Is Trump falling short of expectations?
What "uncommitted" means for 2024, NY Dems go mild not wild, a history of ticket-splitting, polling on Ozempic, the MENA Census category
No. 305 | March 1, 2024
🗳️ Elections
Nate Cohn: Three Theories for Why Trump’s Primary Results Are Not Matching Expectations (The New York Times)
“It’s still early in the primary season, but a whiff of a possible polling error is already in the air.
That’s because Donald J. Trump has underperformed the polls in each of the first three contests.
In Iowa, the final 538 polling average showed Mr. Trump leading Nikki Haley by 34 points with a 53 percent share. He ultimately beat her by 32 points with 51 percent. (Ron DeSantis took second.)
In New Hampshire, he led by 18 points with 54 percent. In the end, he won by 11 points with 54 percent.”
Nate Cohn: What Does the Uncommitted Vote in Michigan Mean for 2024? (The New York Times)
“In Tuesday night’s results in Michigan, around one in eight Democrats voted “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary — a protest of the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel and the war in Gaza.
In some predominantly Arab American precincts in Dearborn, around three in four Democrats cast a protest vote for uncommitted.
Having one in eight Democrats vote uncommitted in an uncontested primary is not wholly unusual. As recently as the last time a Democratic president sought re-election, in 2012, 11 percent of Michigan Democratic caucusgoers voted for “uncommitted” instead of for Barack Obama.”
David Wasserman: House Rating Changes: Democrats Go Mild, Not Wild, With New York Map Makeover (The Cook Political Report 🔒)
“Forget the notion that New York Democrats would pull off a brazen power play to retaliate against the GOP's no-holds-barred gerrymander of North Carolina. On Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law a new congressional map that makes only modest alterations to the bipartisan compromise hatched by the state's Independent Redistricting Commission — a far cry from the ambitious 22D-4R Democratic gerrymander New York's top court struck down in 2022.
After Democrats spent millions suing to kickstart the redistricting process over again for 2024, many on the left are wondering, ‘All this trouble for that?’ After all, party strategists are counting on a windfall of pickups in the Empire State to help Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries become speaker, but the new map makes just one GOP-held seat marginally bluer compared to the current court-drawn plan: the Syracuse seat held by Rep. Brandon Williams (NY-22).”
J. Miles Coleman: The Postwar History of Senate/Presidential Ticket-Splitting, Part One (Sabato’s Crystal Ball)
“In the post-World War II era, there have been nearly 200 instances of states voting for one party for president and another for Senate in presidential election years.
This type of ticket splitting has generally been to the benefit of Democrats, who have been out of the White House for a slight majority of that timespan.
The split-ticket trend has been declining, but Democrats will want to reverse that to some degree this year.”
J. Miles Coleman: The Postwar History of Senate/Presidential Ticket-Splitting, Part Two (Sabato’s Crystal Ball)
“This is the second part of our history of presidential-Senate split-ticket results, from World War II to now. This part covers the mid-1980s to present, a timeframe that started with many instances of split results and ended with hardly any at all.
In 1984 and 1988, amidst large GOP victories at the presidential level, more than a dozen Republican-won states sent Democrats to the Senate both years.
The 1990s, when Democrats were successful at the presidential level, split-ticket voting tended to benefit Republicans in the Senate, making the decade an exception in the postwar era.”
📊 Public Opinion
Americans’ Top Policy Priority for 2024: Strengthening the Economy (Pew Research Center)
“As President Joe Biden prepares to deliver his third State of the Union address on March 7, Americans view strengthening the economy as the top policy priority for Biden and Congress to address this year.
The public’s to-do list is little changed from the past two years, though it differs greatly from 2021, when dealing with the coronavirus ranked nearly as high as strengthening the economy on the policy agenda.”
Alec Tyson and Emma Kikuchi: How Americans View Weight-Loss Drugs and Their Potential Impact on Obesity in the U.S. (Pew Research Center)
“A new Pew Research Center survey examines Americans’ attitudes about a new class of drugs being used for weight loss, including Ozempic and Wegovy.
In this report, we cover views of:
The use of weight-loss drugs
The impact of weight-loss drugs on obesity in America
The factors that impact a person’s weight, including the role of willpower”
🌎 Global
“The health of democracy has declined significantly in many nations over the past several years, but the concept of representative democracy continues to be popular among citizens across the globe.
Solid majorities in each of the 24 countries surveyed by Pew Research Center in 2023 describe representative democracy, or a democratic system where representatives elected by citizens decide what becomes law, as a somewhat or very good way to govern their country.
However, enthusiasm for this form of government has slipped in many nations since 2017. And the survey highlights significant criticisms of the way it’s working. Across the countries included in the study…”
@Valen10Francois: Population density in Europe. Spain is shockingly empty (Twitter)
👫 Demographics
Karen Zraick, Allison McCann, Sarah Almukhtar, Yuliya Parshina-Kottas, and Robert Gebeloff: No Box to Check: When the Census Doesn’t Reflect You (The New York Times)
“Egyptian, Iranian, Lebanese, Amazigh, Arab, American.
These are just a handful of ways that thousands of people who responded to a New York Times callout described themselves. The answers were as diverse as the group of individuals behind them. People with roots in the Middle East and North Africa, often abbreviated as MENA, represent a multitude of cultures, religions and languages. And they all have different viewpoints about how they fit into the American mosaic.
Accounting for MENA identity in the United States has become particularly relevant this year. The 2024 presidential election could hinge on a handful of swing states like Michigan, where Arab American voters turned out decisively for President Biden in 2020. But Mr. Biden has faced mounting frustration from Arab Americans and others within his party for his support for Israel in the war in Gaza.”