 443 votes. Only our incumbent Republican state Rep. Duane Milne had a bigger margin (almost 600 votes).
Now, here are the county wide numbers from this year and from four years ago.
HILLARY CLINTON (DEM) 140,188 51.77
DONALD J TRUMP (REP) 115,582 42.69
MITT ROMNEY (GOP) 124,840 49.43
BARACK OBAMA (DEM) 124,311 49.22
As you can see, about 6,000 more voters participated in the election this year than four years ago. If you’re wondering, turnout was higher this year (76.90%) than four years ago (74.89%), too.
Hillary Clinton not only flipped Chester County from Republican to Democrat, but she boosted turnout, got 16,000 more votes than Obama did in his reelection bid, and netted almost 25,000 votes overall.
Here are the results for the four Philly collar suburban counties from this year and four years ago:
DELAWARE COUNTY: Clinton +63,000, Obama +61,000
MONTGOMERY COUNTY: Clinton +91,000 Obama +58,000
BUCKS COUNTY: Clinton +2,000, Obama +3,500
CHESTER COUNTY: Clinton +25,000, Obama -1,000
Keep all of this in mind when you read Eric Sasson blaming white college-educated voters for being equally or more responsible for electing Donald Trump than rural white voters. But also keep it in mind when people second guess Clinton’s strategy. She didn’t just win the Philly suburbs.
In Philadelphia County, she netted 455,000 votes compared to Obama’s 462,000, and in Allegheny County she netted 106,000 votes compared to Obama’s 89,000. In other words, in Pennsylvania’s two biggest cities she netted 10,000 more votes than Obama did in 2012. And Obama carried the state 52.0%-46-8% by about 300,000 votes. Clinton lost the state by 68,000.
It’s not rocket science to figure this out. Clinton got more votes out of the cities and more votes out of the suburbs (where turnout was actually up) and she still turned a 300,000 cushion into a nearly 70,000 vote defeat. What happened is that where Obama lost the smaller more rural counties in the 70-30 range, Clinton lost them in closer to an 80-20 range. And if you spread that out across the commonwealth’s 67 counties, it swamped the Democrats and cost them not only the state’s 20 Electoral College votes but what should have been a pickup of a U.S. Senate seat.
For Clinton, and most observers, it wasn’t thought possible that she could lose if she not only netted her votes out of the cities but did better than Obama in the suburbs. It made perfect sense for her to stay focused on urban turnout and persuasion in the suburbs and she undoubtedly met all her benchmarks.
Now, Pennsylvania is unique in some ways and it can’t be perfectly compared to any other state, but this general phenomenon can be observed in Florida and in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, too.
What happened here wasn’t a general failure to persuade white professionals in the suburbs or to mobilize the targeted cities in key swing states. It was a collapse of Democratic support in areas that were already voting heavily against the Democrats by unhealthy percentages.
People will want to go over these results with a fine-toothed comb, and I await that analysis, but the collapse of the Democrats in these rural counties isn’t tolerable if the left ever wants to control the House of Representatives or the state legislatures in most of the country. I know people are angry that these voters were willing to overlook or even actively support Trump’s racist idiotic campaign, but the Democrats will need to do better than winning 20% in these areas. It’s likely that the suburbs will continue to move away from the Trumpian Republican Party and that may solve the Electoral College problem. It won’t solve the other problems, though.
Unfortunately, this can’t be swept under the rug. And the Democrats cannot afford to make this political behavior become habitual and culturally ingrained in the North as it already is in the South.
Progressives need programs, strategies and organizing in these communities. And they need it now.
Leave a Reply
Here is the nightmare: Dems have maxed out the vote in the urban counties. This was true in PA. It was also true in Florida. So we really couldn’t make Trump pay for the things trump said about minorities in the minority community. The Clinton campaign bet on making Trump pay among college educated voters in the suburbs. Clinton’s margin went up 8 among those making over 100K – so it worked some. But Clinton lost 25% of those White low income voters who voted for Obama. Re-read that number. ONE IN FOUR. They were willing to tolerate racist comments… Read more »
Tarheel posted a list of the 2018 Dem Senate seats that are up. Sigh. Wonder what happens to our newby NDakota senator who was silent on the pipeline?
