Tag: Democrats

This is a part of a series of posts analyzing the 2010 midterm elections. This post will focus on the Illinois Senate election, in which Republican candidate Mark Kirk pulled out a close Republican victory in a strongly Democratic state.

Illinois’s Senatorial Election

More below.

Senator Mark Kirk’s victory follows the contours of a previous post, titled Previewing Senate Elections: Illinois. This post argued:

So what does Mr. Kirk have to do? Say that  he gets 35% of the vote in Cook County – propelled by inner-ring  suburban strength and minority apathy – and wins a landslide everywhere  else in the state (for instance, a 3:2 margin). This gives him 50.3% of  the vote in the 2008 Illinois electorate. If white Republicans downstate  turn out, and minorities in Chicago do not, Mr. Kirk may get bumped up  to a 2-3% victory.

As it turns out, this is almost exactly what actually happened in the election.

The previous analysis divided Illinois into three sections: Chicago, the suburbs of Chicago, and downstate Illinois. Let’s take a look at what Mr. Kirk did in each part of Illinois.

Chicago

Illinois is generally a Democratic stronghold. Cook County, home to the  city of Chicago, composes more than 40% of the state’s population, and  Democrats always win by a landslide in the county. Republicans have to  stretch themselves to the limit everywhere else in the state – winning  even the areas that normally vote Democratic – to get close.

But Republicans also must dampen Democratic margins in Cook County. This happens if Republicans can do well in the parts of Cook County outside Chicago, which are whiter and more conservative. In the city of Chicago itself, most voters are so Democratic that they will prefer not voting to casting the ballot for a Republican. There, low turn-out is more important for Republicans than actually winning over voters.

In 2010, Democratic candidate Alexi Giannoulias won 64.3% of the vote in Cook County.

At first glance, this sounds quite good. Winning 64.3% of the vote is nothing to sniff at. No president has ever won that much of the popular vote in history.

But Senator John Kerry won 70.2% of the vote in Cook County. And President Barack Obama took 76.2% of the vote. In modern Illinois politics, a Democratic candidate who takes only 64.3% of the vote in Cook County is in deep trouble.

Chicago’s Suburbs

“Previewing Senate Elections, Illinois” stated that:

The true test of Mark Kirk’s candidacy will come in the Chicago suburbs…

He will not just have to win the suburbs, but  turn the clock back two decades – back to the glory years in which  Republicans won around 70% of the vote in DuPage County. (Mr. Kirk will  probably not have to do that well, given rising Republican strength  downstate.)

Is this doable? Given that Republicans seem  to be winning suburbs everywhere this year, it is certainly possible.  Mr. Kirk, moreover, has spent a decade representing a Chicago suburb  congressional district; this is why Republicans have nominated him.

As it turned out, Mr. Kirk passed the test with flying colors. His moderate image and suburban origin led to double-digit victories in every one of the collar counties surrounding Cook County.

In the past, Republicans have won Illinois through massive support in the Chicago’s suburbs to offset the Democratic advantage in Chicago itself. Mr. Kirk was able to somewhat replicate this model in 2010:

This strength did not extend to all Republicans. Republican candidate Bill Brady, for instance, still won the Chicago suburbs. But his margins were just the slightest bit off – a high single-digit rather than double-digit victory here; a 15-point rather than 20-point margin there – and ultimately this led to Mr. Brady’s defeat.

Downstate Illinois

Imagine that the year is 1990, and Republican Mark Kirk pulls the exact same numbers in the Chicago metropolis.

Most analysts in that year would say that Mr. Kirk is on his way to a sure loss – after all, Democrats are quite competitive in downstate Illinois, and Mr. Kirk just hasn’t squeezed enough juice from the collar counties.

Today, however, downstate Illinois has trended firmly Republican. Without this trend Mr. Kirk would not have won.

Here is an illustration of Illinois in the 1992 presidential election:

President Bill Clinton is doing quite well, winning almost every single county downstate – many by double-digits. Compare this to President Barack Obama’s performance:

Mr. Obama is actually doing much better in Illinois than Mr. Clinton, and yet he loses a number of the downstate counties Mr. Clinton won.

This illustrates the shift in downstate Illinois to the Republican side, and in 2010 Mr. Kirk took full advantage of that trend to win re-election.

Conclusions

The post “Previewing Senate Elections: Illinois” concluded by mapping, somewhat light-heartedly, a hypothetical Republican victory:

Mr. Kirk’s victory ended up looking extremely similar:

All in all, it is always exciting to see a Republican victory in a Democratic  stronghold, or a Democratic victory in a Republican stronghold. Mr.  Kirk’s victory is the first time a Republican has won Illinois in quite a  while. It constitutes one of the Republican Party’s greatest triumphs  in the 2010 midterm elections.

–Inoljt

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The state of Texas is one of the Republican Party’s most valuable strongholds. It adds a good 38 electoral votes to the Republican candidate’s electoral vote; Democrats have not been competitive in the state for at least a decade.

One of the only Democratic regions in Texas lies along the Rio Grande River:

More below.

This region is the part of Texas that borders Mexico. It is readily apparent in the map above as the only group of blue counties that President Barack Obama won outside of a major city.

The area is one of the most Hispanic areas in the United States; there are places, especially next to the border of Mexico, where the Hispanic percentage approaches 100%. Some of these people have lived along the Rio Grande for hundreds of years, with roots dating back to when Texas was a part of Mexico.

There are several other distinguishing characteristics. The parts of Texas along the Mexican border are among the poorest regions in the United States. Politically speaking, voter turn-out is very low – perhaps lower than any other part of the country.

