Has the Millennial generation ‘overwhelmed’ the electorate? | Harry J Enten

Though they’ve drawn comparisons with the Greatest Generation for their liberal leanings, young people haven’t taken over yet

The Millennials are the most Democratic cohort in a generation. Some believe attribute their liberal inclinations to the racially diverse demographics within their generation, and while that may be partially true, I prescribe the Millennials’ (born after 1980 through the mid-90s) Democratic leanings to the fact they grew up during a strong Clinton administration and a weak Bush one. The Millennials today have mostly replaced the very white, very Democratic voters of the Greatest Generation (who were born 1910-1927) who came of age during the weak years under Hoover and a Roosevelt administration so strong it won FDR a third term.

In both the 2004 and 2012 election, almost all age cohorts voted the same relative to other cohorts, and the Millennials were as Democratic relative to the nation in 2004 and 2012. The Greatest Generation was too small a percentage of the electorate in 2012 to collect poll data, but they voted as Democratic as the Millennnials did in 2004.

Proving the cohort point further, the then +60-year-old Greatest Generation has been the most Democratic cohort all the way back in 1988, when age cohorts didn’t differ all that much in how they voted – despite even some members of the Lost Generation still voting. The Greatest Generation crowd was the most Democratic in the 1992 election, as well.

Even the most ardent critics of the cohort theory will admit that a person’s views of the presidential administration he or she grew up with will shape their political views going forward. The real question is whether or not the Millennials have a a large enough portion of the electorate to “overwhelm” the rest: would Bush have still won in 2004 with 2012 demographics, and would Obama have still won with 2004 demographics? With the release of the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) voter supplement, we can find out.

The CPS is a geographically defined sample that seeks to fully represents each type of voter. Respondents are asked simple questions such as race, registration, and whether or not they voted. It is generally seen as a more comprehensive survey than network exit polls to determine the exact composition of the electorate.

There are, however, reasons to be cautious about making too much of the CPS report. The CPS doesn’t have a perfect response rate, and as my friend Sean Trende points out, there are more people who claimed to the CPS to have voted than actually did. The CPS tabulators assume that those who didn’t respond didn’t vote, which is likely not true, but there’s no perfect way to account for the discrepancies. Preliminary examination of board of election data from different states shows that fewer African Americans, for instance, voted than the numbers that the CPS finds.

Either way, the CPS is a very solid starting point, and we can still take a preliminary step in answering whether or not Obama would have won without the Millennials. We can determine this by multiplying the percent of what Obama won among Millennials by the percentage they made up of the electorate. In other words, the percentage of vote the Millennials contributed to Obama’s margin of victory. Then we compare this with the percentage of the vote the Greatest Generation contributed in prior years, and we’ll have a solid answer.

The Millennials now make up 18% of the electorate, per the CPS. That’s less than the exit poll data reports, but exits have been known to count too many young voters. Meanwhile, the CPS data is backed quite well by Pew Research, which most would agree is one of the finest pollsters out there, if not the best.

Those born between 1910 and 1927 were just 2% of the 2012 electorate. In 1996, the election before the Millennials began voting, the Greatest made up 15% of everyone who cast a ballot. By the time 2004 rolled around, Millennials were 8% of the electorate, while the Greatest was down to 7%. Thus, as a percentage of the total electorate, there was a 5pt gain in the Democratic coalition of the Greatest Generation and Millennials from 1996 to 2012, and from 2004 to 2012.

Given Obama’s +20pt win among Millennials, what percentage of the vote is that 5pt difference worth? With the 2004 electorate, Obama would have won by 2.6pt instead of 3.85pt last year. Meanwhile, if the 2004 electorate had looked like the 2012 one, George W Bush would have won by 1.2pt instead of 2.45pt. So yes, the Democratic candidate would have done slightly better with the demographic boost, but neither election would have turned out any differently.

Further comparisons to 1996 and 2004 undersell the Greatest Generation’s impact. The Greatest were 17% of the electorate in 1992, 21% in 1988, 24% in 1984, and 27% in 1980, but have dropped steeply as more of their members pass away. The Millennials, meanwhile, are still far away from 24%, let alone 27%. If other age cohorts had voted the same relative to the national vote, Obama might have actually won by more in prior years.

To me, the evidence does not suggest the Millennials have “overwhelmed” the Greatest. They are, if anything, a new “Greatest Generation” both in terms of voting patterns and, to a lesser extent, size – though we can still expect the Millennials to grow somewhat as a percentage of the electorate, since people are more likely to vote as they get older. The question going forward is whether Generation Z (born in the mid-90s and later) will follow the voting patterns of the Millennials.

His small re-election margin and his projected historic ratings mean that the Obama administration has largely been seen as mediocre, which in turn suggests that the next age cohort will walk the middle of the road. The polling data agrees that Generation Z will be less Democratic, than the Millenials, but if one believes the racial diversity theory, then the next generation should actually be more liberal, as it will have fewer white voters.