She is silent because she wants to keep her seat. The pipeline is NOT a popular issue. Sorry. It’s a loser issue. Even though my own sister was up there protesting over the weekend. But that is the truth.
And as soon as you can say “President Trump”, that pipeline will be finished. All that is happening is delay.
‘And we have to win those votes.’ Maybe the change will be realized if we say that we have do something for the people who casts those votes in order to win them. When the Democrats learn to be agents of positive change rather than money grubbers they will blossom like a thousand springs in the heavens, according to Mao Tse Tung.
I agree. Perhaps this will cause our party to embrace as issue like antitrust, as Booman has suggested. If we’re serious about it and have candidates who don’t seem like total hypocrites, it would move the needle at least a little. That’s all it would have taken at the presidential level. To become truly competitive in rural districts will take time but we have to start somewhere and that would be a credible message to sell. “Middle America, your shops are closed and your jobs gone in large part because of Walmart and Amazon.” The stuff they sell comes from… Read more »
Only a fraction of the college educated are making over $100K a year, basically managers. And the youngest and oldest college educated are heavily unemployed.
Obama extended OPT from 17 months to 39 months. This allows foreign students to be hired WITH TAX BREAKS instead of US students. My son’s roommate graduated with an architecture degree. He’s managing a restaurant.
Obama created a visa category for wives of H-1Bs. That granted 100,000 more tax-break-supported jobs for foreign workers. That allowed more American workers to be fired.
US citizens should have the first place in line for jobs in the United States. The duty of the government is to defend the citizens from enemies foreign and domestic. Including those who would steal jobs.
He was wrong to do both of those. As it happened in early 2016 I let him and both presidential candidates know that was dumb harmful policy and that the Ds need to stop catering to their large tech donors and instead look out for the American worker first.
While she ran away with Illinois, look at the different maps from 2012 to 2016. Obama carried a number of rural northwestern Illinois counties in 2012, including my own Henry by 51-47. She lost it 58-37. How do we explain a 20 point swing?
http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/presidential-election-results-by-county-illinois-clinton-t
rump-400289021.html
http://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/illinois/
How to explain?
Obamacare. You lost your access to your doctor. Your premiums go up every fucking year. The website, created by H-1bs, does not work, and times out.
On Nov 1, 25, 30, 35% increases were announced. This sealed the deal for Trump for a lot of people.
I never lost access to my doctor and my premiums have actually gone up at a lower rate than they were going up before the ACA was enacted. There are millions upon millions of people out there like me.
The problem is that the Ds let the Rs get ahead of them on messaging. For example the Rs were able to claim premiums went up because of the ACA all while erasing how much premiums went up year after year before the ACA was ever enacted.
Of course it works for a lot of people. Of course it is a good thing. I have 3 children. My daughter gets insurance from her business. My other 2 children cannot afford insurance. They are uncovered, and will have to pay a penalty. That is despite the fact that my son is unemployed and my daughter has a low-paying job as a care attendant in nursing homes. The complaints about Obamacare are very common. I really hoped that it would succeed. There is a silver lining. If Ryan weaponizes the old fuckers like my wife with his threats to… Read more »
Like really? He was the US Senator from Illinois.
I don’t think that’s it. My old county Phelps in Missouri went for Romney by 10, Trump won it by 40. Being from Illinois was NOT an advantage for Obama in MO. Check rural counties all around, she lost ground everywhere it seems.
Your question was about Nortwest Illinois. My response was not about any other county. Read my diary. Trump ran a racist campaign. Hillary got killed in rural counties compared to 2012, but Obama probably would have as well.
