The geography of dissatisfaction

Declining swing districts, where RFK fits, partisan divides over Ukraine and NATO, look closely at the wordcloud, campaign logos and candidate favorability, teens and video games

No. 314 | May 10, 2024

🇺🇲 2024: The Parties

Austin Park: Demographics and Dissatisfaction  (VoteHub)

“President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump are their parties’ presumptive nominees for the 2024 presidential election. Despite both candidates’ high unpopularity, their intra-party opposition failed to substantially materialize: they will both receive the lion’s share of the national delegates at their conventions. However, the success of the opposition they face can provide some useful context in understanding the dynamics of the general election and the coalitions of both candidates.”

🗳️ 2024: The Battlegrounds

J. Miles Coleman: Districts of Change, Part Two: Looking Beyond the Straight-Party Districts  (The Center for Politics) 

“Last week, we took a look at some longer-term district-level trends—our analysis was made possible by Dave’s Redistricting App (DRA), a free program that recently released presidential precinct-level data for most states going back to the 2008 election. This week, we are going to dig a little deeper.

Of the 435 districts in the House, the vast majority of districts have voted straight party since 2008—this should not come as a huge surprise to our readers. All told, 379 districts started in 2008 by backing the nominee of either party and have not deviated since. Democrats, though, start off with a bit of a higher ‘floor’ than Republicans: 203 seats have voted straight Democratic over the four elections we’re considering while 176 have only backed Republicans.

While there are certainly several of these straight-party seats that are important in the overall fight for the House—some of them have stayed with one party by consistently narrow margins, for instance—the cross-party districts have also played an outsized role in determining the chamber’s majority.

If 379 districts have been continually partisan, that leaves 56 districts that have backed either party at least once. Map 1 highlights these districts (click on the map for a larger version).”

🟢 2024: Wildcards

Nate Cohn: Just What Kind of a Third-Party Candidate is R.F.K Jr.?  (The New York Times) 

“With six months to go until the election, it’s still too early to judge whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Democrat-turned-independent candidate for president, will prove to be more than a mere spoiler.

He starts out with roughly 10 percent of the vote and one of the most famous names in American politics. It’s enough to at least contemplate whether he’ll be the kind of third-party candidate who makes a lasting mark.

Even without having won the presidency, third-party candidates have often played an important and even healthy role in American politics.

They can elevate new issues, represent marginal constituencies and sometimes even win plenty of votes: Six third-party candidates have either won states or reached double digits in the national vote since the rise of the two-party system. They can be a lot more than mere spoilers.”

🗣️ Public Opinion

Richard Wike, Moira Fagan, Sneha Gubbala, and Sarah Austin: Growing Partisan Divisions Over NATO and Ukraine  (Pew Research Center)

“As NATO approaches its 75th anniversary, Americans are increasingly divided in their views about the alliance. Most continue to believe the United States benefits from its membership, but partisan differences on ratings of NATO have widened in recent years.

Three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents rate the organization favorably, while only 43% of Republicans and Republican leaners agree – down from 55% in a 2022 survey conducted soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Attitudes toward the war in Ukraine have evolved to reflect the partisan polarization found across so many issues in U.S. politics. Democrats and Republicans differ sharply on views about aid to Ukraine, ratings of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and whether supporting Ukraine helps or hurts U.S. interests.”

Janell Fetterolf and Stephanie Kramer: Americans are Less Likely than Others Around the World to Feel Close to People in their Country or Community  (Pew Research Center)

“Americans are less likely than people abroad to feel close to others in their country and community, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey of 24 nations. This is especially the case among certain groups of Americans, including younger adults, those with lower incomes and less education, those who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, and those who are religiously unaffiliated.

Across all 24 countries surveyed, a median of 83% of adults say they feel very or somewhat close to other people in their country. A majority of U.S. adults (66%) also hold this view, but Americans are the least likely among those in the countries surveyed to do so.