We don’t know whether the age cohort or racial diversity theory will end up being more correct in the long run. If it’s the diversity one, Republicans are in a lot of trouble. If it’s the age cohort theory, then it will be politics as usual. I’d bet on age.

Harry J Enten

The IRS and AP controversies spell trouble for Obama and Democrats | Harry J Enten

Trust in government is a key factor in how people vote in midterm elections. All of that is heavily at stake now for 2014

The Justice Department has “secretly obtained” two months of conversations between Associated Press (AP) officials in a move called “unprecedented”. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Cincinnati office singled out new conservative groups for extra scrutiny over the past couple of years. One of these controversies alone would have caused a headache for the Obama administration, but the two of them together could spell big trouble for the Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections.

Historically speaking, trust in government has been tied very closely to how people view the state of the economy. When consumer sentiment is up, trust in government goes up. When consumer confidence goes down, trust in government goes down. Pew Research has a very nice chart that illustrates this relationship.

You can see how the two lines generally flow together. This especially the case after 1970 – before which time trust in government was higher than it’s been over the past 40 years. Right now consumer confidence is 76.4. That’s down from earlier this year, but it’s up significantly since 2010.

Trust in government isn’t, however, always linked to the consumer sentiment. After the Watergate scandal, trust in government remained in a relatively low stable position through 1977, even as the economy improved. Trust in government fell in response to the House banking scandal in 1992 and Whitewater controversy of 1993 and 1994, as consumer confidence climbed. Finally, the economy was improving, but trust in government fell off its post-9/11 highs through the early part of the first decade of this century as Americans angered over the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina that pounded the Gulf Coast.

Put another way, scandal can negatively impact how much Americans trust. It has to be a big scandal though. Benghazi, for instance, is likely not going to do it. Most Americans aren’t paying attention to it, and as many Americans think the Republicans have gone too far as handled it appropriately.

The tax scandal, however, can play that role. My friends at NBC’s First Read note

“The IRS story packs a bigger political punch… [and] will trigger new congressional hearings and new questions for the president and his team. More significantly, the IRS news is a political gift to a Republican Party whose base was strained on immigration.”

The idea that the IRS would go after conservative groups, who hate the IRS, specifically seems to make a lot more sense than a president not wanting to create a foreign policy crisis in which be could benefit from a rally around the flag effect.

The obtaining of AP records likewise probably makes more sense in the voters’ eyes. Obama has been critiqued for not doing enough press conferences or interviews with White House reporters. As one Democratic strategist put it, the “AP phone records thing just sealed the deal for what the newest narrative around Obama administration is going to be”.

Indeed, these stories are coming at the perfect time for peak scandal coverages. Brendan Nyhan notes that scandals more often happen when the president is detested by members of the other party, as Obama is. Likewise, they are more likely to become big news when there aren’t other news stories like the Boston bombings. Finally, scandals are more likely to take place in the beginning of the second term.

Therefore, the question is whether declining trust in the government has historically played a major factor in midterm elections. It turns out that it does. When trust in government falls, the party in the White House tends to do worse in midterm elections.

This 2010 graph from Pew Research illustrates the point well.

Trust fell dramatically in the lead up to the 1974 midterms thanks to Watergate, and the Republicans lost nearly 50 seats. Trust absolutely tumbled in the lead-up to the 1994 midterms, and Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party lost over 50 seats. Democrats took back the house in 2006 as Americans trust in the Bush administration dropped. And although it isn’t on the bottom chart, Americans trust in government, as seen in the top chart, was bad in 2010. Republicans gained 63 house seats.

On the reverse, there was minimal change in the composition in 1986, 1990, 1998, or 2002 when trust in government was relatively high.

So what does this mean for 2014? There are reasons to believe that Democrats shouldn’t see major losses. The economy is doing better, and an incumbent president’s party rarely loses big twice in midterms. Still, if trust falls, it may trump these structural factors. The thing to watch over the next days, weeks, and months is how big the scandals become. If they become big news, and that seems quite possible, Obama’s Democratic party may be heading for major losses in 2014.

Harry J Enten

Yes, Mark Sanford really has a chance to beat Elizabeth Colbert Busch | Harry J Enten

South Carolina’s special election may turn into a referendum on President Obama, which is bad news for Colbert Busch

Republican Mark Sanford has closed the gap with Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch in the South Carolina first district special election to take place on Tuesday. The latest poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP) has Sanford jumping into to a 1 pt lead 47% to 46% after being down in the same survey 9 pts just two weeks ago. A poll from Red Racing Horses (RRH) has Colbert Busch and Sanford tied at 46%.

A Sanford win in the final two weeks after being down 9 pts would be unusual. As I noted last week, only a little less than 15% of special election polls taken in the final two weeks of a campaign over the past decade have had a 9 pts or greater error margin. Even in the quick changing special Massachusetts senate election of 2010, Scott Brown gained only 4 pts in the final 10 days.

