2022 midterm polls

[pbrower2a]

The GOP as now constituted has a coalition on the fade. Midterm elections usually go strongly against the President's Party and this one didn't The GOP is not seeing its coalition going off to another Party; its elderly voters are dying off without being replenished by newer voters to whom the current GOP pitch can succeed. The generations are all aging in place, and the only generations getting more voters are the two youngest adult generations: Millennials and the Homeland Generation. Millennial adults are starting to get some politicians elected, and as they find politicians tailored to fit their culture as well as their political values, they will really take hold in American political life. Octogenarian and nonagenarian politicians do not have much time in which to stay in office, and new politicians from the Silent and earlier part of the Boomer generation will not be replacing their elderly politicians who die or retire.

It is easy to ignore this basic reality of generational theory when the President, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate Minority Leader are all 80 or older. It is also wrong, because people are still not living into the 100+ category in big numbers. People do not start political careers (aside from one disastrous freak in American political history) in their 70's or later. The Millennial generation is getting more of its potential voters out to vote. The older generations (Silent, Boom, and even X) are starting to lose more voters from death than finding new voters from any source. Do you not believe me about Generation X? Barack Obama turned 61 this year. Sure, lots of people 61 years old can still be active and alert, and they can draw upon experience as an asset in doing many things. On the other side, many X have had bad habits now killing them -- smoking, heavy drinking, drugs, obesity, bad driving,
and sedentary lives. death rates reach a minimum soon after puberty and increase steadily from then on. They are relatively low until age 50, and after that they accelerate.

Figure that the average voter has a voting "career" of sixty years from age 25 to age 85. 1.6% of that electorate dies off each year, almost all of it over 50. Younger voters supplant those older voters who quit voting because they die. (Yes, deceased former voters must be purged from eligibility!) The new voters are about 20% more D than R and the older voters (it is now roughly the same for Silent, Boomers, and early-wave X) are about 5% more R than D. Over four years that is about a 1.6% overall shift from R to D. This explains the difference between the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections even if Trump supporters cry fraud. The demographics fit the result morer than does anything else. This is the opposite of how things went in the 1980's, when the youngest voters (then early-wave X) were about 20% more R than D and the GI voters dying off were about 10% more D than R. Such explains the landslide win of Reagan in 1984 which seems unlikely to be replicated and the older Bush winning in a landslide not since reached for the presidency.

[Eric the Green]

(11-13-2022, 03:41 PM)galaxy Wrote: Two things are worth noting -

This is the first election in which the entire Millennial generation (1982-2002) has been able to vote

and

This election was not a "red wave" because young people turned out and voted D in huge numbers.

(As is usual, most of society cuts the Millennial generation short for some reason and ends it around 1997, which is why "Gen Z" is currently trending on Twitter.)

Every generation seems to have an election in which it appears to suddenly become among the most powerful political forces in the country. I think this might be that election for Millennials.

Someone on Twitter who does election math and statistics has claimed that voters under 30 voted in such high numbers and so disproportionately Democratic that they completely canceled out voters over 65. The first non-Boomer-dominated election in decades.

Excellent analysis Galaxy, and it looks like I was right to predict this after all, despite all the fears of the red wave and my own pessimism about my own prediction.

Still, the Republicans gained just enough to stop most of the Biden agenda the next two years, with staggeringly-horrible Senate votes in Wisconsin and Ohio in favor of idiots Johnson and Vance that keeps pro-filibuster senators Sinema and/or Manchin in power, and an apparent takeover of the House, though not yet called (Republicans lead 212 to 204).

Meet the Press showed a poll Sunday that suggested young people have dragged down Biden's approval rating, but they voted Democratic and favored Sanders and Warren in the poll. So people may have been misled by Biden's low approval rating, a portion of which was young people from his left instead of from his right politically. Such low presidential approval ratings usually spell midterm disaster for the president, but not this time.

Excellent analysis also, Brower.

[pbrower2a]

(11-13-2022, 03:41 PM)galaxy Wrote: Two things are worth noting -

This is the first election in which the entire Millennial generation (1982-2002) has been able to vote

and

This election was not a "red wave" because young people turned out and voted D in huge numbers.

(As is usual, most of society cuts the Millennial generation short for some reason and ends it around 1997, which is why "Gen Z" is currently trending on Twitter.)

