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Catalist: findings on age-cohorts and political activity - pbrower2a - 05-20-2023
Quote:WHAT HAPPENED™ IN 2022
AN ANALYSIS OF THE 2022 MIDTERMS
This is the first in a series of reports on What Happened in the 2022 general election from the perspective of the Catalist voter database, the longest-running outside the two major political parties. This analysis examines national-level election results in the House and state-level results for Senate and gubernatorial races.
MAJOR FINDINGS
The 2022 election defied conventional wisdom and historical trends. In a typical midterm election year with one-party control of the presidency, House and Senate, the incumbent party would expect major losses. Instead, Democrats re-elected every incumbent senator and expanded their Senate majority by a seat, won the overwhelming majority of heavily contested gubernatorial elections, gained control of 4 state legislative chambers, and only narrowly lost the U.S. House.
Democrats won in the majority of heavily contested races, with electorates in these contests looking more like the 2020 and 2018 electorates than a typical midterm. Unlike recent midterms, which were wave elections with across-the-board, national swings, there was less of a national trend in the 2022 midterm. In this analysis we will present national results based on the U.S. House vote, where Republicans outperformed Democrats, as well as analysis from states that had highly contested races, according to the non-partisan Cook Political Report, where Democrats outperformed Republicans. Unlike other recent midterm years, our analysis shows a stark contrast between the electorate in areas with one or more highly contested House, Senate or gubernatorial races versus those with less contested races.
Gen Z and Millennial voters had exceptional levels of turnout, with young voters in heavily contested states exceeding their 2018 turnout by 6% among those who were eligible in both elections.1 Further, 65% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 supported Democrats, cementing their role as a key part of a winning coalition for the party. While young voters were historically evenly split between the parties, they are increasingly voting for Democrats. Many young voters who showed up in 2018 and 2020 to elect Democrats continued to do the same in 2022.
Extreme “MAGA” Republicans underperformed. Across heavily contested Senate, Gubernatorial, and Congressional races, voters penalized “MAGA” Republicans. Candidates who were outspoken election deniers did 1 to 4 points worse than other Republicans, contributing to their losses in important close races. Of course, election denial is one of many extreme positions associated with “MAGA” Republicans, so this analysis likely reflects relatively extreme stances on other issues, including abortion rights, as well as Republicans such as Kari Lake (Arizona gubernatorial) and Doug Mastriano (Pennsylvania gubernatorial) who ran relatively insular campaigns.
Women voters pushed Democrats over the top in heavily contested races, where abortion rights were often their top issue. After Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court overturned abortion rights, a disproportionate number of women voters registered to vote in states with highly contested elections. At the same time, polls showed Democratic women and men indicating they were more engaged in the election. While relative turnout by gender remained largely stable, Democratic performance improved over 2020 among women in highly contested races, going from 55% to 57% support. The biggest improvement was among white non-college women (+4% support).
Democrats largely retained their winning 2020 coalition in heavily contested races, with some exceptions. Turnout and support among voters by race, education, gender, and other demographic factors remained relatively stable in heavily contested races. Such stability does not usually occur between presidential and midterm years, demonstrating how the Democratic coalition blunted a Republican “red wave.” One notable shift includes Black voters. While they continued to play an outsized role in contributing to Democratic victories, Black turnout largely fell in contested races. Meanwhile, Democratic support among Black voters rose in Southern states with heavily contested elections, but fell in less contested states.
https://catalist.us/whathappened2022/
To avoid copyright violations I shall do my own synopsis. Democrats have been doing steadily better since the mid-1980's, and much of that reflects first the steady rejection of the purely-plutocratic idea that those who own the gold make the rules and then, after the GOP started appealing to ignorance and anger, the same. Yes, Reagan had his racist streak, but nothing like Trump. The GOP has not stuck strictly to one agenda; it has promised to improve life for people at a cost which involves the enrichment of elites as a first and vital objective. When the rewards fail to materialize, then so does GOP support.
Prediction #1: Will the GOP find something else should it face worsening defeats with the Trump agenda? Probably -- much as I can safely predict that fashions of women's clothing will be different in 2028 from what they are now, barring some disruption of the business. I cannot predict what fashions will be; I am not an insider, and I care little about a rarefied activity that seems inscrutable to me.