It’s not as if voters all of a sudden like Sanford, the former South Carolina Governor who is most well known nationally for cheating on his wife. Sanford’s less liked than Colbert Busch with a 43% favorable rating compared to 50%, respectively, per PPP. They just dislike President Obama. By a 4 pt margin, though, voters have a higher opinion of Sanford than President Obama. That reflects a district that voted for Republican Mitt Romney by 18 pts.

Therefore it shouldn’t be surprising that Sanford’s comeback is entirely built upon newfound Republican support likely gained by nationalizing the race. Some Republican voters are deciding that they would vote instead of staying home in disgust of Sanford’s affair and divorce. The electorate PPP now projects voted for Mitt Romney over President Obama by 13 pts versus a projected electorate of just a 5 pt edge for Romney in their last poll. Sanford has also expanded his lead among Romney voters from 49 pts two weeks ago to 61 pts now.

The good news for Colbert Busch is that most of Sanford’s comeback occurred about a week ago. You’ll note that RRH conducted their poll in the beginning to middle part of last week, while PPP’s was done over the weekend. Despite the differences in timing, the results are almost identical. That tends to indicate that Sanford has likely leveled off. The result is a race that is at this point simply too close to call with neither candidate having too much momentum.

So just how long will we have to wait for results on Tuesday Night? We should know by 9:30pm, if the primary for this election is any guide. The polls close at 7pm EST. During the primary this year, it took about 45 minutes (7:45pm EST) after the polls closed for results to start being reported. By 8pm, about 5% of precincts had posted their results. By 8:35pm, 50% of precincts were in. By 9:20pm, we had results for all but 1% of precincts.

Where are each of the candidates supposed to do best? The district is made up of five counties: Beaufort, Berkeley, Charleston, Colleston and Dorchester. In the 2012 house election for this seat, Republican Tim Scott got between 60% and 65% in all the counties except for Colleston. Colleston, however, makes up less than 1% of the district’s population.

The RRH poll forecasts that we should see greater differences between the counties in this election. In their poll, which had a tie, Colbert-Busch led by 4 pts in Charleston and 13 pts in Beaufort. Sanford grabbed a lead of 13 pts in Dorchester and 20 pts in Berkeley.

Usually this county breakdown would be bad news for Colbert Busch given the populations each of these counties make up in the district. The issue for Sanford is that some voters the more culturally conservative areas in Dorchester and Berkeley seem to still be staying home. That’s why we’re expecting to see an electorate that voted for Romney by 13 pts, not 18 pts. If these counties vote their population weight, Sanford likely wins by 3 to 4 pts.

Thus, the key for Republican Mark Sanford winning is either high turnout or over-performing the expected county breakdown. Whether or not this occurs is what will determine either Sanford or Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch wins tomorrow.

Harry J Enten

No Patriot Act II: Americans choose civil liberties over security laws | Harry J Enten

Unlike 9/11, the Boston attack will not lead to new anti-terror law. But Democrats are now less civil libertarian than Republicans

Terrorist attacks offer lawmakers an ability to react. After 9/11, the American government decided to go to war in Afghanistan and to enact new laws aimed at curbing future attacks. The Patriot Act, for instance, has been regarded by some as a necessary step for safety and by others as an infringement on civil liberties.

Following the Boston Marathon attack, we’ve heard Republicans Lindsey Graham and John McCain, among others, push for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be handled in a way that many believe would be a violation of his civil liberties. So, has the Boston bombing opened up an avenue for lawmakers to pursue controversial new anti-terrorism measures that may limit civil liberties?

Almost certainly not. The latest CNN/Time/ORC poll finds that 49% of Americans are not willing to give up civil liberties in order curb terrorism, while only 40% are. In fact, 61% of Americans are more fearful that the government will overreact to the Boston bombing, compared to 31% who are worried that the government won’t act strongly enough.

Other polls confirm these findings. Just after the attacks, Fox News found that 43% of Americans were willing to give up “some personal freedom” to reduce the threat of an attack, while 45% were not. A Washington Post poll, from before the bombers were caught, reported that only 41% of Americans were most worried that the government wouldn’t go far enough because of constitutional concerns. Almost half of Americans, 48%, were worried the government would go too far and compromise constitutional rights.

The reaction to Boston has been monumentally different to the polling results after 9/11. Immediately following the attacks on the WTC, 66% of Americans were willing to give up “civil liberties” to stop terrorism – 26pt higher than today. And 39% of Americans were concerned that strong laws wouldn’t be enacted, while 34% were more concerned about restricting civil liberties. That 4pt lead for enacting stronger laws is now a 30pt lead in favor of protecting civil liberties, per the ORC poll. After 9/11, 71% of Americans were willing to give up “personal freedom” to reduce the threat of a terrorist attack per Fox – 28pt higher than today.

Indeed, the party breakdown of new polling means that Graham and McCain have even less chance of getting their way. Democrats at large – who are unlikely to agree with hawkish senators – are now more willing to give up personal freedoms than Republicans. In the CNN/Time/ORC survey, 51% of Democrats were were willing to give up some civil liberties to curb terrorism, while only 41% of Republicans were. Fox found an identical 51% of Democrats were willing to give up “personal freedom”, against just 43% of Republicans. The Washington Post poll found the same 8pt spread between Democrats and Republicans on the question of whether the government might compromise constitutional rights.