Every generation seems to have an election in which it appears to suddenly become among the most powerful political forces in the country. I think this might be that election for Millennials.

Someone on Twitter who does election math and statistics has claimed that voters under 30 voted in such high numbers and so disproportionately Democratic that they completely canceled out voters over 65. The first non-Boomer-dominated election in decades.

Excellent. The Millennial generation has been slow in achieving high offices, but the aging pols are going to die or retire and make openings for younger Millennial pols. That will be truly transformative. Even those who choose to run and win as Republicans in safe districts or states will be independent enough of current machines to vote their consciences instead of obeying the grafters who offer the "Koch-aine" as rewards for political cravenness. The Millennial generation has much more influence through voting while such influence by the Silent and Boomers has been facing despite holding on to high offices. People are living longer, which retards opportunities for advancement in politics by younger people. 

The generational divide among high elected officials should be interesting once available. 

COVID-19 played a role. Since 2022 it has disproportionately hit Republicans hard, especially those fitting the MAGA profile. I saw a story that suggested that some pollsters made allowances for "shy Republicans" who were scared to admit that they supported MAGA pols. Some of them were indeed so shy that they avoided voting because they were... dead. Both parties sought to delete the potential "cadaver vote" and succeeded.

[Eric the Green]

(11-14-2022, 03:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-13-2022, 03:41 PM)galaxy Wrote: Two things are worth noting -

This is the first election in which the entire Millennial generation (1982-2002) has been able to vote

and

This election was not a "red wave" because young people turned out and voted D in huge numbers.

(As is usual, most of society cuts the Millennial generation short for some reason and ends it around 1997, which is why "Gen Z" is currently trending on Twitter.)

Every generation seems to have an election in which it appears to suddenly become among the most powerful political forces in the country. I think this might be that election for Millennials.

Someone on Twitter who does election math and statistics has claimed that voters under 30 voted in such high numbers and so disproportionately Democratic that they completely canceled out voters over 65. The first non-Boomer-dominated election in decades.

Excellent. The Millennial generation has been slow in achieving high offices, but the aging pols are going to die or retire and make openings for younger Millennial pols. That will be truly transformative. Even those who choose to run and win as Republicans in safe districts or states will be independent enough of current machines to vote their consciences instead of obeying the grafters who offer the "Koch-aine" as rewards for political cravenness. The Millennial generation has much more influence through voting while such influence by the Silent and Boomers has been facing despite holding on to high offices. People are living longer, which retards opportunities for advancement in politics by younger people. 

The generational divide among high elected officials should be interesting once available. 

COVID-19 played a role. Since 2022 it has disproportionately hit Republicans hard, especially those fitting the MAGA profile. I saw a story that suggested that some pollsters made allowances for "shy Republicans" who were scared to admit that they supported MAGA pols. Some of them were indeed so shy that they avoided voting because they were... dead. Both parties sought to delete the potential "cadaver vote" and succeeded.

Right, but I have zero confidence that any Republicans in Congress except maybe a few of them a few times will listen to their younger constituents, not just because of the money they get, but because of their stubborn adherence to neoliberalism and prejudice.

[pbrower2a]

ga;axy --

Some pols adjust to new political realities and far fewer fail to do so. Figure that some Republican pols set their ideologies to fit Newt Gengrich's "Contract on America" and never budged. It looks as if Gingrich shaped some political trends for much longer than did Donald Trump.

[Eric the Green]

(11-14-2022, 07:58 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: ga;axy --

Some pols adjust to new political realities and far fewer fail to do so. Figure that some Republican pols set their ideologies to fit Newt Gengrich's "Contract on America" and never budged. It looks as if Gingrich shaped some political trends for much longer than did Donald Trump.

Yes indeed, Gingrich was a powerful and mean neoliberal champion.

[Eric the Green]

Fortunately, Keri Lake lost her bid to be governor of AZ, the last chance for a Trump clone in 2024 to decertify election results in one of the swing states that elected Biden.

