2024 Presidential Election Thread - Let's keep the party going.

[SydneyCarton 47,486]

2 hours ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

I've got family there, they say immigration/border issue is top issue there. Very anti-immigrant crowd, fear of changing the American way as they know it resonating loudly.  It's the mass out of control immigration that concerns them most.

aka horseshit, considering most of those fucking farmers depend on illegal immigration to work their fucking farms, along with (socialist) government subsidies.

Their "american way of life" ended decades ago when big business/corporations decided they were going to move into the farming sector. They're just too stupid/stubborn to realize the truth. Capitalism has done more than anything to hurt the American farmer, and the only thing saving it are socailist principles and illigal immigrants. /rant

[MonkeyDoughnut 10,008]

23 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

aka horseshit, considering most of those fucking farmers depend on illegal immigration to work their fucking farms, along with (socialist) government subsidies.

Their "american way of life" ended decades ago when big business/corporations decided they were going to move into the farming sector. They're just too stupid/stubborn to realize the truth. Capitalism has done more than anything to hurt the American farmer, and the only thing saving it are socailist principles and illigal immigrants. /rant

They view big business/corporate farming and immigrant labor as being tied together and reliant of each other. It's not "most" relying on it, it's the corporate farmers that they hate relying on it.

[Snake Diggity 4,572]

10 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Last weekend, I was fooling around with demographic figures to assess the likelihood that a state would swing Democratic and picked four traits, which, if a high enough share of the population exhibited, would favor going Blue. These are 1) the percentage of adults (25+) with a Bachelor's degree, 2) the percentage of people living in urban areas (as defined by the Census), 3) the percentage of people who are not Anglo (white non-Hispanic), and the percentage of people who are non-Evangelical (used a dated Pew survey). 

After doing some sorting of each and comparing it to the percentage of the vote that Biden got in 2020, I tried to pick the tipping point for each and shaded everything above that blue. If it didn't seem to matter, I left the numbers black. And, if they clearly favored Republicans, I shaded the numbers red.

The overall results composite score in the TOTAL column (sum of each percentage) that should serve as a predictor for the likelihood of voting Democratic holds up pretty well. If a state got 2.40 or greater, then it *should* vote Democratic. If it scored below 2.00, then theoretically, it should be a Republican state, according to these indicators.

It's not perfect because there are some outliers, such as Vermont, Maine, and Utah (the Pew Survey I looked at didn't have Mormon as a religious group). Vermont and Maine are largely rural and very white, but they're both irreligious and educated, especially Vermont.

For the Democrats, Texas scores very well, with our population being pretty urbanized on the scale and very well on non-Anglo. We do so-so on education but poorly on the share of our population that's non-Evangelical. After reflecting on these scores, I think what would tip us into the Democratic column would be more college graduates, as we're already Brown and Black enough.

North Carolina's problems are that it's still pretty rural, White, and Evangelical.

With these four factors, it's pretty easy to see why Iowa and Ohio have gone GOP and why Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia are swing states. Nevada and Arizona *should* be blue from here on out, but the latter needs a few election cycles to prove it.

Texas and Florida, man. Those are the two really tough ones to figure out. They have the numbers to be Democratic.

I think the learning over the last 10 years regarding Texas and Florida is that Mexican Americans and Cuban Americans do not vote blue.

[YGIFS 19,445]

Good analysis, Bolverk.  Not to nitpick because statistics are a pain in my ass.  When you say "urban", are you just doing like city limits, MSA's by census, TV markets, including any suburban within xyz# miles, or what?  

North Carolina, and I think Virginia gets overlooked on this too, is more fascinating to me as we've discussed than Arizona or Nevada or even Michigan.  Yeah, they are more rural and religious.  But I just think of Austin.  States with powerful magnet higher ed schools, suburbans with college degrees versus suburbans with no college degrees.  That's the deal-breaker.  Because how many people now stay in the area where they went to college?  It's getting higher and higher every single year.  You used to either not to college, or got a degree and went back home to put it to use, but places like the Research Triangle and Charlotte.  They're staying there.  People with degrees are getting the fuck outta Ohio as fast as possible so that's only get gonna get redder.  Florida is kinda in the middle, IMO.  

