The fate of 538, views of abortion by geography
Discover more from The Intersection
The fate of 538, views of abortion by geography
Plus: Teens and social media, why Biden might lose, the libertarian vote, and AI-assisted warfare
No. 264 | April 28th, 2023
📰 Data Journalism
📊 Public Opinion
Nearly a Year After Roe’s Demise, Americans’ Views of Abortion Access Increasingly Vary by Where They Live (Pew Research Center)
Today, a 54% majority of Americans nationwide say it would be very easy or somewhat easy to get an abortion in the area where they live, down from 65% in 2019. About four-in-ten (42%) say it would be very or somewhat difficult to get an abortion in areas near them, up 10 percentage points from four years ago. The most striking change has occurred among people living in states where abortion is now prohibited: About seven-in-ten (71%) say it would be difficult to get an abortion, up from the half who said this in 2019.
Teens and social media: Key findings (Pew Research Center)
Today’s teens are navigating a digital landscape unlike the one experienced by their predecessors, particularly when it comes to the pervasive presence of social media. In 2022, Pew Research Center fielded an in-depth survey asking American teens – and their parents – about their experiences with and views toward social media. Here are key findings from the survey:
TikTok use is more common among Black teens and among teen girls — For example, roughly eight-in-ten Black teens (81%) say they use TikTok, compared with 71% of Hispanic teens and 62% of White teens. And Hispanic teens (29%) are more likely than Black (19%) or White teens (10%) to report using WhatsApp. (There were not enough Asian teens in the sample to analyze separately.) Teens’ use of certain social media platforms also varies by gender. Teen girls are more likely than teen boys to report using TikTok (73% vs. 60%), Instagram (69% vs. 55%) and Snapchat (64% vs. 54%). Boys are more likely than girls to report using YouTube (97% vs. 92%), Twitch (26% vs. 13%) and Reddit (20% vs. 8%).
👫Demographics
Andrew Wong: Where are America's college students from? I made a map.
🗳️ Elections
Ruy Teixera: Five Reasons Why Biden Might Lose in 2024 (The Liberal Patriot)
In 2020, Trump carried the overall working class vote by 4 points. In 2022, Republicans carried the nationwide House vote by 13 points. If Trump replicated that 2022 margin in 2024, he would be very hard to beat. Absent a countervailing Democratic improvement in the college vote—which the Democrats already carried by 18 points in 2020—Trump would likely carry Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, and even Pennsylvania and Michigan. A counter trend among the smaller college-educated group could still cancel these effects out but to completely do so it would have to be larger than the working-class shift, spiking Biden’s advantage among the college-educated to over 30 points. Possible, but a very heavy lift. Since Trump is regularly showing double digit advantages among working-class voters in trial heats and has a proven track record in attracting working-class support, the challenge for Biden’s campaign seems clear. They must at all costs prevent the kind of working-class slippage that could put Trump once again in the Oval Office.
Hillary Clinton did not take this threat seriously and she (and the country) paid the price. The Biden campaign should consider whether their strategy could be making the same mistake.
David Leonhardt: As Biden starts his campaign, we ask why he doesn’t spend more time in the public eye (The New York Times)
The biggest reason that many Democratic officials are nervous about President Biden’s age is not his ability to do the job in a second term — The issue that makes many Democrats even more anxious than Biden’s second-term capabilities is whether his age will prevent him from winning a second term. If enough voters are turned off by the idea of a president who would turn 86 in office, Republicans might win full control of the federal government in 2024 — and Donald Trump might return to the White House.
I know that it may seem crass for Democrats to worry more about partisan politics than the mental acuity of the country’s most powerful person. But it’s not entirely irrational. Today, I will look at the biggest question about Biden’s re-election campaign — which he formally announced yesterday — and how he might address that question.
Ian Prasad Philbrick: How Much Do Voters Really Care About Biden’s Age? (The New York Times)
In a recent USA Today/Suffolk University survey, half of Americans said that the ideal age for a president was between 51 and 65. Another quarter said they preferred candidates to be 50 or younger. But five of the last eight presidential nominees, including Mr. Biden in 2020 and Donald J. Trump (twice), have been well over 65. In several cases, voters chose them over much younger primary opponents. And dozens of senators or representatives over 80 have been elected in the past century.
Concerns over age are also more nuanced than they may first appear. While most voters favor age limits for politicians, they disagree over what that limit should be. Many voters also say older lawmakers bring valuable experience and shouldn’t be barred from serving if they remain in good health.