The downticket results show the shift of the suburbs is (so far) mostly opposition to Trump rather than a real shift to the Democrats, so we can’t count on it in future elections. While it’s tempting to tell the white rural/working class voters off, they have been winnable in the past. Democracy is all about working with imperfect people (because we all are). What may be problematic is that the way to win these people in the past has been with Blue Dogs, for the most part. Is it possible for the current ideological Democratic party to make common cause… Read more »
Depends on whether you believe corruption and unresponsive elites are their issue when they say it is. Blue Dogs that are corporate Dems would not help in that instance, would they?
Social Blue Dogs are anathema to centrists.
For myself I’d say something like everyone getting a chance at fulfilling their god given purpose. If thats to run the family farm I want help you do that, if its to go to school or be a local shopkeeper same. I want to make it possible to stay in your town and make a life there without crushing debts. A country where city life or country life are equally noble.
Something like that.
It’s a perpetuating white supremacy, running the family farm or business. It is hard for us to see it, because it is so woven into our society as to perceive it. I am thinking about writing a diary about how the estate tax and other state taxes benefit Whites over POC.
Walmart, Jeff Bezos, and globalization have disrupted it for many rural communities, and it has shaken them to the core. POC have dealt with the same disruptions without decades of wealth (however limited) accrual to cushion the blow.
Apparently in some places in the south it can go 90-10 so buckle up.
Programs Obama wanted to implement that could have helped these people were blocked by republican intransigence. Which worked to enrage “low-information” rural voters into voting for the very people who are working to screw them. It’s enraging. Like the Rude Pundit, my first instinct is to tell these morons to go fuck yourselves.
Admittedly, perhaps not a constructive electoral strategy.
yes, basically
That is true to a certain extent, but where was the Democratic party getting the word out about this? I realize we’re up against a rightwing media juggernaut that pushes out nothing by lies, spin, hype and innuendo against the dastardly Libtards 24/7/365. But from where I sit, I see precious little effort by the D Team to counteract this in any realistic way. THIS is part of the real PROBLEM: when are Ds gonna get off their butts and really DO something for voters or at least speak out loudly about what’s going on? Where are the Ds… Read more »
How elitist! It reminds me of my mother telling my grandson’s 4th grade class about her Uncle’s 1920’s farm in McHenry County Illinois. This was in 1999. The kids were astounded that there was no electricity. “But how did you watch TV and run your computers?”, they asked. We can excuse this lack of knowledge in fourth-graders but not in alleged communication professionals.
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make.
My point is that Clinton didn’t go out and TALK to voters in depressed areas of the country, which are mainly rural. It’s great to have good programs on your website, but IMO, that’s not enough to gain their votes.
If you see me as being elitist in some way for pointing this out, then I’m baffled.
Why were they “low information”? Did no one campaign? That’s what campaigns are for. Or was the campaign just content-free “She’s with Us/Morning in America”? No, these people don’t want a scholarly paper, but if the Democrats can’t explain an issue in 30 seconds or 60 seconds, then they need a remedial course in Marketing.
This is what I mean (from the above link). The Rude One says it better than I could: My friend Duke from West Virginia said something that had crossed my mind but had shoved aside as bitterness: “Fuck the white working class. Obama gave them health insurance and a chance to get new jobs and they hated him. Fuck them.” Without thinking, I immediately agreed, and as soon as I did, it made total sense. “You’re right. Democrats need to abandon the white working class.” By “abandon,” I mean not trying to desperately court the votes of people who always… Read more »
>>Yeah, that’s patronizing and elitist
more important, it prevents fixing the problem.
>>Democrats don’t have a working class white people problem
correct. what Democrats have, in most states, is a “not enough voters to win an election” problem. Working class white people are not a problem, they are the potential solution to the problem.
This. This is fucking subversive. Because as soon as you start thinking this way, the next thing you start thinking is, “OK — but once you adopt the idea that working class white people are the problem, whose point of view are you validating and which side are you on anyway?“. At that point you’re well on your way to understanding the problem with the Democratic Party.