Republicans, it seems, have become the standard-bearers of civil liberties due to two factors: who’s in the White House and shifting currents inside each party.

The executive branch, the government’s chief, is currently a Democrat – one who many Republicans believe, for instance, is out to take their guns. After 9/11, a Republican president held office, which likely accounts for the parties switching positions. We already know that a respondent or a politician will often oppose an issue or policy just because of who’s in charge.

Second, the Republican party is increasingly becoming the party of Rand Paul and civil libertarians. You would expect exactly these respondents to be against an intrusion on civil liberties. Many Paulites tend to call themselves independents, which would also explain why, in the CNN/Time/ORC and Fox News, independents were the least likely to give up personal freedoms, at 32% and 29%, respectively.

This puts hawkish Republicans like Graham and McCain in an awkward position within their own party. If there were a Republican in the White House, I think more Republicans would be willing to sacrifice civil liberties to prevent terrorism. At the same time, though, the Republican party simply is in a different place than it was a decade ago.

Overall, the chances of any major, hawkish changes in terrorist policy are significantly hampered by public opinion. Americans did not react to the Boston bombings with anything near the willingness to sacrifice civil liberties they showed after 9/11. That Republicans – usually hawkish on national security issues – are wary of giving power to the Democratic-run executive branch only further weakens the chances that any new law might pass.

Harry J Enten

Patterns of Under Voting in Gambier and the rest of Knox County, Ohio (Part One)

Among residents of Knox County, Ohio, the political differences between Gambier (home of Kenyon College) and the rest of the county are well-known. Gambier is populated by generally liberal students and faculty who (mostly) vote Democratic; Michelle Obama even visited the Kenyon campus in 2012. In contrast, the rest of the county is largely filled with generally conservative voters who tend to vote Republican. Indeed, 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney held a campaign event at the Ariel Corporation in Mount Vernon. Overall, Knox County voted for Governor Romney over President Obama by a 61 to 37 percent margin. Outside of Gambier and surrounding College Township, President Obama won the most votes in only one precinct (there was a tie in another precinct).

Using precinct-level data from the Knox County Board of Elections, this post focuses on another noticeable difference in voting patterns that exists between Gambier and the rest of Knox County: the extent to which “under voting” takes place in various contests. According to Wikipedia, an “under vote” occurs when, “the number of choices selected by a voter in a contest is less than the maximum number allowed for that contest or when no selection is made for a single choice contest.”

A close look at the Knox County Board of Elections website reveals an interesting pattern when one examines under voting by precinct. In the 2012 presidential race, not a single “presidential under vote” was cast in either Gambier precinct (the surrounding College Township precinct also saw no under votes). What makes this so interesting? In the rest of the county every other precinct had at least one under vote in the race for president. Indeed, 213 votes (~0.8% of all votes cast) in the rest of the county were under votes.

What makes this pattern even more remarkable is that it begins to reverse itself in other races down ballot. Outside of the race for president, the under vote rate in Gambier exceeded the norm for the rest of the county.

For example:

In the Senate Race between Senator Sherrod Brown (D) and State Treasurer Josh Mandel (R), there were 87 under votes in Gambier or ~6.5% of all votes cast. Outside of the Gambier precincts, there were 619 under votes or ~2.3% of all votes cast.
In the House Race between Representative Bob Gibbs (R) and Challenger Joyce Healy-Abrams, there were 140 under votes in Gambier or ~10.5% of all votes cast. Outside of the Gambier precincts, there were 1360 under votes or ~5% of all votes cast. This despite the fact that the only debate between Gibbs and Healy-Abrams was actually held at Kenyon College in Gambier!
In the “Nonpartisan” State Supreme Court Race between Incumbent Robert Cupp (“R”) and Challenger Bill O’Neill (“D”), there were 730 under votes or ~54.8% (!) of all votes cast. Outside of the Gambier precincts, there were 6453 under votes or ~23.6% of all votes cast. (Note: I called this race “nonpartisan” due to the fact that, although no partisan labels appear on ballots, candidates are nominated through partisan primaries.)
The pattern is similar in other races down ballot.

So what implications can be drawn from this?

Here are three initial takeaways:

The Power of the Obama Campaign: Young voters really connected with President Obama and his campaign did a great job of reaching out to these voters and getting them to turn out to the polls. These voters were excited to vote for President Obama and filled out their ballots in such a way as to act on this excitement. This excitement about voting for President Obama, however, did not represent increased loyalty to the Democratic Party as a whole; this was made clear in the 2010 midterms as turnout among young voters remained relatively constant with historical patterns and did not experience any noticeable surge.
Importance of Partisan Cues: The substantial drop off that took place in the Gambier precincts for the State Supreme Court race underscores the odd things that can happen in ostensibly non-partisan judicial races. While some Kenyon students were willing to vote for a candidate with a “D” next to their name, they weren’t about to go searching for the partisan affiliation of a non-partisan candidate. (Good work on non-partisan judicial elections is being done by University of Pittsburgh Professor Chris Bonneau and UNC Graduate Student John Lappie.)
Under voting isn’t a liberal thing, it’s a college student thing: While under voting rates were above average in the Gambier precincts, this was not the case in the College Township Precinct. Home to some Kenyon employees, College Township has an ever-so-slight Democratic tilt. Furthermore, under voting in College Township was in line with the rates for the rest of the county. For example, 5 voters or ~2.2% under voted in the U.S. Senate race between Senator Brown and State Treasurer Mandel in College Township.