By 2032, all due respect to racial demography shifts of which I'm a shining example (mixed race having lived on both coasts, a large city-Chicago, and now Texas).  The whole thing, for the ensuing half century after that, will be college-educated women with mobility in suburbs/exurbs.  The amount of hand-wringing about the gender imbalance in higher education is going to get louder and louder, just wait.  It's already started in fact.  We marry for love and a nice ass, and will go down in socio-economic classes to do it.  They only marry up once they have education, equality, and mobility.  Once they increase their flight-spread across the country after getting that diploma, or even if they put down roots in the area they went to college...it's game over.  Maybe forever.  The old trope of uneducated wives being told how to vote by their husbands dies.  They move, they take jobs, start businesses, don't settle back in their hometown.  We largely know how they vote in urban areas.  But as more and more degrees are granted to females at a now almost 60-65/40-35 clip over males.  And then continue to get more and more agile and settle in suburbs/exurbs.  Then North Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, and even Florida will quite possibly go blue for the rest of our Republic.  

The narrative has been "More men need to learn a trade or get a STEM certificate, student loans are bullshit, gender imbalance on campuses is because of bullshit humanities stuff like Women's Studies and Art History!"  Remember all that shit from the last ten years.  It's been broadcasted over and over again to guise the real worry.  More and more women are getting better educations.  And with those, they can go wherever the fuck they want and do whatever the fuck they want (as it always shoulda been).  And once they start tilting the scales in those new suburbs and exurbs, it's all over.  The long game isn't M/F ratios on campus of 60/40, it's the opposite now.  And as they continue to spread across the key states where people want to live now (GA, FL, TX, AZ, CO, even MI & WI).  Only catch is they gotta stay politically engaged and be overtaken by 20-something apathy.  Otherwise, this has been the long game all along.

[South Austin 51,681]

3 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

I don't get Iowa.

They want to ban Terrence Mann novels.  What more information do you need?

[YGIFS 19,445]

5 minutes ago, South Austin said:

They want to ban Terrence Mann novels.  What more information do you need?

YOU NAZI COW!  (sorry my bad, thought we were talking about Georgia's Marjorie Taylor-Green, not Iowa).  

[Walser 1,090]

9 minutes ago, South Austin said:

They want to ban Terrence Mann novels.  What more information do you need?

I said speak your mind Jack, but Jesus!

[bolverk 29,095]

6 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Good analysis, Bolverk.  Not to nitpick because statistics are a pain in my ass.  When you say "urban", are you just doing like city limits, MSA's by census, TV markets, including any suburban within xyz# miles, or what?  

 

Thanks. I used the Census definition of urban mainly because it was a very easy dataset to pull from their website. I could've done something else, say, the share of the population living in counties with more than 500,000 people, but that would've taken a lot more work. But, still, in the aggregate, I think urban vs. rural works out mas o menos since most of the literature I've read is that greater population density has a strong correlation with voting Democratic.

https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/geo-areas/urban-rural.html

[C-Man 26,734]

4 hours ago, Hard Times said:

Even Putin prefers Biden. This is over before it starts.

Putin says Russia prefers Biden to Trump because he is 'more experienced and predictable' (msn.com)

[bolverk 29,095]

15 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

I think the learning over the last 10 years regarding Texas and Florida is that Mexican Americans and Cuban Americans do not vote blue.

That's definitely true of Cuban Americans.

I think Hispanics in Texas tend to vote Democratic 60/40, which is likely lower than in other states: a) a higher share of them live in lower-density places, especially West and South Texas, as opposed to other states where I'd bet (haven't run the numbers) a much higher percentage of them are concentrated in big cities, b) a lot of Texas Hispanics are employed in oil & gas again in West and South Texas, and c) a higher share of Texas Hispanics are Evangelical (this is a total guess and I might be talking out of my ass on this last point).