“low-information”: do the quotes mean that OTHERS call them low-information? I certainly hope so. Many people who are in rural areas are pretty smart. These days, tractors are computers with wheels and a hitch. Every single square yard on a farm is mapped and understood. Plus most rural people get TV. They get as much information as everyone else. They have different desires. During the Obama administration, the Dept of Labor put out a statute about employment of rural kids. 2012. Stopping rural kids from doing chores. I kid you not. “A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children… Read more »
Most of the electorate is low information as is most of the Internet. We all seem to suffer from Dunning-Krueger Effect. Look at the Daily Kos class of 2003-2004, they have over a decade of awful predictions and some how worse advice and many of them still have thousands of followers. The Slacktivist Revolution has not panned out as promised. Who knew to effect change, one might have to leave the comfort of the techno womb?
This is what I have been saying for about 4 years. If Ds stick with the SJW ethos of interest groups, everything is racist, illegals are wonderful and deserve american jobs, blah blah blah, 2018 is going to be a fucking bloodbath. The Rs may get 60+ in the Senate. The changes were strong. In MN, 6 senate seats flipped, and that flipped the chamber. 6 is huge. 10% of the Senate flipped D change S H CO 0 +1 IA -5 0 IL -2 0 IN -1 0… Read more »
I wish there was an edit. My counts in the little table up there are changes in state senate and house seats.
Think I saw 69/100 overall. Sheesh.
Camussie, you know he’s not a troll. He’s been here many more years than you. This is not the Great Orange Satan. Or is it, Booman?
Maybe you should change the ratings to up/down and leave troll banishing either to yourself or a small handful of trusted users who ban only real trolls.
Bingo. And when they get 5 more combined legislatures/governorships they can amend the Constitution any damned way they please and all the whimpering from the Democrats that remain on the coasts won’t count for shit.
Too pessimistic because WWC (as defined by education) share of the electorate will shrink 0.5% every year for 20 years. That alone is enough to restore progressive fortunes.
Too optimistic because it is unclear that there is anything progressives can offer the WWC to entice them back. Progressives can hardly embrace bigotry.
While racism and bigotry certainly played a role in the rise and success of Trump, I posit that it’s more of CLASS issue than a race issue. With all due respect, your comment is essentially saying we should just write off the WWC and hope that they all STFU and die, rather than reach out to them. I don’t like Trump at all. I think he’s a Con man who’ll never anything close to what he promised. That said, he ran on a message NOT just of racism, but on a message of economic hope. He went TO these… Read more »
Maybe, someone with better populist cred like Warren can sell what HRC was selling better than HRC and win back these people. But Dems haven’t had much luck winning back Southern whites after they left the party.
It’s not just southern whites, though, is it? Clinton lost big-time in: Ohio, PA, WI, MI and other northern states. Maybe – just maybe – the south is a lost cause, although that’s not certain. I think we need to get out of OUR prejudices about these “deplorables” and realize that it’s not about racism & bigotry, it’s about class and economics. Plus there’s a certain percentage of Latinos and Blacks who voted for Trump – my understanding that the percentage of both groups who did were larger than who voted for Romney. Clinton’s message wasn’t sound for these… Read more »
I agree that for MANY it is about class and economics but I would also say that for SOME Trump voters at all income levels their vote was indeed driven by sexism and racism. Basically I think to say it is all factor or another is a fool’s errand.
f
The problem is that the Democratic Party is dependent on donations from the 1% who are at the heart of the problem. Therefore the (D) party cannot provide meaningful economic help without angering their Wall Street masters. Faking it like Health care “reform” that mainly enriches the Insurance companies and “Grand Bargains” to turn SS over to Wall Street, will not hold. You can con the public for a few elections, but then it sinks in that they have been conned. Thus the (D) party cannot be the party of economic change and must get votes by con jobs and… Read more »
I believe this is correct and the first step in pulling the Dem Party away from the 1% and address the issues of the other 99%. Its been demonstrated that small donor funding is possible and leads to the feeling of participation by a wider portion of the electorate. They are more emotionally invested in the outcome. Also we need to get away from racial/gender politics. Its easy and convenient to plot, plan and strategize for smaller portions of the voting public; but as others have shown, there are common issues all these segments share. It difficult to use the… Read more »
I don’t think you can ignore racial/gender politics altogether though. People of color have every reason to be wary when D start saying things like we need to just move away from racial/gender politics because history has shown more often than not when Ds decide that economic issues supersede any and all racial and gender issues women and people of color get left behind. For example progressives cite FDR and the New Deal as what we should aspire to now but they never acknowledge that the New Deal, including social security, was deliberately designed to exclude people of color. They… Read more »
No. Agricultural workers were excluded from Social Security–even the white ones!!!
