Special election voters are different

Biden's opening, immigration matters more, views of institutions, anxious teens, defending internal polls, the secret of Trump's fundraising, top podcasts, Google's Gemini model

No. 302 | February 9, 2024

🗳️ Elections

Nate Cohn: Turnout Data Reveals the Core of Democrats’ Success in Special Elections (The New York Times)

“Over the last year, two different sets of data have yielded two very different theories of where Democrats stand heading into 2024.

On one hand, there’s polling. Survey after survey shows President Biden even or trailing against Donald J. Trump. Voters, especially young and nonwhite voters, appear extremely dissatisfied with the president. No matter how good the economy looks to economists, most voters still say it’s bad.

On the other hand, there’s election results. Almost every time polls bring Democrats down, there’s a special election result to bring them back up. Special elections occur outside regular election cycles to fill a vacated seat, and overall Democrats have outperformed Mr. Biden’s 2020 results by four percentage points in these elections since the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, according to data compiled by Daily Kos…