Even fewer Americans feel close to people in their local community: 54% feel a connection to others near them, compared with a median of 78% of adults across all 24 countries. South Korea is the only country with a lower share of adults who feel connected with others in their community (50%).”

Jeffrey M. Jones: Americans Expect Home Prices to Rise, See Market as Poor  (Gallup)

“WASHINGTON, D.C. -- More Americans than a year ago expect home prices to rise in their local area. At the same time, Americans remain highly pessimistic about the market for homebuyers -- 21% say it is a good time, and 76% say it is a bad time, to buy a house, essentially tying last year’s measures as the worst in Gallup’s trend.

Larger Majority Believe Local Home Values Will Increase

Sixty-eight percent of U.S. adults expect home prices in their local area to increase in the coming year, up from 56% a year ago and among the highest readings Gallup has measured to date. The only higher readings were 71% in 2021 and 70% in 2005 and 2022.”

🗺️ Data Visualization

@aaron_renn: Interesting map of median home prices by county.  (X)

@jamesjohnson252: NEW  @JLPartnersPolls   @RestIsPolitics    We asked a representative sample of British adults how they felt about current and former Prime Ministers in one word  Here are the results ⬇️ (X)

📮 Elections

How Campaign Logos Shape Voters' Opinions About Candidates  (Center for Campaign Innovation) 

“New research conducted by the Center for Campaign Innovation uncovers the impact of campaign logo design on voters' perceptions of candidates. The study sought to determine whether logo design can influence a candidate’s favorability with voters and the attributes associated voters associate with them, as well as to compare the design preferences of professional designers with those of the general voting public.

Key Findings: 1) Campaign logos can have a significant impact on voter favorability, with well-designed logos increasing favorability by up to 5% and poorly designed logos decreasing favorability by the same amount. 2) Logos can influence voters' perceptions of candidate attributes, such as being ‘fresh,’ ‘exciting,’ ‘moderate,’ or ‘experienced.’ 3) Professional designers' logo preferences do not strongly correlate with those of voters, emphasizing the importance of considering the target audience in logo design. 4) Red, white, and blue color schemes and patriotic design elements like flags and stars were preferred by voters, while logos using colors outside this palette were least preferred.”

🏢 Media Analytics

Ryan Cummings, Giacomo Fraccaroli, and Neale Mahoney: Bad News Bias in Gasoline Price Coverage  (Briefing Book)

“Negative news drives consumer engagement, creating incentives for news media to emphasize bad news. This piece quantifies bad news bias in TV coverage of gasoline prices, using a dataset of over one million transcripts from six major TV outlets spanning 2004 to 2023.

TV coverage of gas prices ramps up sharply when the nominal gas price hits $3.50 per gallon and is consistently negative in tone. The ramp-up is steeper for cable outlets and steepest for Fox News. Because the $3.50 inflection point is stable in nominal terms, the real threshold at which the media ramps up their coverage of gas prices has decreased by one-third over time.

Along with their direct impact on American pocketbooks, gas prices have been shown to impact inflation expectations and consumer sentiment. To the extent that skewed media coverage influences perceptions, bad news bias in the coverage of gas prices could have meaningful economic consequences.”

📰 Media Habits

Jeffrey Gottfried and Olivia Sidoti: Teens and Video Games Today   (Pew Research Center)

“There are long-standing debates about the impact of video games on youth. Some credit them for helping young people form friendships and teaching them about teamwork and problem-solving. Others say video games expose teenagers to violent content, negatively impact their sleep and can even lead to addiction.

With this in mind, Pew Research Center surveyed 1,423 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 about their own video game habits – from how often they play to the friends they’ve made and whether it gets in the way of them doing well in school or getting a good night’s sleep.

Playing video games is widespread among teens. The vast majority of U.S. teens (85%) say they play them. Just 15% say they never do, according to the survey conducted Sept. 26-Oct. 23, 2023.

In addition to asking whether teens play video games, we also wanted to learn whether they consider themselves gamers. Overall, four-in-ten U.S. teens think of themselves as gamers. Just under half of teens (45%) play video games but do not think of themselves as gamers.”