2020 Presidential Election

[Indoor66]

I don't view that as a problem...I view that as amazingly impressive. In fact, it's possible, maybe even likely, had he not been gay, Buttigieg would not have made it onto the national stage. He probably would have easily been lost in a crowd of dozens of other mayors of midlevel cities. But, he proved that he was electable.
Double edged sword. Hopefully he parlays his success into bigger things, such as the senate. Then perhaps, down the road...

And it might be that had he not been gay he he wouldn't be on the national stage.

[sagegrouse]

I hope that's true, but he's really not polling all that well for a guy that has stated popular policies in a national forum. Obviously, there is no way to compare, but in an alternate universe it would be interesting to see his numbers if his being gay wasn't known. I have a hunch they would be much, much higher.
His even being on the stage IS progress, but I think America has a long way to go before we see true acceptance.

Oh my. He's 37 YO and is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, where he has had a much less than perfect record. I can't think of another Democratic US mayor that was higher in the polls than Mayor Pete has been this year. BTW, NYC Mayor Lindsay was a Republican.

[DU82]

Oh my. He's 37 YO and is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, where he has had a much less than perfect record. I can't think of another Democratic US mayor that was higher in the polls than Mayor Pete has been this year. BTW, NYC Mayor Lindsay was a Republican.

Well, was, but not when he ran for President. He lost the GOP nomination for mayor in 1969, but won on the Liberal Party ticket (New York long has had four “parties” on the ballot, although Rep-Conservative and Dem-Liberal have gone hand in hand for most elections, obviously not including that one.). He then left for the Democrats in’71 and ran for President in ‘72 (a Democratic primary race not that dissimilar to 2020.). He later ran for senate in 1980 but ran third in the Democratic primary.

[rsvman]

The odds that 45 out of 45 Presidents would be men by random chance are less than 1 in 30 trillion (or, less than 0.000000000003%). If you want to be generous and only count the 17 Presidents that served after women could vote, the odds are less than 1 in 100000 (or, less than 0.0008%).

I agree with you that it'd be best to not vote based on gender, race, or age. But the direction to which you're implying that happens is exactly opposite to the way it actually happens the vast majority (but not all) of the time.

This isn't fair because it assumes that the likelihood of either outcome would be identical, which it never has been (presidential elections are not decided by putting the name of every single person in America into a very large hat and then drawing out the winner randomly). Seventeen elections ago women were finally allowed to vote, yes, but that is a far cry from actually running for election. In most of the elections you cited, a woman wasn't even running, and therefore had no chance of winning.

Perhaps for the past 5-10 elections or so, a woman should've had a fighting chance, but going back much before that isn't really useful, in my opinion.

[Wander]

This isn't fair

Exactly!

[sagegrouse]

Well, was, but not when he ran for President. He lost the GOP nomination for mayor in 1969, but won on the Liberal Party ticket (New York long has had four “parties” on the ballot, although Rep-Conservative and Dem-Liberal have gone hand in hand for most elections, obviously not including that one.). He then left for the Democrats in’71 and ran for President in ‘72 (a Democratic primary race not that dissimilar to 2020.). He later ran for senate in 1980 but ran third in the Democratic primary.

Fair enough. John Lindsay ran as a Democrat and, while not looking up polls, he won 6+ percent in both the Florida and Wisconsin primaries in 1972. He was Mayor of NY and ran as a Democrat.

In fact, LA mayor Sam Yorty got six percent in the NH primary in 1972.

[bedeviled]

Does "ticking the boxes" actually matter more to the general voting public than policy positions do? Is putting forth an identity candidate a worthwhile venture for the party?

The odds that 45 out of 45 Presidents would be men by random chance are less than 1 in 30 trillion..[SNIP]...I agree with you that it'd be best to not vote based on gender, race, or age. But the direction to which you're implying that happens is exactly opposite to the way it actually happens the vast majority (but not all) of the time

While perhaps meaningful, I don't think the male Presidents stat makes for a good example here. There are many factors that go into candidacy, and it's not the same as John Q. Public's decision while casting the final ballot.