Two other things to keep in mind are that a) the Hispanic population of Texas is still quite young, and we all know that young people of all stripes vote at lower rates, and b) voter suppression has been successful in Texas.

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/15/1193747771/latino-political-power-texas

[Michael Knight 12,725]

 

 

https://www.threads.net/@kurthdietrich/post/C3Vp0ZorZmm

[babysdaddy 2,708]

 

 

[South Austin 51,681]

51 minutes ago, Walser said:

I said speak your mind Jack, but Jesus!

Different black guy, but I guess they all look the same to you!

[Ghost of LL 15,255]

1 hour ago, bolverk said:

Last weekend, I was fooling around with demographic figures to assess the likelihood that a state would swing Democratic and picked four traits, which, if a high enough share of the population exhibited, would favor going Blue. These are 1) the percentage of adults (25+) with a Bachelor's degree, 2) the percentage of people living in urban areas (as defined by the Census), 3) the percentage of people who are not Anglo (white non-Hispanic), and the percentage of people who are non-Evangelical (used a dated Pew survey). 

After doing some sorting of each and comparing it to the percentage of the vote that Biden got in 2020, I tried to pick the tipping point for each and shaded everything above that blue. If it didn't seem to matter, I left the numbers black. And, if they clearly favored Republicans, I shaded the numbers red.

The overall results composite score in the TOTAL column (sum of each percentage) that should serve as a predictor for the likelihood of voting Democratic holds up pretty well. If a state got 2.40 or greater, then it *should* vote Democratic. If it scored below 2.00, then theoretically, it should be a Republican state, according to these indicators.

It's not perfect because there are some outliers, such as Vermont, Maine, and Utah (the Pew Survey I looked at didn't have Mormon as a religious group). Vermont and Maine are largely rural and very white, but they're both irreligious and educated, especially Vermont.

For the Democrats, Texas scores very well, with our population being pretty urbanized on the scale and very well on non-Anglo. We do so-so on education but poorly on the share of our population that's non-Evangelical. After reflecting on these scores, I think what would tip us into the Democratic column would be more college graduates, as we're already Brown and Black enough.

North Carolina's problems are that it's still pretty rural, White, and Evangelical.

With these four factors, it's pretty easy to see why Iowa and Ohio have gone GOP and why Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia are swing states. Nevada and Arizona *should* be blue from here on out, but the latter needs a few election cycles to prove it.

Texas and Florida, man. Those are the two really tough ones to figure out. They have the numbers to be Democratic.

I think people sleep on Alaska, and your overview kind of reflects that.

Alaska has stayed Republican because, well let's face it, it's a reasonably new state and a lot of its partisan alignment is the direct result from the issues over statehood and the personal brand of certain long-serving officeholders (Hawai'i is the same way).  Alaska is hugely supported by the federal government.  So nobody has really cared whether Ted Stevens or Don Young or Frank Murkowski is a Dem or a Rep; all that matters is whether they bring home the federal money.

But the fundamentals don't completely favor the GQP.  As noted above, it has an enormous non-white population.  And it is actually surprisingly urban.  And while the percentage of the population with a bachelor degree is low, there are comparatively few Evangelicals.  

So when Don Young died, it's not particularly surprising that Peltola won.  And she's now the most popular figure in Alaska politics.  And that's the model.  It's the Arizona model.  Get the Native American population on board and mobilized for voting Democratic.  And then blend that with the urban and educated suburban electorate.  Oh, and weird thing--they really like weed in rural Alaska.  So that's another occasional base for Democratic support (particularly in the bush).

[bolverk 29,095]

14 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

I think people sleep on Alaska, and your overview kind of reflects that.