These implications are certainly not the only ones that can (or should) be drawn from this data. Indeed, the next post in this series will examine the practical implications of under voting for low turnout races, focusing specifically on the Mount Vernon School Levy.

Immigration reform won’t deliver a Latino voter ‘bonanza’ to Democrats | Harry J Enten

To assume that 11 million undocumented immigrants potentially eligible to vote will change US political arithmetic is erroneous

I have been quite skeptical about the ability of the Republican party to win over Latino voters. As others and I have noted, Latinos don’t vote Democratic just because of immigration policy. They vote Democratic because they are more ideologically “in sync” with the Democratic party. That’s why I’ve felt that going along with immigration reform was unlikely to net Republicans many Latino voters.

That said, I can’t agree either with the math in a Politico article titled “Immigration reform could be a bonanza for Democrats”. The article starts off promisingly enough with the premise that if immigration reform passed and undocumented immigrants became citizens, Latinos would start voting Democratic in even larger numbers. I can go along with this because the main reason anyone votes for or against a political party is for its economic platform, and 81% of first generation Latino immigrants say they want a “bigger government with more services”, compared to only 48% of Americans overall.

Politico then uses the commonly quoted figure of 11 million undocumented immigrants and claims that there would, therefore, be “up to” 11 million undocumented immigrants up for grabs if they all became citizens. If these 11 million then voted along the lines of the Latinos who cast a ballot in 2012, Obama would have won the national vote by 7pt instead of 4pt. He could have carried Arizona and even Texas, which were each won comfortably by Republican Mitt Romney.

The problem I have, though, is why would anyone use the 11 million figure for reference.

First off, 1 million undocumented immigrants are under the age of 18. I don’t care what your immigration status is, you can’t vote in United States presidential elections if you are under the age of 18.

Second, of the 10 million adults, 19% aren’t actually Latino; 11% are Asian. Asian voting patterns tend to be less stable than Latinos. In the past election, Asians went for President Obama by about 45pt. Twenty years ago, they went for Republican George HW Bush.

Without more research (and there is surprisingly little of it), it’s unclear to know how undocumented Asian voting patterns would change given immigration reform. Also, keep in mind that about 60% of these Asian immigrants are in California and Washington State alone – so they’re not exactly going to be a game-changer in the electoral college.

Third, I tend to doubt that all 8 million adult Latino undocumented immigrants would go for citizenship. A Latino Decisions poll says 87% of them would, but I’m skeptical. Only 60% of all legal immigrants actually apply for citizenship. Since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, only about 40% of the newly eligible immigrants by so-said act became citizens. It would be reasonable to expect a similar percentage this time.

Only 36% of Mexican immigrants who are eligible to become citizens have gone through the process. Mexicans make up 72% of all undocumented Latino immigrants. Six in ten of the other 28% of eligible Latino immigrants have become citizens.

All together, if undocumented Latino immigrants become citizens at the rate that eligible Latino immigrants do, then we’re looking at 3.5 million new voting-age citizens. That 3.5 million is a far cry from the 11 million we first talking about.

Finally, just how many of these 3.5 million undocumented Latino immigrants can be expected to vote in the presidential election? Per the standard census Current Population Survey (CPS), only 49.9% of all voting age Latino American citizens cast a ballot in 2008. (Note, there is no report available for 2012 as of this point.) Based on pre-election surveys and work by Michael McDonald, there is reason to believe that percentage may have dropped further in 2012.

All told, it would seem that only about 1.7 million new Latino voters would be added if undocumented immigrants were granted citizenship. Nationally, this would be a net of about 775,000 votes. This would increase Obama’s vote margin, but not to 7pt; it would only go up to about 4.4pt – in other words, half a point from where it actually was in November 2012. Even adding in new Asian voters, who vote at a lower rate than even Latinos, and other undocumented immigrants (and controlling for the percentage who apply for citizenship, percentage of citizens who vote, and the percentage who voted for Obama), the margin probably only goes up to, at most, 4.6pt.

The amount this would shift individual states in elections is debatable. Take Nevada, where, at last count, there were 190,000 undocumented immigrants – the highest percentage of any state population. Most of them are Latino. Apply the same math we did above, Obama would have gained about 17,000 votes. It would have increased his state margin of victory by 1.4pt. That’s not nothing, but we’re talking about the state with the largest percentage undocumented immigrants.