Is there good evidence that personal identity drives outcomes more than party/policy identity? I tried to look into it tonight and didn't find anything worthwhile. So, I pulled some data to look at (It's exit poll data from Pew, The Roper Center (Cornell), and US Elections Project. They don't state standard errors, but it appears good exit polls have a standard error of +/- 2 to 3%. However, that error is increased when looking at subpopulations rather than at all voters).

I thnk there are two notable historical events that would have tested a "The public votes by personal identity rather than policy" theory: The 2016 election with a male and a female candidate and the 2008 election with a black and a white candidate.

Conclusion: I've presented the data in graphs below so the reader can draw his/her own conclusions. To me, party/policy identity seems to far outweigh any effect of gender or race identity in this data set. Voters continued to vote along historical party trends. The only possible personal identity drive was found in 2008 in black voters, and it was dwarfed by the effect of party identity. In the climate of super-tight Presidential elections, is it worth it to play the identity check box game to squeeze out a few more votes? It might depends on whether or not that strategy risks the strength of the party's policy identity.
I suspect that parties should be promoting the candidate who genuinely best represents the party policies rather than chasing after check boxes and fabricating the policies onto that candidate.

================================================== ==================
2016
If personal identity was a chief factor in 2016, one would expect the Democratic candidate the get a surge of female votes and dip in male votes. But, there is no surge in female votes and, while male votes went down 4% from 2012, the percentage is in line with historical male votes for the Democratic party
iWMD.jpg

On the reverse side, one would expect the Republican candidate to get a dip in female votes and a surge in male votes. Yet, neither is outside the error or out of step with historical trends.
iWMR.jpg

2008
If personal identity was a chief factor in 2008, one would expect the Democratic candidate to get a surge of black American votes and a dip in white votes (Note: the y-axis is not the same in the two 2008 graphs). While white votes show no change, black votes do increase to an all-time high. However, I don't know whether or not the data point is signficant. Also noteworthy is that there may be a ceiling effect in play, but one could argue that this still indicates that the party identity has a much greater impact than the personal identity.
iBWD.jpg

And, one would expect the Republican candidate to get a dip in black American votes and a surge in white votes. The black votes do decrease to an all-time low, though I again don't have enough info to know if it is significant. And, predictably, we appear to have a floor effect...once again emphasizing that the power of the party identity limits any possible effect from personal identity. Again the white votes show no significant change.
iBWR.jpg

[bedeviled]

In case you're wondering if personal identity had an effect on voter turnout in 2016 and 2008, here's the data I could find (I'm not convinced it did):
iELGWM.jpg
iELGBW.jpg

[esl]

I think identity politics plays a much greater role than it is being given credit for. I had many friends who voted for Obama in 2008 and Hillary in 2016 based solely on the fact that “It was time America had a” _____ president. In the case of Obama these friends were mainly white and in the case of Hillary this was equal numbers of males and females. I wish issues and policy mattered more than identity, personality and sound bites to the voters.

[OldPhiKap]

Those of you on the Brexit thread know that I have become a big fan of TLDR for their dispassionate discussion of fairly contentious issues. The guy behind it has now launched a US edition, with his first video being “why Trump May win re-election.” (His next one will be the counter-argument). I post this because folks have asked about Trump’s path to potential reelection, and also because to my mind it is a great example of the discourse this thread should (and almost always) hits:



I will post the counter-argument when it is up.

[Reilly]

... If personal identity was a chief factor in 2008, one would expect the Democratic candidate to get a surge of black American votes and a dip in white votes ...

Only if one expects that white voters dislike black candidates. I don't think that. I know white voters who were encouraged to vote for Obama in 2008 in part because he was black. Whether that was "a chief factor" I do not know and suspect not. Whether that was "a" factor -- it was. And that did not lend to a dip, however, but an increase. And to me there is nothing irrational or pernicious about casting a vote for a candidate based on what the candidate might symbolize in terms of black people or women gaining power in our society. Symbolism (and policy positions, and temperament, and leadership ability, and yada yada ...) all may go into the mix and that they do is not disappointing to me, and I do not view the voters as irrational or uninformed.

