Big city warning signs for Democrats
Don't discount big shifts, Black and Arab voters in Michigan, 128 paths, pollster house effects, the education divide in civil society, how names predict partisanship, obesity on the decline
No. 333 | October 4th, 2024
🇺🇲 2024
It continues to be a remarkably stable race, with no change in the average of the averages from last week. Harris is sitting near a high in the Silver Bulletin polling average, while the New York Times average narrowed
Silver Bulletin: Harris +3.4 (H+0.4)
538: Harris +2.5 (T+0.2)
NYT Upshot: Harris +2 (T+1)
The Hill/DDHQ: Harris +3.4 (T+0.6)
RCP: Harris +2.2 (H+0.2)
Cook Political: Harris +2.5 (H+0.1)
VoteHub: Harris +3.4 (H+0.7)
RacetotheWH: Harris +3.5 (NC)
Average of the Averages: Harris +2.9 (NC)
The Philly Inquirer is back with one of their precinct deep-dives (that I’m obviously a huge fan of). They dig into voting trends in the city of Philadelphia, and find losing ground with working class voters.
Turnout will be a huge factor in cities this November, particularly if turnout drops from 2020’s record high. The hit will mostly be among low-propensity voters, concentrated in big cities, where Democrats count on hitting specific raw vote goals. Here, it’s not the margin that matters so much as the number of votes cast.
Nate Cohn issues a reminder that even in a polarized environment, with every battleground state polling within 1 or 2 points or its 2020 margins, that big swings in specific demographics or regions are still possible. And that’s because not everyone is an Internet-addled partisan sicko whose vote was locked in practically from birth.
Nonetheless, the big shifts keep happening.
How are these shifts still possible in such a polarized country? The most important reason: Many voters don’t have ideologically consistent views on the issues.
You, dear reader, may have coherent and consistent left-right views across the board, but many voters don’t. There are a lot of people who support Obamacare and want mass deportations, or who want lower taxes and abortion rights. Lots of voters don’t have strongly held views on many policy issues at all.
The second reason is that the issues change a lot from cycle to cycle. If you’re an ideologically consistent partisan, you might think our elections present more or less the same choice every four years. To the extent anything ever changes, those developments may have even reinforced your political allegiances.
FiveThirtyEight looks at the potential for another such transformative swing, among Black and Arab voters in Michigan.
And they also remind us why Pennsylvania is the most likely tipping point in the 2024 election.
Silver Bulletin has 128 possible combinations of how the swing states could go. And the most likely outcome is not the one everyone is thinking, the one where states end up where they’re polling now (for a Harris 272-262 win). Most likely scenario #1 and #2 are either candidate sweeping all of the states—because if we see a polling error, it’ll likely go all in one direction.
They’ve also got a handy guide to which pollsters have tended to systematically generate results favoring one candidate over the other.
It’s not all presidential politics. The Crystal Ball has a roundup of ballot issues to watch.
🗣️ Public Opinion
The education divide isn’t just in voting, but in civil society.
📰 Data Journalism
How well does your name line up with political affiliation?
👫 Demographics
Our friends at Economic Innovation Group powered a WSJ feature on growing dependence on government transfers.
The Ozempic Effect: U.S. obesity rates fell this past year.
🔬 Academia
Unfollowing hyperpartisan influencers on X leads to higher quality news and better mental health overall.
The so called education divide is driven by far right extremist groups like Americans for "Prosperity" whose societal goals are to cut public funded education...