Alaska has stayed Republican because, well let's face it, it's a reasonably new state and a lot of its partisan alignment is the direct result from the issues over statehood and the personal brand of certain long-serving officeholders (Hawai'i is the same way).  Alaska is hugely supported by the federal government.  So nobody has really cared whether Ted Stevens or Don Young or Frank Murkowski is a Dem or a Rep; all that matters is whether they bring home the federal money.

But the fundamentals don't completely favor the GQP.  As noted above, it has an enormous non-white population.  And it is actually surprisingly urban.  And while the percentage of the population with a bachelor degree is low, there are comparatively few Evangelicals.  

So when Don Young died, it's not particularly surprising that Peltola won.  And she's now the most popular figure in Alaska politics.  And that's the model.  It's the Arizona model.  Get the Native American population on board and mobilized for voting Democratic.  And then blend that with the urban and educated suburban electorate.  Oh, and weird thing--they really like weed in rural Alaska.  So that's another occasional base for Democratic support (particularly in the bush).

Yeah, I tend to agree. My belief about what's holding it back is that Anchorage hasn't grown enough to dominate the state. Plus, there are A LOT of anti-government crazies in Mat-Su borough, where Wasilla is. I did a consulting gig for that borough back in 2009, and they gave me a tour of the area, showing where there were actual fortress-like compounds. We were in a government vehicle, and I asked the driver to stop so I could take a picture of one. She was serious when she said we shouldn't stop because we might get shot at. She later explained that when people move to the area from the lower 48, there is a reason: they're either hiding from the government (law) or from someone else. That's probably an exaggeration, but I certainly believed it at the time.

 

Here's one photo I managed to take. There was another one where an old yellow school bus formed part of the barrier. 

 

[Js1 83,619]

56 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

I think people sleep on Alaska, and your overview kind of reflects that.

Alaska has stayed Republican because, well let's face it, it's a reasonably new state and a lot of its partisan alignment is the direct result from the issues over statehood and the personal brand of certain long-serving officeholders (Hawai'i is the same way).  Alaska is hugely supported by the federal government.  So nobody has really cared whether Ted Stevens or Don Young or Frank Murkowski is a Dem or a Rep; all that matters is whether they bring home the federal money.

But the fundamentals don't completely favor the GQP.  As noted above, it has an enormous non-white population.  And it is actually surprisingly urban.  And while the percentage of the population with a bachelor degree is low, there are comparatively few Evangelicals.  

So when Don Young died, it's not particularly surprising that Peltola won.  And she's now the most popular figure in Alaska politics.  And that's the model.  It's the Arizona model.  Get the Native American population on board and mobilized for voting Democratic.  And then blend that with the urban and educated suburban electorate.  Oh, and weird thing--they really like weed in rural Alaska.  So that's another occasional base for Democratic support (particularly in the bush).

Blueska is coming. Same with Bluesas. Blexas ain’t happening. 

[Rimbo 25,246]

2 hours ago, South Austin said:

They want to ban Terrence Mann novels.  What more information do you need?

Well, for starters, who the fuck is Terrence Mann?

[SydneyCarton 47,486]

10 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

Well, for starters, who the fuck is Terrence Mann?

Is this a serious question?

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,247]

Edited February 15 by Hugo Stiglitz

[YChang 3,394]

26 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Blexas ain’t happening. 

For near-term I'll settle for pink to lilac. 😃

[Red Five 40,449]

27 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

Well, for starters, who the fuck is Terrence Mann?

[Rimbo 25,246]

18 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Is this a serious question?

yes

[Rimbo 25,246]

2 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Oh... I thought you might've meant THIS guy:

 

[The Original Greaser Bob 2,729]

Henry Cisneros?

[bolverk 29,095]

If anyone wants a Census reference map for urban areas in the US, here's the link. It's a pain-in-the-ass pdf, and you'll have to zoom in a bunch, but I thought I'd share it anyway for the curious.