Please google…Social Security did not deliberately exlude blacks
If you have links explaining why this is wrong, I would like to read them.
I knew it was professions not races exclude but the reason they excluded professions like agriculture and domestic workers was because those professions were filled with a lot of people of color. The intent was to exclude them.
didn’t “specifically target” non-whites*, they just excluded them disproportionately with extreme prejudice!
An ongoing process with the various forms of vile, anti-democratic wingnut voter suppression underway in the GOP’s massive cheating program.
*actually, I have a nagging suspicion that’s wrong, i.e., that whites weren’t even subjected to the literacy tests blacks had to pass before they could vote, at least in some locales at some times.
Ah, the wonderful “demography is destiny” and the “old fuckers die off all the time” fallacies, in one post.
Did you know that every day, there are more old fuckers? It’s amazing. The one thing we will never be rid of is old fuckers.
And people do not stay still. Sometimes they change in their thoughts, attitudes, and opinions.
“illegals are wonderful and deserve american jobs”
This is an example of provocation by the writer (up-thread). Don’t take the bait. Don’t reply to him. He probably pops open a cold one every time someone does. I made that error enough times myself….
Yep, ignore the truth. Don’t discuss the naughty word. Naughty words must never be uttered.
Better a hundred state senate seats be lost rather than saying a single naughty word.
I admire your zeal. You are as dumb as a fucking box of rox, but you won’t say a naughty word.
You don’t seem to get it. We aren’t ignoring your truth (for that matter you aren’t the only one who has had this insight). We just know that you don’t want a real discussion of the issues as long as you cling to such a dehumanizing term. If you wanted a real discussion you wouldn’t use that word. Yet you proudly do so and then proclaim that you alone predicted what would happen this election.
7 dirty words. George Carlin. If he did it today, the 7 dirty words, that no one can say because your lips will turn blue and fall off, would include “illegal”. We call a person who steals stuff a “thief”. We do not call him a “unauthorized owner” or a “unauthorized discount taker”. He’s a thief. We call a person who speeds a “speeder”. We don’t call her an “excessive speed driver”. She is a speeder. I don’t accept your rules. They are illegals. Now, of course, you can continue to refuse to even think the unthinkable, and in 2… Read more »
Thieving is relatad to thief. Speeding is related to speeder. Illegals is related to….what? In fact, “illegals” is deliberately offensive. This is particularly true when you divorce the word from any meaningful noun like “entrant” or “immigrant” or “migrant worker.” If you insist on using the word “illegals” despite people’s quite reasonable objections, I will ban you. “Illegal immigrant” is more defensible since it at least a correct descriptor. However, refusal to understand and respect that its dehumanizing is still dickish behavior deserving of downrating. If you insist on emphasizing the illegal behavior of millions of people… Read more »
If long overdue.
They are not immigrants. I will compromise on il-imm.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/immigrant
There you go again ignoring that I actually agree with you that the Ds need to seriously re-think some of their positions on immigration. Unless you have short term memory issues you know I have posted about that time and time again
You see I can both think without resorting to dehumanizing my fellow human being. You know why? Because I am fully functioning human being who doesn’t need to dehumanize others just to prove my economic progressive bonafides.
OK, here is what I will do. I will use the term “il-imm”. Make of it what you will.