Most states aren’t close to Nevada’s undocumented immigrant population, while the ones that are simply aren’t competitive at the president level: Arizona, California, and New Jersey. No state in 2012 would have had a different outcome if undocumented immigrants were given the right to vote.

The truth of the matter is that passing immigration reform won’t be a votes “bonanza” for the Democratic party because of potentially or newly enfranchised undocumented immigrants. That doesn’t mean passing immigration reform will help the Republican party among Latinos; the GOP should probably still be worrying about its Latino voter appeal. But it’s not facing a landslide from a new citizen electorate.

Harry J Enten

LA mayoral race: Garcetti leads Greuel as runoff election enters final month | Harry J Enten

Two Democrats are vying to be mayor of the second most populous city in the US – and the pollsters like Eric Garcetti

You wouldn’t know it on the US east coast, where the focus is on who will win the contest to succeed Michael Bloomberg as mayor of New York, but the election to be mayor of the nation’s second most populous city is also occurring this year. The fight to lead the City of Los Angeles is well underway. A runoff between Democrat Eric Garcetti and Democrat Wendy Greuel is slated for 21 May.

Los Angeles, as with many cities, uses a non-partisan runoff system. That is, all the candidates, regardless of party, face off against each other in the first round. If no candidate receives 50% of the vote plus one vote, a second round is held between the two top finishers. In this case, the two top finishers were both Democrats.

Garcetti is currently a city councilman and the former president of the same body. Greuel worked as a member of the city council, with Garcetti, and now as the city comptroller. Both are white, liberal Democrats. Indeed, there isn’t much in the way of policy differences between the two.

The main separation between Garcetti and Greuel is a difference of position on public unions. Greuel is supported by them; Garcetti is not. Garcetti’s main line of attack on Greuel is that she is bought and paid for by the Department of Water and Power union, which is costing the city millions in pensions. Whether or not it’s a hypocritical line of attack given Garcetti’s voting record on DWP, it’s working as a campaign strategy.

Garcetti is leading Greuel 50% to 40% in the latest USC/Los Angeles Times poll. He does better among those who give unfavorable ratings for Los Angeles’ unions. Thanks to an endorsement by third-place finisher, Republican Kevin James, Garcetti takes the Republican vote by 18pt and independent vote by 13pt. A key constituency for Greuel is black voters, with whom she’s up by 20pt.

Greuel, however, wasn’t buying the poll’s top line. In fact, according to the New York Times’ Los Angeles correspondent, Adam Nagourney, she “trashed” it. Polling for low turnout elections is difficult, especially in a city as diverse as Los Angeles. Beyond this generality, though, is there any reason to think the poll is inaccurate?

The USC/Los Angeles Times poll seems to textbook example of solid methodology. The poll was conducted by a Democratic pollster, Benenson Strategies Group, and by Republican pollster M4. Benenson was the lead pollster behind President Obama’s highly successful polling team, while M4 was the only pollster to nail President Obama’s 2012 23pt victory in California.

Cellphones were called; multiple attempts were made to contact each respondent if they didn’t respond initially; and the poll was weighted using voter registration files to ensure that a realistic portrait of the likely electorate was painted. This last point is important because the election is probably going to have low turnout, and you don’t want to cast too wide a net.

Some might complain that the voter file might miss transient residents likely to live in a growing city like Los Angeles. The issue for Greuel is that another public pollster SurveyUSA uses the random digit dial technique. That is, they contact all types of Los Angeles adults, regardless of voting history. Based on a number of questions, they whittled their results down to likely voters. Their last poll conducted two weeks ago had Garcetti ahead by a very similar 49% to 40% margin.

Moreover, the voters who pollsters are most likely to miss are actually Garcetti voters. Garcetti led among younger voters by at least 20pt in both the SurveyUSA and USC/Los Angeles Times polls. He was up by 20pt or more among Latinos – the ethnic/racial group most likely to be undercounted by traditional polls. Garcetti was ahead with cellphone respondents by 23pt in the SurveyUSA poll.

Past polling accuracy lends credence to the belief that these surveys are correct. In 2001, an average of the two final polls for the first round had Antonio Villaraigosa ahead of Jim Hahn by 2.5pt. Villaraigosa won the first round by 5pt. An average of the final two polls in the runoff had Hahn over by Villaraigosa by 8.5pt. Hahn emerged victorious by 7pt. The average error for the two rounds was only 2pt.

In 2005, an average of the two final polls for the first round had Villaraigosa leading Hahn by 14pt; he won by 10. An average of the two final polls in the runoff had Villaraigosa winning by 17.5pt; he became mayor by a 17pt margin. The average error of the two rounds was only 2.25pt.

I could find no public surveys from 2009, though we do have one round from this year. An average of the final two polls had Garcetti and Greuel tied. Garcetti emerged victorious by 4pt.

All in all, the polls showing Eric Garcetti leading race for Los Angeles Mayor are almost certainly correct. Wendy Greuel would be better-off concentrating on trying to close the gap with Garcetti, rather than complaining about public surveys. Recent election polling for Los Angeles mayoral elections have been marked by accuracy. None have featured significant errors. The possible fault lines in the surveys in 2013 would, if anything, make Garcetti appear weaker than he actually is.