Alex Samuels: Biden Is Running For Reelection. What Are His Chances For 2024? (FiveThirtyEight)
Perhaps no measure better captures the good, the bad and the ugly of Biden’s presidency than his approval rating. Americans were relatively high on Biden when he was elected, but that didn’t last long. He came into office with a 53 percent approval rating and 36 percent disapproval rating, according to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, and it wasn’t hard to understand why: Americans were largely unhappy with former President Donald Trump. Just a few months after his inauguration, Biden signed into law the widely popular American Rescue Plan, a sweeping aid package that included help to states to help combat the coronavirus pandemic and $1,400 direct payments to certain Americans.
But goodwill is fragile in an increasingly polarized political environment, and Americans started to sour on Biden after only a few months. Starting in August 2021, his approval rating dropped precipitously and his disapproval rating rose sharply. It was a kind of presidential perfect storm: the delta variant of the coronavirus was surging, the economic fallout from the pandemic was starting to come into focus and the administration’s bungled response to withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan was making headlines.
Nate Cohn: An Early, Early Look at Biden’s 2024 Prospects (The New York Times 🔒)
At the very least, Mr. Biden seems to have his work cut out for him. His job approval and favorability ratings remain stuck in the low 40s. This makes him quite a bit weaker than in 2020, when polls showed that voters generally had a favorable view of him. Or put differently: While the 2020 election was decided by voters who liked Mr. Biden and didn’t like Mr. Trump, today it seems the 2024 election could be decided by voters who dislike both candidates.
Why is Mr. Biden faring so poorly? The causes of his weak ratings have been up for debate since they tanked in August 2021. The withdrawal from Afghanistan, the surging Delta variant of the coronavirus, a stalled legislative agenda and the beginnings of inflation were all seen as possible theories. Today, all of those explanations seem to be in retreat — the story line of support for Ukraine against Russia has supplanted Afghanistan; the trend line on inflation shows some promise; Covid deaths are at their lowest point in three years — but Mr. Biden remains unpopular.
Nathan Rakich: The Real Reason Presidential Candidates Form Exploratory Committees (FiveThirtyEight)
Earlier this month, Sen. Tim Scott put out a slick campaign-style video and announced that he was forming an “exploratory committee” for president. But does that mean he’s actually running? Exploratory committees are essentially a half-measure for the indecisive; they let would-be presidents do many of the things candidates do (raise money, hire a staff, conduct polls) without technically being one. Exploratory committees (also known as “testing-the-waters” committees) don’t have to report to the Federal Election Commission, but they do have to follow its rules. And the minute the non-candidate announces their intention to run or takes action to qualify for the ballot, they legally become a candidate and have to report all their financial activity from the exploratory phase.
Presidential hopefuls don’t have to form exploratory committees, but many of them do. And almost all of those who do eventually become official candidates. Since the modern primary era began in 1972, at least 89 people1 have announced an exploratory or testing-the-waters committee for president. Only six ended up not running, the most recent being then-Sen. Evan Bayh in the 2008 election — almost 20 years ago. So it would be a pretty big shock if Scott decides not to take the plunge this year.
Lakshya Jain and Harrison Lavelle: The Libertarian Effect (Split Ticket)
Self-identified independents were the most receptive to Libertarian candidates — analysis of Edison exits suggested that the party pulled 12% from this group in the average case. Among the two major parties, 5% of Republicans tended to vote for a Libertarian, while only 2% of Democrats voted for one, though we stress that this gap may be magnified by state-level variance and some massive candidate quality issues faced by Republicans in these races.
It may be worth examining what these findings indicate about the Libertarian Party’s overall coalition. Its voters are generally more conservative-leaning, but the degree to which this is true depends on the split of the independents. If we considered an electorate that was evenly split between the three groups and then used the statistics above to assume that 5% of Republicans and 2% of Democrats voted for the Libertarian, then the group would clock in at roughly R +40 overall among partisans. However, splitting independents (the largest Libertarian-voting bloc) straight down the middle would point towards an electorate closer to R+17.
🤖 Artificial Intelligence
Aatish Bhatia: Watch an A.I. Learn to Write by Reading Nothing but…… (New York Times)
The core of an A.I. program like ChatGPT is something called a large language model: an algorithm that mimics the form of written language.
While the inner workings of these algorithms are notoriously opaque, the basic idea behind them is surprisingly simple. They are trained by going through mountains of internet text, repeatedly guessing the next few letters and then grading themselves against the real thing.
To show you what this process looks like, we trained six tiny language models starting from scratch. We’ve picked one trained on the complete works of Jane Austen, but you can choose a different path by selecting an option below. (And you can change your mind later.)
@8teAPi: Palantir demo’ed a battlefield assistant calling in drones and quarterbacking a battle in Eastern Europe.