[bundabergdevil]

I think identity politics plays a much greater role than it is being given credit for. I had many friends who voted for Obama in 2008 and Hillary in 2016 based solely on the fact that “It was time America had a” _____ president. In the case of Obama these friends were mainly white and in the case of Hillary this was equal numbers of males and females. I wish issues and policy mattered more than identity, personality and sound bites to the voters.

I do too but I don’t think it’s necessarily demographic, more ideological (though why a particular demographic favors a particular party can be debated...just not in this thread). A very small percentage of voters actually cross party lines to vote. I’d need to do some google research but I think 75-80% of voters stay in party and that party identification is the or one of the most prominent predictors for how we vote. So, once we form our core beliefs and decide which party best represents them (right or wrong) that’s who we stick with.

Argument for more party diversity than anything.

[dudog84]

Only if one expects that white voters dislike black candidates. I don't think that. I know white voters who were encouraged to vote for Obama in 2008 in part because he was black. Whether that was "a chief factor" I do not know and suspect not. Whether that was "a" factor -- it was. And that did not lend to a dip, however, but an increase. And to me there is nothing irrational or pernicious about casting a vote for a candidate based on what the candidate might symbolize in terms of black people or women gaining power in our society. Symbolism (and policy positions, and temperament, and leadership ability, and yada yada ...) all may go into the mix and that they do is not disappointing to me, and I do not view the voters as irrational or uninformed.

To me, these are two VERY different things (I don't think you said they are the same). I do not think voters are irrational. I do think they are very uninformed.

[Reilly]

And identity politics can take all sorts of forms (and again, is not necessarily irrational or pernicious). I think there is too much wealth concentration and do not like the money manager set, so even though I'm a Republican generally, I'm not voting Romney for what he represents and whose interests I think he may have at heart (without studying his actual positions) ... or ... I'm all for helping the little guy and at the same time I have traditional moral views on matters of sexuality, so I'm not going to vote for Mayor Pete because I think that even the presence of a homosexual in the White House will loosen even more what I see as our 50-year-long cultural decline re: proper sex relations (my view being sex is only to be had inside of male/female marrriages) ... or ... (same voter) I'm not voting for thrice-married Trump and his reported affairs as I don't like the moral tone that sets for the country.

Those views are not issue-based but more based on identity. Same with voting for Obama in part because he's black or Hillary b/c she's a woman. Nothing explicit to do with policy positions. I think it's a non-controversial proposition that voters engage in that sort of 'analysis' in choosing, and I do not believe it's terribly problematic.

[sagegrouse]

I do too but I don’t think it’s necessarily demographic, more ideological (though why a particular demographic favors a particular party can be debated...just not in this thread). A very small percentage of voters actually cross party lines to vote. I’d need to do some google research but I think 75-80% of voters stay in party and that party identification is the or one of the most prominent predictors for how we vote. So, once we form our core beliefs and decide which party best represents them (right or wrong) that’s who we stick with.

Argument for more party diversity than anything.

Be careful how the question is asked because description by a voter of party affiliation can change with election (or the issue) at hand. Long-time Repubs who do not support Trump may describe themselves as "independents." And so forth and so on. This would overstate party loyalty. This means that your denominator could be a slippery foundation for a statistic on party loyalty.

[bedeviled]

Only if one expects that white voters dislike black candidates. I don't think that. I know white voters who were encouraged to vote for Obama in 2008 in part because he was black. Whether that was "a chief factor" I do not know and suspect not. Whether that was "a" factor -- it was. And that did not lend to a dip, however, but an increase

A fair criticism of my analysis, indeed. However, the data indicates there was neither a dip nor an increase from historical white votes for a Democratic candidate. Thus, the conclusion still holds that racial identity didn't, ultimately, have a notable impact in that vote. This supports my view that party/policy identity is far more important for the candidate than personal identity. Whether tick-box voting didn't happen or, as you allude to, there was a wash because essentially equal numbers voters supported and opposed the tick box doesn't matter.