Except it is never that simple. You know a guy wrote this book years ago, Les Miserables, about a guy sentenced to prison for stealing bread. So yea – if I apply a legalistic description Jean valjean is a thief. But the worf thief also conveys a sense of moral judgement. So in the book the protagonist is pursued by a lawyer, javert, who wants the law enforced. Most of the people here illegally are no more worthy of moral blame than Jean Val Jean is. There are poor – they want a better life. Now there is a separate… Read more »
is not “worthy of moral blame”?????
Rule of Law!!!!
It’s the one and only principle, overriding all others (see, e.g., humanity, decency, compassion, empathy, etc.)!
Have you never read another word he’s written here?
Interesting interviews in the New York Times last Sunday with people in Rust Belt areas that flipped GOP this time around. Lots of talk about economic insecurity and Trump’s promises. Similar stuff heard today on the radio on the BBC “The World” show: interviews with Democrats who voted for Obama twice and now Trump. When asked about Hillary Clinton’s policy proposals, one guy replied along the lines of “the Democrats say that stuff every 4 years and then forget about it”. He was willing to give Trump a try but sure didn’t sound like a newly minted Republican. That interview… Read more »
To what Sanders said, I say: BINGO!!!!
Sanders was credibly discussing the same or similar issues as Trump without being a racist pig, and Sanders was gaining a lot of traction.
Yeah, Clinton “incorporated” some of Sanders stuff in her plank, but she did NOT reach out to these voters in any credible way. And she LOST.
Look at what happened. This is an issue of Class, not racism (although that plays a part). It’s about economic pain and insecurity, which is very very real.
Ah, the famous “She put in in the platform”. WHO READS PLATFORMS? Other than political junkies? The salient question is “Did she put it in her campaign ads?” And BTW, I’m not talking just about HRC. This has been brewing for at least eight years and in my opinion for 24 years, maybe longer. How did RR campaign? How did he win? Not by a racist sexist campaign. And not by religion. He sold a bunch of BS, but like any good conman he talked to the marks like they were equal, peddling a line that looked good on the… Read more »
He ran a racist campaign. He opened his GE campaign in Philadelphia, MS just as Donald Jr. did this year. He used phrases like welfare queen and big bucks eating lobster and T-bone steaks. I was there don’t kid yourself.
But what issues did he CLOSE the campaign on? Maybe he wore out the racist twitch? I have read that he is good at getting feedback from his audience…tweaking his message to fit their narratives.
Saw several pieces at the end about how on message he was staying to round out the general…and his main message was economic class warfare. THAT was what his audiences wanted, it seems.
That is known as closing the deal with the few, and there are always a few, that still harbor some doubts and could end up walking away. I’m reminded of an account prospect meeting. Nice account, 2nd generation owned and operated, but a stretch because they had a long-standing relationship with current provider and weren’t displeased with the service they received but were willing to listen. In a tour of their facility I demonstrated an interest in and their business and personnel, including the brother that was their artisan craftsman, a small niche part of their operation but from my… Read more »
I had a lengthy conversation with Jake Sullivan, a pretty senior adviser to Clinton.
He said that the key argument they wanted to make is that Hillary “got things done”
But I think that argument just runs into GOP obstruction – and I think people just didn’t think she could deliver on anything.
So some of these voters took a chance on Trump because maybe he could.
So how much worse are economic conditions in rural PA (and the rest of the goddam electoral college “battleground”) in 2016 than 2012?
And if there’s no substantial difference, then what’s the explanation for rural whites essentially voting in increased lockstep in 2016?
I wonder if the Philly suburbs are representative. In any event, it didn’t appear to enter these suburbanites’ minds to punish Repub intransigence and paralysis in Congress, so one has to wonder what sort of political crisis most of them were voting for by splitting their ticket.
The fuck-up of our electorate seems pretty broadly based.
I don’t have statistics, but what I’m hearing and reading and seeing is that the economic conditions are much worse in 2016, than 2012 in these rural areas. It’s not soooo bad if you are in an urban area, especially if it’s starting to “wake up” and more jobs are being created. But the rural areas are in pretty bad shape, and they have been so for quite a long long time. Obama won a lot of areas that Trump just won because Obama WENT OUT and TALKED to these people. He offered them “Hope and Change” which didn’t… Read more »
Some poor woman completing her third job of the day on the late shift at WalMart could care less whether Hillary breaks the Glass ceiling or not. She wants a better job to feed, cloth and house her family.