[gmr548 16,315]

2 hours ago, bolverk said:

Thanks. I used the Census definition of urban mainly because it was a very easy dataset to pull from their website. I could've done something else, say, the share of the population living in counties with more than 500,000 people, but that would've taken a lot more work. But, still, in the aggregate, I think urban vs. rural works out mas o menos since most of the literature I've read is that greater population density has a strong correlation with voting Democratic.

https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/geo-areas/urban-rural.html

Urban/rural is a weird split to pin down in Texas. There are very conservative rural areas that are part of the major MSAs due to being located in a given county. There are places like Bell County, Lubbock County, Nueces County, etc. that no one would really call culturally urban but have populations north of 250k-300k and would be top five or ten counties in most swing states.

[SydneyCarton 47,486]

8 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

yes

Yeah, he's the fictional writer/poet from Field of Dreams played by James Earl Jones, which I guess is why another poster upthread quoted The Hunt for Red October as well. 

[Rimbo 25,246]

4 minutes ago, The Original Greaser Bob said:

Henry Cisneros?

J D Salinger, the author in the book. Movie replaced him with the fictional Terrence Mann.

[bolverk 29,095]

Just now, gmr548 said:

Urban/rural is a weird split to pin down in Texas. There are very conservative rural areas that are part of the major MSAs due to being located in a given county. There are places like Bell County, Lubbock County, Nueces County, etc. that no one would really call culturally urban but have populations north of 250k-300k and would be top five or ten counties in most swing states.

I get that, but again, I just wanted to pull a single, quick, easy-to-download dataset for each state. None of the indicators should be taken as gospel, but it gets at tendencies. Take, for example, this map posted by @Hornius Emeritus showing how the vote for each county would be if it voted the same as the largest city in each county. You see a lot of counties flipping. Population density tends to favor Democrats.

Lubbock, Potter (Amarillo), Nueces (Corpus), and Bell (Temple-Killeen) go blue under that scenario.

 

[The Original Greaser Bob 2,729]

9 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

J D Salinger, the author in the book. Movie replaced him with the fictional Terrence Mann.

That's partly true, but it isn't all true.  People always think something's all true.

[gmr548 16,315]

4 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I get that, but again, I just wanted to pull a single, quick, easy-to-download dataset for each state. None of the indicators should be taken as gospel, but it gets at tendencies. Take, for example, this map posted by @Hornius Emeritus showing how the vote for each county would be if it voted the same as the largest city in each county. You see a lot of counties flipping. Population density tends to favor Democrats.

Lubbock, Potter (Amarillo), Nueces (Corpus), and Bell (Temple-Killeen) go blue under that scenario.

 

Yeah I'm not knocking your methodology just pointing out that Texas is kind of culturally weird in that regard.

Case in point: College Station. Brazos County would be the 10th largest county in GA, 12th largest in NC (and just a few thousand from #8, weird cluster right at 235k), fifth largest county in AZ, 10th largest in MI, etc etc. In Texas, much like aggy football's national stature, it is fringe top 25. No one is referring to aggyland as an urban center, but you add it together with Bell, Brazoria, Lubbock, Nueces, and McLennan Counties and you've gone and cancelled out Democrats' largest raw vote margin in Dallas County.

This state won't flip until the suburbs electoral preferences reflect their demographics as opposed to their lilly white southern evangelical roots.

[South Austin 51,681]

50 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

Well, for starters, who the fuck is Terrence Mann?

Go to your room!

[safe sex 11,608]

Field of Dreams is very overrated, come at me.

[Bozo_Casanova 25,903]

3 hours ago, bolverk said:

Texas and Florida, man. Those are the two really tough ones to figure out

Good analysis Bolverk, but Texas is not hard to figure out. Parties are not symbolic rallying points. They are coordinating mechanisms of money and energy around a set of outcomes and the Democratic apparatus in the state is organized around losing. It’s the only thing they know how to do and all of their muscle memory propels them in that direction. I’m not being hyperbolic. Lost elections are the product they manufacture at this point.  That’s why demography is fools gold were.
 

a Democratic candidate can  win in Texas and almost has in recent memory (Beto for Senate and Bell) but they did it by operating outside the party. Once they were welcomed back things went sideways.