And to me there is nothing irrational or pernicious about casting a vote for a candidate based on what the candidate might symbolize in terms of black people or women gaining power in our society

Since you mentioned it a number of times, let me assure you that I fully agree with you that voting based on immutable identity (race, gender, age, sexuality) is neither irrational nor pernicious. It's human nature and does happen. I also agree that it isn't "terribly problematic," though I think it is not problematic because, thus far anyway, I suspect it has not had significant impact in the Presidential election (It would be interesting to see a study on impacts of VP selection).

However, I also agree with the posters who view it as an uninformed approach and who hope voters are focused on policy. As you noted, voting based on general identity is a "guess" and "assumption," "based on external factors," about what issues the candidate is sensitive to. It is natural, psychologically, to have assumptions and stereotypes and even to like people that are similar to oneself - these human traits allow us better mental organization and efficiency. But, with months to choose between two (or three) actual and specific people who explicitly state their platform/philosophy, making assumptions is not the best available approach.

Of course, not everyone has had cosmopolitan experiences like, for instance, we had a Duke. But, I think the age of the internet and reality tv is discouraging the public from holding assumptions and stereotypes of whole groups of people. As society further acknowledges the varieties of experiences within groups, the impact of identity check boxes will be even less (I hope).

[Wander]

Those views are not issue-based but more based on identity. Same with voting for Obama in part because he's black or Hillary b/c she's a woman. Nothing explicit to do with policy positions. I think it's a non-controversial proposition that voters engage in that sort of 'analysis' in choosing, and I do not believe it's terribly problematic.

I agree with everything you say here, but my issue is that people ALWAYS give examples in these discussions about identity politics about people going in the direction of voting for women or black candidates because they're women or black. While I don't deny that does happen, the majority of the time it's in the opposite direction.

Which is why things happen like Trump tweeting this morning that the Democratic congresswomen should "go back to their original countries". Because he thinks it will get him votes.

[bundabergdevil]

Be careful how the question is asked because description by a voter of party affiliation can change with election (or the issue) at hand. Long-time Repubs who do not support Trump may describe themselves as "independents." And so forth and so on. This would overstate party loyalty. This means that your denominator could be a slippery foundation for a statistic on party loyalty.

Fair enough. My general point remains though. Those discussing voting preference based on candidate identity are likely overstating its influence, IMO. Or, oversimplifying the context that has led to a particular group's affiliation with a party. African Americans, for example, have been voting for Democratic presidential candidates at a 80%+ clip for decades and certainly long before Obama's nomination (though they did turn out for him at a 93% clip). This - I'd argue - is due to these groups' perceptions that one of the parties is a better vehicle for their beliefs and policy ideals than the other. Though we shouldn't delve into that for PBB reasons, methinks.

Let's say Herman Cain had been the first major black presidential candidate or Sarah Palin the first major female presidential candidate --- I think you'd see some defections from Dem to Rep based purely on identity but my belief is that African Americans and college-educated women would still vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic candidate in these scenarios, even if the candidate was a white male.

For those interested, Cornell's Roper Center keeps a repository of demographic voting data going back a ways. It's worth a scroll through.

[Reilly]

... examples in these discussions about identity politics about people going in the direction of voting for women or black candidates because they're women or black. While I don't deny that does happen, the majority of the time it's in the opposite direction ...

My point is a modest one, I think: voters of all stripes -- in picking candidates of all flavors -- consider all sorts of factors that could be labeled 'identity politics' and that do not involve considering the candidates' stances on policy issues.

You seem to be saying that when voters are motivated in part by these non-policy reasons, the majority of the time, that behavior is based on some sort of animus towards women or blacks. I have no information to prove or disprove your position (provided I've even characterized it correctly).

[Nick]

New general election polls out today from NBC News / WSJ:
Biden 51, Trump 42
Sanders 50, Trump 43
Warren 48, Trump 43
Harris 45, Trump 44