Oh oh, 5 more Republicans have been called winners in the House, including Calvert over Rollins, so they are just one win away from control, 217 to 204. AZ now has a 6-3 Republican House delegation (boo-hoo), two Democratic senators and a new Democratic governor. The only chances for Dems to flip 4 Republican leads are now in CA. Mike Garcia is leading by 13,000 but this CA race against Christy Smith has not been called. Republican David Valadao is starting to lose his lead with 54% of the vote in. Kevin Kiley leads Kermit Jones by 10 points with 53% of the vote in. Trump-backed Kiley is the most-likely to win and give Republicans control. It was an expected Republican district. But Democrats are starting to increase their vote margins slightly in statewide CA races. Democrat Adam Gray now leads by 800. Democrats lead in a number of other races that have not been called, and are favored to win 2 in which ranked-choice voting has not yet been applied. So a win by Kiley, Valadao, Garcia or Boebert will sow it up for the poisonous red tide.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022...house.html

[pbrower2a]

(11-15-2022, 01:14 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-14-2022, 07:58 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: galaxy --

Some pols adjust to new political realities and far fewer fail to do so. Figure that some Republican pols set their ideologies to fit Newt Gengrich's "Contract on America" and never budged. It looks as if Gingrich shaped some political trends for much longer than did Donald Trump.

Yes indeed, Gingrich was a powerful and mean neoliberal champion.

Gingrich had at least one failed bid for the Presidency. He had never won any statewide election and was not a military hero; he never held a cabinet post. Until Donald Trump became President with absolutely no reasonable qualifications for any public office, that was overpowering evidence that he was not going to be President.  

We could be approaching the end of this Crisis Era, but we need to wait until the 2024 Presidential election to see proof of such. The rise and fall of Donald Trump and the disgrace that he brought to many political figures who should have known better may have a better chance of full manifestation. We have what looks like a one-term President should he have any serious health problems that cannot be fixed with routine medical care. Ron Duce-Santis (get it?) won big in Florida and threw down the gauntlet to anyone who would oppose Trumpism after Trump, including "woke" liberals and anyone not fully in with him. Basically he suggests an America in which everyone defers to the only people who suitably rule us in fact -- the rich and powerful shareholders, executives, and Junker-style corporate farmers.  He appeals to the sort of person most likely to support President Trump, basically someone who has little capacity for deferred. To be sure, as the economist John Maynard Keynes put it, 

"In the long run we are all dead"

but all in all, those who want to get more gratification in life are wise to push the Grim Reaper away as much as is possible. I basically stayed put during the pandemic until I got my first inoculation and booster, leaving the house largely to get groceries, fill the tank of my car, meet medical appointments, and on occasion get a fast-food meal to break the monotony. I did buy some stuff (including of all things cat food when there was a big shortage locally) on... you can guess where. I steered clear of any place that seemed a likely super-spreader site such as a bar. I relied upon books, TV, recorded music, and the Internet for entertainment. 

Go to the beach and get COVID-19? No way! 

Covid death rates are higher among Republicans than Democrats, mounting evidence shows

Lower vaccination rates among Republicans could explain the partisan gap, but some researchers say mask use and social distancing were bigger factors.


[color=var(--article-body--date-source--color)]Oct. 6, 2022, 2:10 PM EDT[/color]
[color=var(--article-body--byline--color)]By Aria Bendix[/color]
Covid deaths are unevenly distributed among Republicans and Democrats.
Average excess death rates in Florida and Ohio were 76% higher among Republicans than Democrats from March 2020 to December 2021, according to a working paper released last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Excess deaths refers to deaths above what would be anticipated based on historical trends.

A study in June published in Health Affairs similarly found that counties with a Republican majority had a greater share of Covid deaths through October 2021, relative to majority-Democratic counties.
But experts are still puzzling over why these differences exist. Are lower vaccination rates among Republicans responsible? Or did mask use and social distancing guidelines prevent more deaths in counties run by Democrats?
The Yale researchers behind the new working paper say vaccine hesitancy among Republicans may be the biggest culprit.

"In counties where a large share of the population is getting vaccinated, we see a much smaller gap between Republicans and Democrats," said Jacob Wallace, an author of that study and an assistant professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health.

Indeed, his paper found that the partisan gap in the deaths widened from April to December 2021, after all adults became eligible for Covid vaccines. Excess death rates in Florida and Ohio were 153% higher among Republicans than Democrats during that time, the paper showed.