Edited February 15 by Bozo_Casanova

[The Original Greaser Bob 2,729]

1 minute ago, gmr548 said:

but you add it together with Bell, Brazoria, Lubbock, Nueces, and McLennan Counties and you've...

...got a retarded stew going.

[The Original Greaser Bob 2,729]

2 minutes ago, safe sex said:

Field of Dreams is very overrated, come at me.

You're being too kind, dude.  It's a cloying slog but it does feature the song Jessica.

[gmr548 16,315]

1 minute ago, The Original Greaser Bob said:

...got a retarded stew going.

[bolverk 29,095]

2 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

Yeah I'm not knocking your methodology just pointing out that Texas is kind of culturally weird in that regard.

Case in point: College Station. Brazos County would be the 10th largest county in GA, 12th largest in NC (and just a few thousand from #8, weird cluster right at 235k), fifth largest county in AZ, 10th largest in MI, etc etc. In Texas, much like aggy football's national stature, it is fringe top 25. No one is referring to aggyland as an urban center, but you add it together with Bell, Brazoria, Lubbock, Nueces, and McLennan Counties and you've gone and cancelled out Democrats' largest raw vote margin in Dallas County.

This state won't flip until the suburbs electoral preferences reflect their demographics as opposed to their lilly white southern evangelical roots.

Absolutely. There are other factors at play for sure. I just tried to boil it down to a few easy metrics that could be applied across the country. Your culture case is a good one, and what I was trying to get at with the non-evangelical metric. But, culturally, a lot of Texans still buy into the mythology of the state being some Western frontier where they have to drive a big ol' pick-em-up truck to get around anywhere. Just watch teevee a bit, and you'll see a commercial for a King Ranch, Built Ford Tough, F-150.

Then, there's the oil aspect of it too. Take a look at the voting tendencies of each occupation: https://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/ There's obviously more factors than the four I pulled data on, but as is, it's still fairly predictive.

So, yeah, I get that and agree with what you're saying.

[Red Five 40,449]

Field of Dreams is amazing. Fuck y'all. 

['stache 21,589]

Unpopular opinions thread is over there, but goddamned, that should be in an “Objectively Terrible Opinions” thread.

[cactusflinthead 27,229]

 

[South Austin 51,681]

4 hours ago, safe sex said:

Field of Dreams is very overrated, come at me.

Donald Trump occasionally says things that are smarter than this.

[Brisketexan 103,648]

6 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Donald Trump occasionally says things that are smarter than this.

Man.   You're giving Trump a LOT of credit for saying "Ivanka is quite fuckable."

[YGIFS 19,445]

7 hours ago, safe sex said:

Field of Dreams is very overrated, come at me.

Are you fucking serious, woman?  If you wanna say 'overrated', I can live with that.  'Very overrated'...now you just being a damn fool!  It's a metaphor about how baseball is a metaphor.  That's why we use the term "meta" now like we do.  Goddamnit, here I thought you were cool.  

[safe sex 11,608]

It's like fine. 

[SubliminalHorn 6,403]

I’ve never even seen it. Looks meh

[YGIFS 19,445]

Okay, after I'm done demolishing MAGA, we are all going donnybrooks.  I cry every damn time I see that movie.  You people are fucking wretched!  

[safe sex 11,608]

9 minutes ago, SubliminalHorn said:

I’ve never even seen it. Looks meh

There are better baseball movies that don't ask you to connect with heterosexual father issues in order to deeply engage with it

Edited February 16 by safe sex

[YGIFS 19,445]

Oh goddamnit, you're talking about "Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch", aren't you?  

[texasdago 7,463]

Stop trying to make fetch happen