Racial realignment mega-thread
Latinos at the center of the 2024 campaign, what polls got wrong in 2020, my Reason interview, there's time for Biden to catch up, David Shor's surprising finding on the unvaccinated
No. 307 | March 15, 2024
🗳️ Elections
Jennifer Medina and Ruth Igielnik: Latinos, Shifting Toward Trump, Land at the Center of the 2024 Campaign (The New York Times)
“Former President Donald J. Trump’s growing support among Latino voters is threatening to upend the coalition that has delivered victories to Democrats for more than a decade, putting the politically divided group at the center of a tug of war that could determine elections across the country.
Polls show that Mr. Trump’s standing with Latino voters has grown since his defeat in 2020, with some surveys finding him winning more than 40 percent of those voters — a level not seen for a Republican in two decades. That strength has Democrats playing defense to maintain the large majority of Latino voters whom they have relied on to win in recent years.
The shift underscores a stark reality of the 2024 election: Neither party can win with white voters alone.”
G. Elliott Morris: Trump is leading the polls, but there's plenty of time for Biden to catch up (538)
“If the 2024 general election were held tomorrow, President Joe Biden would probably lose to former President Donald Trump. That's because, by 538's averaging, Biden trails in every major swing state — not to mention in national polls, too. Things only get worse for him the closer you look: The incumbent president is currently viewed more unfavorably than his predecessor, for instance, and polls show few voters are giving Biden credit for an improving economy. They trust Trump more to handle several issues Americans rate as the most important to their vote, including immigration, jobs/the economy and foreign policy. Voters are likelier to say conditions were better under the previous president and that the current executive has made their lives worse.
That is a tough position for any politician to start their general election campaign in. But so far, the Biden campaign's strategy has been to publicly dismiss the polls rather than confront their bad numbers head-on. For instance, at the opening ceremony of a campaign field office in Manchester, New Hampshire, Biden disparaged polls as inaccurate and stuck using old-fashioned technology.”
Geoffrey Skelley: Many Haley voters won't back Trump. They weren't going to anyway (538)
“The Rolling Stones's ‘You Can't Always Get What You Want’ has long served as one of former President Donald Trump's favorite campaign theme songs. But having sewn up the Republican presidential nomination last week, it's possible Trump's campaign needs to start humming a different late '60s tune: The Beatles's "Come Together."
After all, much ink has been spilled over whether supporters of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley will back Trump in November. At first blush, there are certainly warning signs for Trump. For instance, Super Tuesday exit polls in California, North Carolina and Virginia found that between 80 percent and 95 percent of Haley primary voters in those states would be ‘dissatisfied’ if Trump won the nomination. And an early March survey by Emerson College found that 63 percent of Haley backers preferred President Joe Biden over Trump in a general election matchup, compared to 27 percent who preferred Trump.”
📊 Public Opinion
👫 Demographics
🗺️ Data Visualization
Aatish Bhatia and Emily Badger: Can You Create a Diverse College Class Without Affirmative Action? (The New York Times)
“Selective colleges and universities can no longer use race-based preferences in admissions to create a more diverse student body. But what if they gave a break instead to lower-income students? Or those from high-poverty schools? Or those who do relatively well academically despite challenges all around them?
To explore those questions — and how much racial diversity is possible without ‘race-conscious’ admissions — the Upshot worked with Sean Reardon, a professor at Stanford, and Demetra Kalogrides, a senior researcher there, to model four alternatives to affirmative action.”
📰 Media Habits
Monica Anderson, Michelle Faverio, and Eugenie Park: How Teens and Parents Approach Screen Time (Pew Research Center)
“Today’s teenagers are more digitally connected than ever. Most have access to smartphones and use social media, and nearly half say they are online almost constantly. But how are young people navigating this “always on” environment?
To better understand their experiences, we surveyed both teens and parents on a range of screen time-related topics. Our questions explored the emotions teens tie to their devices, the impact of smartphones on youth, and the challenges parents face when raising children in the digital age.”
I think that it is more accurate to say that a class realignment is replacing what many people thought was a racial realignment (and what Democrats were counting on to become the majority party of the next generation).
The movement of blacks and hispanics away from the Democrats is largely among those without a 4-year college degree. Meanwhile whites with a 4-year college degree are still moving towards the Democrats.