"We really don’t see a big divide until after vaccines became widely available in our two states," Wallace said.
But the June study suggested that Covid vaccine uptake explained just 10% of the partisan gap in the deaths. Those researchers suggested that compliance with other public health measures such as mask use and social distancing was a significant factor.

"Vaccination does play a role in the difference that we’ve observed in excess mortality between red and blue places, but it is not the whole story," said Neil Jay Sehgal, an author of that study and an assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Maryland School of Public Health.
"When you have less transmission, you have fewer cases and you have less mortality. And you have less transmission in general by instituting protective policies like mask requirements when we had them, or capacity limits in businesses," he added.

[color=var(--article-body-static-heading-color)]Role of vaccine hesitancy[/color]

Both papers come with limitations. The study from Sehgal’s team looked at counties, not individuals, which makes it difficult to determine whether other demographic factors — such as education level, proximity to health care services or the share of older residents — played a role in the trend.

The new Yale paper, by contrast, linked political affiliation to excess Covid deaths at the individual level, but it still used county-level vaccination rates. The research was also limited to two states.
"It may very well be that in Ohio and Florida, because of the nature of Ohioans and Floridians, vaccine uptake may have played a greater role than the country at large," Sehgal said.

NBC News from roughly a month ago.

[pbrower2a]

Josh Hawley’s 2022 Election Folly
His analysis is refuted by the voting evidence, and most of his favorites lost.
By Karl RoveFollow

Nov. 23, 2022 1:29 pm ET


Journal Editorial Report: Republicans might owe a House majority to gains in New York. Image: Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
A novel explanation for the GOP’s disappointing midterm comes from Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley. The problem, he writes, wasn’t candidate quality but substance: “The old Republican Party is dead.” Because too few candidates backed a Trumpian agenda of protectionism, less legal immigration, a crackdown on Big Tech and an end to tax cuts, “the red wave didn’t land.” Working people who support the Trump agenda “chose to stay home.”

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The data don’t bear this out. There were 113.7 million votes cast for House candidates in 2018. Republicans got 51 million and Democrats 60.7 million. Though votes are still being counted in California, so far this year Republicans received 54 million votes to 50.5 million for Democrats. Democrats had an 8.6% margin over Republicans in 2018; Republicans have a 3.3% edge in 2022.

Mr. Hawley also argues that working-class voters “have little enthusiasm” for the GOP. Data don’t back up this claim, either. According to the Fox News Voter Analysis, white noncollege voters in 2018 were 40% of the turnout and broke 59% Republican, 39% Democrat. In 2022, their share of the turnout ticked up to 41% and the Republican advantage grew to 65% to 32%. It appears Democrats have bigger problems than the GOP does among working-class voters.

Yet Mr. Hawley has half a point: The election results do reflect a problem of substance, specifically the damage Republicans did with candidates who went full-on Trumpy. If they echoed the former president’s issues, tone and stolen-election claims, they often lost and in almost every case ran behind the rest of the Republican ticket.


Ohio’s Sen.-elect J.D. Vance won with more than 2.1 million votes, or 53%, a margin of almost 7 points. But Gov. Mike DeWine, a quintessential traditional Republican, won re-election with 63%, receiving 380,000 more votes than Mr. Vance and sweeping the onetime swing state by more than 25 points.

Mr. Vance trailed the rest of the Buckeye Republican statewide ticket, each member of whom won with bigger margins. He received 286,000 fewer votes than the GOP’s attorney general candidate, 248,000 fewer than the Republican secretary of state, 201,000 fewer than the auditor hopeful and 194,000 fewer than the party’s treasurer nominee. All this despite Sen. Mitch McConnell’s super PAC spending $35 million to help Mr. Vance’s struggling campaign.

In the Arizona Senate race, one of Mr. Trump’s biggest acolytes, Blake Masters, lost by 126,000 votes, or 4.9%, the worst performance by a Grand Canyon State GOP Senate candidate in 34 years. The GOP’s secretary of state hopeful, Mark Finchem, who claimed the 2020 election was “stolen,” lost by 120,000 votes, or nearly 6%. The more traditional Republican nominee for state treasurer, Kimberly Yee, won 56% to 44%, receiving nearly 200,000 more votes than either Mr. Masters or Mr. Finchem.