And plenty of people still don’t understand that. Also, when does that woman have time to vote? It’s why I hate voting shamers as well.
I have a specific issue: trade agreements. Obama promised to renegotiate NAFTA, but instead negotiated a big shiny new agreement bringing in a bunch more countries. It did actually improve on NAFTA on the environment and worker protections, but that wasn’t a big part of the agreement. Although Clinton eventually rejected the TPP, for a good reason, she is mostly a free-trader and would be expected to push for more trade agreements in the future, just with the more obnoxious ISDS sections sanded off. I can see how this would be a big deal for the Rust Belt (mostly white)… Read more »
Thanks, this is persuasive to me, especially when you add in that it was clearly one of Trump’s (two) signature issues–the other clearly and unequivocally being anger and resentment towards American minority groups.
Strong one/two punch, apparently—especially when all one has to do is win the “battleground” by half a percent.
This is an issue that attracts a lot of attention but doesn’t move many votes. Just like the deficit.
It sure moved Trump voters. The main issue I heard from them was jobs going overseas.
The ones I know, and I know many, share videos of blacks beating up white people etc (many of them fake) and lament the fall of our culture. They aren’t poor.
YMMV. Do you live in the South? I’ve never known anyone who would watch such a video and that includes one who is proud of the John Birch Society.
Yes!
They won’t listen though, it does not fit the agenda. The insistence that ‘rural’ equals ‘poor’ will persist. Many here have a goal….to throw the democratic base under the bus, and appeal to the WHITE working class.
Suddenly the economic anxiety that supposedly drove those rural voters is not so important
It’s interesting, because many here demand democrats show some principles, stand up for something. But stand up to whites who hate POC? Those are principles too far.
.
I think you’re beating a strawman. I don’t think anybody here has suggested not standing up for POC. Certainly not me. My idea is that there is a subset of these WWC voters that can be appealed to on economic issues even though many are racist. We likely even lost some who opposed Trump’s racism but opposed the TPP more. In addition a lot of policies that can appeal to these voters have a fairly minimal cost in votes elsewhere. There’s very little opposition to minimum wage laws or rural infrastructure, and at present little desire to push for further… Read more »
In any event, it didn’t appear to enter these suburbanites’ minds to punish Repub intransigence and paralysis in Congress, ….
Why would it? The Democrats never mention it and neither does the news.
The problem with the school data not matching parents voting habits, are you accounting for private schools? I would think kids in private schools would support Trump more. It was what made me doubt the Scholastic News results, because not sure if it counts kids in private schools. I assume homeschooled kids are not represented at all. I think the elites are missing the homeschool and private school extra cost causing many whites to feel their taxes are high and feeling squeezed. Which the alt-right takes advantage by making it seem like double taxation, then moving to resentment for paying… Read more »
If we don’t more to stop Trump right now, we aren’t going to have an electoral problem.
Go look at the trend of voting over the past few elections in some very red areas before the “red state”/”blue state” meme became popular. This was a strategy to rub Obama’s face in his 2004 speech about the “United” States of America. Now how did it turn out to be as successful as Tennessee’s repudiation of its favorite son of 8 years previous — Al Gore. Here’s the tracking of one county in NC. I voted there in 1980. Rural. Hit by loss of three corporate headquarters, the furniture industry, and dependent on Tysons chicken industry for jobs. A… Read more »
Quite a collapse in 2016.
Just a minor detail. Which states have already certified their election results and what was their vote totals and the current electoral vote count of finalized votes.
I have no idea about certification, but these are the latest totals.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/133Eb4qQmOxNvtesw2hdVns073R68EZx4SfCnP4IGQf8/htmlview?sle=tru
e#gid=19
Always amazes me even Clinton and Carter couldn’t do better with the Southern white vote.