Harry J Enten

LA mayoral race: Garcetti leads Greuel as runoff election enters final month | Harry J Enten

Two Democrats are vying to be mayor of the second most populous city in the US – and the pollsters like Eric Garcetti

I could find no public surveys from 2009, though we do have one round from this year. An average of the final two polls had Garcetti and Greuel tied. Garcetti emerged victorious by 4pt.

Harry J Enten

The Manchin-Toomey gun law defeat heralds trouble for Senate Democrats | Harry J Enten

Demographic shifts in the US, with Democratic support concentrated in big cities, are driving ever more partisan politics

On Wednesday, the United States Senate defeated the Manchin-Toomey proposal on background checks. The defeat was a setback for gun control advocates, though it should not have come as a surprise. The defeat with a manifestation of growing problem for Democrats: their coalition is bad for winning many seats in the Senate, so it’s bad for passing legislation, too.

Each state, regardless of size, gets two senators. The least populous state, Wyoming, at 576,000 residents, has two senators, as does the most populous state, California, at 38 million. These less populated states tend be mostly rural. The more populated states like California gain their population because of large cities.

The issue is that Democratic voters tend to congregate in larger cities. Per the 2012 exit polls, President Obama won cities with populations over 500,000 (or cities with populations about the size of all of Wyoming) by 40pt. They won cities with a population of between 50,000-500,000 by a still impressive 18pt. They lost the suburbs by 2pt, cities with populations between 10,000 and 50,000 by 14pt, and rural areas by an astounding 24pt.

Indeed, look at a key part of the Democratic coalition: Latinos. Forty-five percent of Latinos live in the ten largest metropolitan areas. Obama won 12 out of the 16 top states with the largest Latino population. Latinos have helped to solidify the Democratic hold on what was once the swing state of California with 38% of the state’s population – far greater than the national average of 16.3%. Forty-one states, however, have a Latino population at a lower proportion than the nation’s 16.3%; 33 have a population that is less than 10% Latino.

So, how did this manifest itself on the state level?

President Obama won a 7.3pt victory in 2008, yet only carried 28 states. Four years prior, President Bush won only a 2.5pt victory and carried 31 states. Eight years prior to that, in 1996, President Clinton won by 8.5pt and took 31 states. George HW Bush emerged victorious by 7.7pt and won 40 states. That’s right: GHW Bush’s national margin was about the same as Obama’s was 20 years later, but he took 12 more states.

Democrats have tended to win fewer states than Republicans given the same national vote victory, but it’s become worse. To win 30 states in the 2012 election, Obama would have needed to carry the national vote by about 9pt more than he did. He lost Arizona by 9pt, even as he won nationally by 3.9pt. It would have taken a true landslide for Obama to have won by 13pt nationally.

Twenty years ago, this concentration of Democratic strength might not have been too big of a deal, in terms of Senate representation. As I noted back in December, 49% of the Democrat’s 1993 senate caucus came from states that were more Republican the nation as a whole in the prior presidential election. Today, that percentage has been cut in half to only 25%.

When you combine the fact that Democratic presidential nominees are winning fewer states with the fact that there is more straight ticket-voting, the Democrats have a major problem on their hands. It’s simply going to get harder here on in to win a Senate majority, let alone a super-majority of 60 seats, which a party really needs to overcome the growing use of the filibuster.

The Democrats who are in “red” states recognize this fact and you saw it this week in the gun ownership background checks amendment vote. The four Democrats who bucked their party line were from states more Republican than the nation as a whole in the last presidential election. Three of the four are up for re-election in 2014. Of the red state Democrats running for re-election in 2014, three of five voted against the Manchin-Toomey compromise.

Just as bad for Democratic legislation is that there are no Republicans out there willing to compromise. Only 16% of the Republican Senate caucus comes from states where Obama won by a greater percentage than he won nationally. The percentage of blue state Republicans is also down by about half from the 28% it stood at after the 1992 elections. The Republicans who are elected now come from red states and just have no electoral need to compromise. If anything, they’re more fearful of a primary challenge from a stricter conservative.

Only one Republican from a red state, John McCain, voted for Manchin-Toomey. The other three were all from states that were more Democratic than the nation as a whole. The bill’s co-sponsor Pat Toomey, who is no liberal, likely benefitted from the politics of being on board with a bill that is popular in his home state of Pennsylvania.

None of this means that Democrats won’t get back to 60 seats, or can’t bring Republicans on board, in the future. It just means that it’s just much harder than it used to be and will get harder still. The current Democratic coalition is concentrated in a few states, which has resulted in fewer states being Democratic on the national level. Combine this with less split-ticket voting between presidential and congressional races, and it’s bad news for Democrats in getting proposals through the Senate.

The immediate result was the failure of Manchin-Toomey – an event that I expect to be repeated with much future Democratic legislation.