New Hampshire’s Trumpian Senate nominee, Don Bolduc, lost by more than 9 points and nearly 57,000 votes, while the Trump-endorsed candidates for the state’s two congressional seats lost by a combined 61,000 votes, both running about 10 points behind the GOP’s expected performance in their districts. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu cruised to a 57% re-election, beating his Democrat opponent by nearly 95,000 votes and running ahead of Mr. Bolduc by 77,000 and the combined vote for the GOP’s two House candidates by almost 75,000.

Washington state’s Third Congressional District provides another example of the Trumpian problem. Propelled by Mr. Trump’s endorsement, veteran Joe Kent pushed aside incumbent GOP Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler in the primary. But he then lost the general election by less than 1% while the GOP’s extraordinary Senate candidate, Tiffany Smiley, ran ahead of him by 3 to 6 points in every county in the district. Similarly, with Mr. Trump’s endorsement in Michigan’s Third District, John Gibbs took out incumbent GOP Rep. Peter Meijer in a district rated D+1, then lost in the general election by nearly 13 points.

There are dozens of other examples, but the point is obvious: The principal reason Republicans came up short was that just when Americans were ready to vote for them to check Democratic excesses, the GOP nominated too many radicals and weirdos. Mr. Hawley—who raised a clinched fist in solidarity with those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—may not see that, but voters did.

Mr. Rove helped organize the political-action committee American Crossroads and is author of “The Triumph of William McKinley” (Simon & Schuster, 2015).

----------------------------------------------------

Comment: I have long loathed "Karl Rogue", but at times he tells the truth, especially when it has no possibility of hurting his favorite politicians. I agree with Karl Rogue on his analysis.

Karl Rove does not speak often (if at all) of the generational change in American politics. It is relevant, as are events. Under normal conditions, Republicans should have wiped out the Democratic Party in most elections, flipping thirty or more House seats and maybe five Senate seats. Just think: C-Span could be the new Horror Channel for any liberal without changing over to Frankenstein, Dracula, and the like.

The current GOP has become a veritable playground in which extremists can win lots of nominations. Extremists who cover their extremism can win, only to expose themselves in the next legislative session (think of 2010).

I look at my own state (Michigan) and I saw a Republican gubernatorial candidate saying "no exceptions" to a rigid ban on abortion and some "stolen election" claimants. They went down by decisive measures, and a referendum to legalize abortion went into effect. The State legislature has gone D, so it can abolish Michigan's Right-to-Work (for much less!) law.

Moderates like Sununu in New Hampshire can win; extremists like Dan Bolduc in New Hampsh9ire lose.

Demographics look bad for a Republican Party unable to turn on a dime. Extremists in Solid R states establish the agenda, and the demographic trend of America becoming more urban, educated, and non-white bodes ill for a Party that disrespects the values of America's Model Minorities who dread the Racist Right. That includes Jews and LGBT people for reasons that I need not discuss. America's Model Minorities are generally much more educated than the Trump cultists.

Republicans did not quite get the message from January 6, 2021, arguably the low point of American politics since... I dunno... the murders of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney by the KKK in Philadelphia, Mississippi? America turned on a dime after that disgusting triple murder, and it did not do so this time.

Cultural change will not favor Republicans until they adopt the virtues that they used to claim as theirs -- national loyalty, rational thought, high value on formal education, rule of law, protocol and precedent, self-control, and integrity. Republicans did not abandon those quickly, and getting those back will take much more time than the current electoral cycle. America's model minorities are already there, so if Republicans had kept their old virtues they could be gaining ground on Democrats. Younger adults may be liberal in politics, but they seem to go along with the old virtues that Republicans used to claim (wrongly) as theirs alone or at least predictable among themselves if not among Democrats.

We are approaching the end of the Crisis of 2020, and the political fads of the 3T that Republicans latched onto in the 1980's show how threadbare they are. A 4T typically includes the establishment of the conformist, egalitarian, and communitarian values of a 1T at the expense of 3T fads. (The ferocity of 4T responses to real danger dies as the dangers abate). We will soon prefer thrift to monetary legerdemain while greater uniformity in consumer results becomes the norm. Republicans have done little to form the 4T consensus. They offered one of institutional corruption, competition for the common man but not the economic elites, and superstition as an intellectual norm.