Prediction #2: Will the D lean in the Millennial Generation stick? Millennial raw votes are still below what one expects of people in their fifties and early sixties (raw votes for older cohorts decline rapidly as those cohorts enter their late sixties,for obvious reasons). It is unlikely that Democrats can expect to get 65% of the Millennial vote indefinitely, but volume will make up for it. On the whole I expect Millennial pols to be far more effective in fitting Millennial sensibilities as they supplant older politicians who retire, become irrelevant, or die.
Prediction #3: Can Republicans cut into the Millennial vote? Sure, with 'successors' like sons or daughters of those who retired. I can also imagine Republicans doing what they did in the 1940's and 1950's by offering opportunities to ambitious pols who get shut out by Democratic machines, seek to challenge corrupt pols in those machines, or serve constituencies that get squeezed out of the Big Tent. This will require that Republicans be less ideological than those that we now see.
Prediction #4: What happens to extremists in the GOP? In contested races, those pay a penalty in votes. Maybe Republicans can exploit economic distress with the sort of pitch that Reagan and Trump offered -- that first one enriches extant elites so that they have incentives to invest rather than let the economy rot (as in Atlas Shrugged, the masses come to the recognition that without giving the elites everything they will suffer even more severely). So cut taxes for the rich and assess new burdens on everyone else, privatize everything possible to monopolistic profiteers exempt from regulation, ravage the environment as completely as is possible, and treat workers like livestock at the most charitable and as vermin when 'necessary'. Of course, doing such creates mass resentments, especially when the promised improvements in workers' lives fail to trickle down. At the least, parents obliged to suffer with a smile on jobs that they hate (much of Generation X) but can't easily leave gripe to their children at the dinner table. Such shaped the political values of the Millennial Generation.
Prediction #5: Are Trump-like nominees the 'wave of the future'? Probably not. Good reason exists for Presidential nominees having clear positions as enunciated
in high public office (the Vice-Presidency, Governorship, the Senate, cabinet officials, and perhaps big-city mayors). Generals could play similar roles to those of the past, but such practically requires wars. The last to go from a cabinet post to the Presidency was Herbert Hoover, and that did not go well. Business executives may think that the government is simply the biggest of all enterprises, and that what works for Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil, IBM, or even the American Red Cross could work well in government. The problem with that is that efficiency isn't everything. Nobody reasonably wants the government to maximize tax revenues. Private employees in at-will employment lack the protection of civil servants, and elected officials shape much of policy. Business CEO's can and do operate the entities that the command much like private fiefs, which few of us would tolerate with the government. OK, Trump is so far out of the norm in character and competence that he sticks out.
Prediction #6: Will diversity shape political orientation as much as it does now? Yes, but it will do so in ways that have yet to emerge. i see the most successful of Model Minorities far too numerous to be cast off. Their successes depend upon sticking to what made them successful, and such is often tradition. Tradition is one of the usual hallmarks of conservatism, and American multiculturalism cannot suppress this reality. What succeeds will be imitated and will become entrenched.
RE: Catalist: findings on age-cohorts and political activity - pbrower2a - 05-20-2023
I have typically said that new Millennial voters have been going about 60-40 D while older voters are going about 5% more R than D. I may have understated the situation. Millennial voters have been slow to enter the electorate, but I would not assume that they will not be an increasing share. Even simply as replacements for voters over 50 they are nothing but trouble for the GOP as it now exists. Any GOP to attempt to win over Millennial voters will alienate the current core of corporatists, Protestant fundamentalists, and bigots.
To be sure, the politicians that we now have generally do not fit Millennial culture yet. The ones who do somewhat better at this are doing better in winning elections (think of President Biden, who is about 50 years older than the average Millennial voter!) States recently becoming more R in contrast to the US average (Florida, Iowa, Ohio) because they concentrate old or white rural people can rebound in a D direction.
Not even rurality of a State indicates that it will remain R-leaning. Think of the non-voting farm laborers and those who work in factory-like dairies and meat-processing places. The owners and bosses are over-represented in local politics, as are their families, in the electorate in contrast to other places. Now ask yourself how the children of those non-voting alien workers will vote when given a chance. These people well fit the model of second-generation Americans doing industrial work circa 1935. Such was a peak time for the Democrats seeking votes. FDR's 46-state hammering of Alf Landon is even more impressive when one considers that the two states that FDR lost were Maine and Vermont. White "ethnic" voters were the core of FDR's wins outside the South, and those are the differences between the elections of the 1920's and the 1930's. When the Democrats get the bulk of the rural workforce, then the GOP of the Reagan-Trump era will be cooked to a crisp electorally.