People across the country have been voting for weeks now. Many voted by mail and others did in person early voting. What does all this activity indicate for the election? It's far from dispositive, but there are certain clear trends that can be seen.
1. Minority voting is down as a percentage of total voting. In other words, the people voting early are whiter than the electorate that cast votes in 2016 or the mid terms in 2018. Black participation hit a high in 2012 with Obama and then fell when Trump beat Hillary four years later. Now, with Biden in the race (excuse me, the slow walk), African Americans are about 1.5% lower percentage of the electorate than last time.
So what does this mean? If the percentage of blacks in the electorate actually falls by 1.5% after election day, it's a disaster for the Democrats. Remember Hillary took 92% of all black votes four years ago. Switching 1.5% of black votes for white votes means that Biden is losing something like 0.8% of the votes in the race. There were quite a few states in 2016 that were decided by margins lower than 0.8%. Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania come to mind. And if the polls are correct and Ptesident Trump gets about 5% more of the black vote in 2020 than he did last time, that 0.8% goes up to about 1.5%.
2/ The 18-24 year old segment of the electorate is also not turning in ballots to the same extent proportionally as it did in 2016. Here, the drop is much greater than it is among blacks. The theory is that without college events to get these kids to the polls (cancelled due to COVID), this group may underperform by about 25% compared to 2016. There's also the lack of any enthusiasm among the young for the doddering old man that Biden is.
3. Another noticeable difference in the early electorate from last time is that among whites, the vote by those without college degrees is a much smaller percentage while those with less than a college degree are way up in participation. This data only comes from a few states that release this information. Note, however, that this has been the case in every state that has released info of this sort. Keep in mind also that Trump does best among white voters without a college degree, and they are the ones who are turning out in droves during early voting.
4. In many important states, Republican voters are beating their turnout rates of 4 years ago by margins greater than the Democrats. Since Democrats normally do better in early voting than the GOP, figures like those in the MidWest where Republicans are actually outpolling the Dems are shocking.
Put this together and it still doesn't mean anything conclusive. After all, the polls say Biden is ahead. Of course, Biden will only win if his supporters actually bother to vote. At least in the early voting, it seems that the Trump voters are streaming to the polls while many of Biden's core groups are not.
Are the polls correct? Or are these early voting indicators correct? One is composed from questions asked blindly on a phone while the other are actual voting tablulations. Right now, it looks to me like the pollsters got it all wrong again.
No comments:
Post a Comment