CNN: "Democrats the Party of the People no more"
The bearish Dem midterm case, a new report on Pennsylvania Realignment, the nonvoter debate rekindles, the Driftless drifts Democratic, Crystal Ball House ratings, life satisfaction plummets
No. 357 | April 10th, 2025
👀 What a clip from Harry Enten on CNN this morning: The GOP gains as the Party of the People. No book love, but nevertheless…
But won’t Democrats come back, as they’re expected to do in midterms? Maybe not:
In April 2017, Democrats already had a 7-point lead on the generic ballot. That’s the margin they ended up winning by. Today, the generic ballot is D+1.
Even after the trade war, the parties are EVEN on the question of caring about people like you. Democrats have ALWAYS led on this question.
Thanks to Rick Farmer at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs for the book review.
Ruffini makes a convincing case that an enduring center-right populist coalition is possible. The historical trends of the early to mid-1900s show that as newly arrived ethnic groups become more integrated into American society, they move away from identity politics and toward policy-oriented voting. Recent trends since the early 2000s show Hispanic citizens who are registered to vote following this same pattern. Working-class black voters have been slower to abandon identity politics, but the trend is starting to emerge there as well.
This historical phenomenon is creating an opportunity for political candidates to appeal to a new group of swing voters in key states and districts. Donald Trump understands how to appeal to these voters. On the other hand, Democrats are pressing policies that drive them away.
I thought my swing state postmortems were chock full of detail, but Albert Eisenberg at Blue State Red may have me beat on that front. Check out his excellent report on the Realignment in Pennsylvania.
A contrarian take on whether non-voters leaned right in 2024.
Not so fast, says Rob Griffin, who points to AP VoteCast data showing non-voters swinging a net of 16 points right from 2020 and choosing Trump.
🇺🇲 2025
Hadn’t previously caught any swing maps in the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court race but the Driftless area continues to be prime ticket-splitting territory.
🇺🇲 2026
Crystal Ball released their initial House ratings.
📊 Public Opinion
Bruce Mehlman points to an FT chart showing slippage for Trump among his non-MAGA 2024 voters. The steep drop on inflation is precisely what I warned about this week in my piece on the tensions within populism.
What Americans think about tariffs against China.
New Gallup polling shows Americans’ life ratings are decreasing to pandemic levels.
Gallup had young women getting a lot less Democratic under Biden, in a reversal of the narrative that this was mostly about young men.
💻 Artificial Intelligence
Average Americans are the AI doomers, not the AI experts.
🔬 Academia
You can look up the political leanings of employees of pretty much any large organization using the VRscores dataset. Here is the tool in action.
🗺️ Data Visualization
Market performance in Trump 2.0 vs. the early days of previous presidencies.
