Misleading youth vote indicators
538 launches its 2024 polling average, half of voters would replace Biden and Trump, Americans support mass deportation, how pollsters are fighting fraud, the NFL draft trading floor
No. 312 | April 26, 2024
Nate Silver: Don't Confuse Attention-Seeking Activists for "The Youth Vote" (Silver Bulletin)
“What explains Democrats’ way-above-average performance in the 2022 midterms? The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade? Republicans nominating the worst imaginable candidates in nearly every competitive Senate race? Democrats benefiting from a college-educated base that turns out reliably in midterms and other non-presidential elections? Yes, yes and yes.
A tsunami of young voters going to the polls? No. In fact, that’s complete bullshit. This story from Business Insider, and others like it, are fake news. The premise that young voters flocked to the polls is a lie.
According to the Edison Research exit polls that most networks use, the percentage of voters aged 18-29 declined from 13 percent in 2018 to 12 percent in 2022. And Democrats’ share of the youth vote fell too, from 67 percent in 2018 to 63 percent in 2022.
Catalist estimates also had the youth vote declining, from 12 percent to 10 percent as a portion of the electorate — although they differ from the exit polls in having Democrats’ share of the 18-29 vote rising (from 62 percent to 65 percent).”
📊 2024: The Polls
G. Elliott Morris: Trump Leads in Swing State Polls and is Tied with Biden Nationally (538)
“It's the moment you've all been waiting for: Today, 538 launched our interactive polling averages for the 2024 presidential general election. They show incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump essentially tied in national polls and Trump with a tenuous lead in key swing states.
Specifically, as of April 25 at 9 a.m. Eastern, our national polling average shows 40.9 percent of likely voters would support Biden if the election were held today, while 41.6 percent would support Trump.
But there's considerable uncertainty in those numbers. To communicate this, we are also publishing uncertainty intervals for our horse-race averages for the first time. These intervals — represented by the red and blue shaded areas around each line — are kind of like the range of possible precipitation reported in a weather forecast, showing you could get anywhere from, say, 1 to 3 inches of rain in an upcoming storm.”
In Tight Presidential Race, Voters are Broadly Critical of Both Biden and Trump (Pew Research Center)
“As the 2024 presidential race heats up, American voters face a similar set of choices as they did four years ago – and many are not happy about it.
With the election still more than six months away, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that the presidential race is virtually tied: 49% of registered voters favor Donald Trump or lean toward voting for him, while 48% support or lean toward Joe Biden.
A defining characteristic of the contest is that voters overall have little confidence in either candidate across a range of key traits, including fitness for office, personal ethics and respect for democratic values.
Where Trump has the advantage: More than a third of voters say they are extremely or very confident that Trump has the physical fitness (36%) and mental fitness (38%) needed to do the job of president.”
Margaret Talev and Russell Contreras: Exclusive Poll: America Warms to Mass Deportations (Axios)
“Half of Americans — including 42% of Democrats — say they'd support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, according to a new Axios Vibes survey by The Harris Poll.
And 30% of Democrats — as well as 46% of Republicans — now say they'd end birthright citizenship, something guaranteed under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Why it matters: Americans are open to former President Trump's harshest immigration plans, spurred on by a record surge of illegal border crossings and a relentless messaging war waged by Republicans.”
🔴 2024: The Republicans
🗣️ Public Opinion
Kaleigh Rodgers: How pollsters are (and aren't) Fighting Fraud (538)
“Recent headlines about China deploying fake social media accounts to try to mislead voters ahead of the 2024 election caught the eye of one of our readers. ‘[I] started thinking about how, if you set up enough false accounts, the Chinese or the Russians [...] could conceivably manipulate seemingly legitimate poll results,’ Rebecca McPheters wrote in an email to 538. It was an intriguing hypothetical, but we don’t have to imagine the worst-case scenarios to identify threats to polling — there are very real threats already well documented.
As it has become increasingly difficult to get respondents to pick up the phone and take a survey, more and more pollsters have been relying on other methods, such as text-to-web and online opt-in surveys, to gather data. But these approaches come with their own challenges and risks, including the possibility of fraudulent responses from click farms, professional poll-takers or nefarious meddlers. There are lots of safeguards pollsters can use to mitigate these threats, but as fraudsters get more savvy and tools like generative artificial intelligence become increasingly accessible, are they enough to keep polls accurate and secure?”
Jacob Poushter and Laura Clancy: What are Americans' Top Foreign Policy Priorities? (Pew Research Center)
“Americans have a lot on their plates in 2024, including an important election to determine who will remain or become again president. But the world does not stop for a U.S. election, and multiple conflicts around the world as well as other issues of global prominence continue to concern Americans.
When asked to prioritize the long-range foreign policy goals of the United States, the majority of Americans say preventing terrorist attacks (73%), keeping illegal drugs out of the country (64%) and preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction (63%) are top priorities. Over half of Americans also see maintaining the U.S. military advantage over other countries (53%) and preventing the spread of infectious diseases (52%) as primary foreign policy responsibilities.
About half of Americans say limiting the power and influence of Russia and China are top priorities. A recent annual threat assessment from the U.S. intelligence community focused heavily on those countries’ strengthening military relationship and their ability to shape the global narrative against U.S. interests.”
🔬 Academia
🗺️ Data Visualization
Catie Edmondson, Martin Gonzalez Gomez, Kayla Guo, Robert Jimison, Albert Sun, and Karen Yourish: How the House Voted on Foreign Aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan (The New York Times)
“The House passed a long-stalled foreign aid package on Saturday that gives funding to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, with a majority of lawmakers backing money for American allies across the globe. The package, which now goes to the Senate, is almost certain to become law.
The Senate passed similar legislation in February. But in the face of distinct bases of opposition to different elements of the legislation, which threatened to tank the package as a whole, Speaker Mike Johnson advanced the foreign aid using a convoluted strategy: It split the package into three parts, each of which received its own vote, added a fourth bill with Republican priorities as a sweetener and melded it all together again once everything passed.
The plan, laid out in a rule that passed on Friday, was concocted to capitalize on the pools of support for each part of the $95 billion package, while preventing opposition to any one piece from taking down all of them.”
🏈 Sports
Ben Blatt: How the N.F.L Draft Became a Trading Floor (The New York Times)
“On Thursday night, the Chicago Bears will make the first of many picks in the N.F.L. draft that have something in common: They originally belonged to someone else.
The Bears’ pick — expected to be U.S.C. quarterback Caleb Williams — was acquired last year as part of a blockbuster deal in which Chicago also got receiver D.J. Moore and three other draft picks.
That trade is part of an increasing draft-night trend in the pursuit of ‘draft capital.’ As teams become much more sophisticated in their understanding of how much a draft pick is worth, particularly in later rounds, draft picks have become increasingly common as deal-sweeteners, or to round out intricate trade packages.”