Harry J Enten

Can Weiner win the Democratic primary for New York mayor? | Harry J Enten

As the former congressman polls second behind Christine Quinn, Anthony Weiner looks set to come back from his sexting scandal

Anthony Weiner looks primed to shake up a dormant New York City mayoral race with his entry – should he get in the race officially. After appearing in print and on television, as well as putting out a policy notebook in the last week, the former New York congressman can now add “second-place poll finisher” to his resume.

Marist has published a survey of the Democratic primary race showing frontrunner Christine Quinn at 26%, Weiner at 15%, John Liu at 12%, Bill de Blasio at 11%, and Bill Thompson at 11%.

I take the poll as mostly good news for Weiner in his quest to take Gracie Mansion. Why?

1. Weiner has gone straight in at second spot

The fact that Weiner can shoot up to second place without even officially entering the race is a strong sign. What makes it even stronger is the fact that second place in a New York City mayoral primary is a ticket to the next round. When no candidate reaches 40%, the top two finishers go forward to a runoff. Quinn’s not anywhere close to 40%, while Weiner’s sitting pretty in second.

New York City runoffs can be odd ducks. You can end with a situation like the 1993 Comptroller primary where the incumbent Liz Holtzman finished second in the first round, then lost the second round with a lower percentage of the vote than she’d won in the first. You could have a 2001 mayoral primary scenario where Mark Green lost the first round by 5pt and won the second round by 2pt.

The point is that anything can happen in a runoff. The key is to live in the first round to fight another day.

2. Weiner has the potential to build a stronger position

The one thing I was struck by upon reading the Marist poll is that Weiner’s in a far stronger position than he was just two months ago. In Marist’s February poll, Weiner’s favorable rating among Democrats stood at 34%. That’s now up to 45%. His unfavorable rating is down 2pt, from 43% to 41%. Overall, that’s a 13pt gain in net favorability.

The percentage of Democrats who want him to run for mayor is also way up. The percentage of Democrats who wanted Weiner to run just after the sex scandal was only 27%. That’s up to 40% now. The percentage who don’t want him to run is down from 65% to 46%. Together, it’s a net 32pt turnaround for Weiner.

The point is that it would be a mistake to treat Weiner’s favorables now as stable. The more time that has passed since his sex scandal, the more people seem to be warming to him again. His recent press tour mostly garnered positive press; it certainly did not backfire – people were not turned off. With his wife Huma Abedin by his side, it’ll be awfully difficult for opponents to try and hang the Twitter-sexting scandal around his neck.

3. Quinn is an unusually weak frontrunner

Under attack for a record that many believe is not all that liberal, Quinn’s campaign has faltered. Quinn was at 37% two months ago; she’s now at 26% with Weiner in the field. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that her numbers are going in the wrong direction. That’s good news for candidates not named Quinn.

The 26% is the lowest polling result for a Democratic frontrunner since 1977. Keep in mind that that field was evenly divided not because the candidates were weak, but because they were all so strong. It included women’s right leader Bella Abzug, future Governor Mario Cuomo, and Ed Koch, among others. This year, Quinn is at 26% even as the third-placed John Liu’s former campaign treasurer is on trial for campaign funding fraud.

Even the “meh” candidacy of Ruth Messinger in 1997 was in the upper 30s at this point. And Fernando Ferrer, who would go on to lose the general election by 20pt, was also polling in the upper 30s at in 2005.

For Quinn to have been running for many months, to have been on the cover of New York Magazine, and still to only be at 26% will be a dismayingly feeble result for her campaign managers. Her base, too, seems one that may be unstable.

Quinn is polling at 28% among black voters. The problem is that New York City politics does tend to be racially determined. Even in her subpar run of 2005, African-American candidate C Virginia Fields managed to win a plurality of the black vote. Right now, Bill Thompson, who was the Democratic candidate for mayor in 2009, is only at 14% among African Americans. I’d expect him to eat into Quinn’s percentage of black voters, or at least freeze her where she is.

4. Weiner v Quinn level-pegging in name recognition

The one piece of what might be seen as bad news for Weiner in the Marist poll is that with 85% name recognition, he’s still only polling at 15%. But I don’t see that as much of a problem: he wasn’t polling much higher before the sex scandal hit, but his numbers are in flux and have trended positive. Meanwhile, his frontrunner rival, Christine Quinn, has a similar level of name recognition, yet she’s slipped back to 26%.

Conclusion

The facts that he’s already in position to make the runoff as it stands, that his favorables are going in the right direction, and that the frontrunner is stalled, are all good signs. That doesn’t mean he will win. I am still partial to the possibility of Bill Thompson overhauling the others, given the math above.

At this point, all the candidates’ hopes are very much alive. But do I think Anthony Weiner can win this thing? Absolutely, he could.

Harry J Enten

Margin of Σrror

Category Archives: Democrats

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The Manchin-Toomey gun law defeat heralds trouble for Senate Democrats | Harry J Enten

Can Weiner win the Democratic primary for New York mayor? | Harry J Enten