How MAHA micro-influencers changed the election
New 2030 reapportionment outlook, the Trump fertility bump, worrying overdose trends, class-based party perceptions on the decline, fewer bills but more pages of legislation, 1-800-CHATGPT
No. 342 | December 20, 2024
🇺🇲 2024
Via Ryan Davis, a look at how RFK Jr.’s supporters and MAHA micro-influencers drove the message home to women voters.
Kamala Harris struggled to gain support from prominent athletes this election season, while Trump was featured prominently on non-political podcasts:
The campaign’s failure to completely crack the sports sphere was, to Flaherty, ominous, and part of a larger trend in which some influencers who had felt comfortable engaging with the Biden White House, demurred when asked to help Harris make her case to their followers. “When it’s not cool to talk about politics,” he said, “you’re kind of afraid of the audience.”
👫 Demographics
New Census population estimates for 2030 show a lessening of reapportionment losses for Blue States, but this would still close off the Democrats’ Rust Belt-only path that this year would have netted 270 electoral votes.
Trump Bump: Redder parts of the country are expected to gain population as fertility rates are higher. In 2024, the relationship between higher fertility and Republican voting grew stronger.
A bracing longitudinal look at how the fentanyl crisis has hit an older generation of Black men who first struggled with addiction when they were younger.
Generational shifts are now showing adults hitting traditional milestones later in life.
📊 Public Opinion
Traditional class-based perceptions of the parties have not completely gone away, but they’re much more muted than they were a generation age.
Americans are by and large satisfied with their health insurance.
🗺️ Data Visualization
Clear north-south divide on when homes were built
In a surprise to no one, Congress is passing fewer individual bills but more pages of legislation, as everything gets jammed into must-pass omnibus bills.
🤖 Artificial Intelligence
It’s back to the future for ChatGPT, taking a page from Jerry Brown’s 1992 Democratic primary campaign.
Google’s NotebookLM releases a new interactive mode so users can join the conversation in audio.
By the way, I’m really noticing AI tools getting more and more useful, particularly NotebookLM and ChatGPT’s Canvas tool, a spin on Google Docs.