When the rest of Texas moved steadily Republican, South Texas swung leftwards for much of the twentieth century. In 1996 the Democratic presidential nominee won almost every single county south of San Antonio, some with over 80% of the vote.

Since then, however, Republicans have recovered their verve. President George W. Bush did incredibly well amongst Hispanics in Texas; in 2004 he even won 86% Hispanic Cameron County in the Rio Grande Valley. In 2008 the Democratic presidential candidate once again posted solid numbers along the Rio Grande. Nevertheless, they ran well behind their 1996 performance throughout the region:

(Note: Edited NYT Image)

Compared to 1988 – a year in which the Democratic presidential candidate suffered a resounding national defeat – the 2008 nominee, despite winning a solid national victory, also failed to improve markedly in the Rio Grande area:

(Note: Edited Center For American Progress Image This image can be accessed here.)

Note that in 2008 Democrats lost Texas by 11.8%; in 1988 they lost Texas by 12.6%.

In the 2010 midterm elections Republicans also made several gains in South Texas, winning two heavily Hispanic congressional districts. The first was the 23rd congressional district, which is 65.5% Hispanic; the second the 27th congressional district, which is 71.6% (!) Hispanic.

These patterns are not unique to Texas. In rural south Colorado, for instance, traditionally Hispanic counties have also trended Republican since the 1990s.

Whether the areas of Texas bordering the Rio Grande River will continue moving Democratic or Republican is up-to-question. In Texas, the effects of Mr. Bush’s appeal to Hispanics still are heard; Hispanics in the state are some of the more conservative in the country. The Texas Republican Party has also been relatively moderate on immigration issues. For instance, Republican Governor Rick Perry – a firecracker on other issues – opposes SB 1070.

Needless to say, Republican success at cutting Democratic margins in the counties bordering the Rio Grande would constitute a major achievement for the party.

If a Democrat is ever to win Texas – and none has done so for more than a decade – he or she will need enormous margins there. If Republicans go from 30+% to 40+% of the vote in El Paso or Hidalgo County, it is very difficult to imagine Democrats ever winning Texas.

For more than a decade Democrats have latched onto the Great Hispanic Hope: that growing numbers of Democratic-voting Latinos in Texas will one day turn the state blue. Republican success at winning Hispanics would crush that dream.

This is a part of a series of posts analyzing the 2010 midterm elections. This post will discuss the 2010 Florida gubernatorial election, which Republican candidate Rick Scott won in an extremely close contest.

Florida’s Gubernatorial Election

On November 2010, Democrat Alex Sink faced an extremely flawed Republican opponent: multimillionaire Rick Scott, a businessman accused of heading the biggest fraud in Medicare history.

Ms. Sink still lost, running in a Republican leaning state in a very Republican environment. Here is what happened:

More below.

This constitutes a classic map of a close race in Florida. Ms. Sink wins the counties that she needs to win in the I-4 central corridor. For a Democrat, she performs relatively strongly in conservative northern Florida.

Turn-Out

What kills Ms. Sink, however, is Democratic turn-out.

To gain some perspective on this, let’s compare Ms. Sink’s performance with that of President Barack Obama’s:

Note that the circles depicted here are not equivalent. In 2008 8.4 million people voted; in 2010 only 5.3 million did. So the absolute margins of 2008 – regardless of whether Mr. Obama won or lost the county – are much bigger.

Nevertheless, one can see that Mr. Obama gets quite a bit more mileage out of the counties he wins than Ms. Sink does. This is especially true along the Democratic, minority-heavy strongholds of Orlando and South Florida.

In 2008 these places composed a greater share of the Florida electorate than they did in 2010; minority and Democratic turn-out fell disproportionately in the mid-term. In 2008 Orlando and South Florida (i.e. Broward, Miami-Dade, Orange, and Palm Beach counties) composed 31.6% of the electorate; in 2010 they composed 29.2% of the electorate. This does not seem like much, but it makes a difference when the margin of victory is 1.2%.

On a county-by-county basis, Mr. Scott’s margin would be cut from 61,550 to 15,226 in the 2008 electorate, even if his share of each county’s vote does not change (only the number of voters in each county does). I suspect that if you adjust this on a precinct level – if you give each precinct the same number of voters it had in 2008, without changing the percent of the vote Ms. Sink and Mr. Scott got in that precinct – Ms. Sink would have won outright.

Turn-Out

There is one part of Florida, however, in which Ms. Sink did much better than Mr. Obama. It’s hard see this in the previous maps, due to the low population of this region. Here is a better illustration:

As the map indicates, Northern Florida moved quite strongly towards Ms. Sink, although not strongly enough to offset her losses elsewhere.

There are a variety of explanations for why this might be. The rural, poor, Southern voters there might have been turned off a wealthy businessman as a Republican candidate. Ms. Sink might have overperformed amongst Republicans.

It is also true that Mr. Obama did quite poorly amongst these voters, losing many of these counties by 40+ margins. Partly this had to do with his status as a big-city Chicago liberal. Mostly, however, Mr. Obama did poorly because he was black.

Half a century ago northern Florida was the most Democratic part of the state, back in the days of the Solid South. Since then the Democratic Party has moved away from these voters (see: John Kerry, Barack Obama); it gets progressively harder each election for a Democrat to win them, although some still do. Ms. Sink’s improvement over Mr. Obama, then, might have been the last gasp of a dying breed: white Dixie Democrats.

Conclusions

In the dying days of Florida’s gubernatorial campaign, Democratic candidate Alex Sink was accused of cheating during the gubernatorial debate. The scandal broke during the final days of the campaign, derailing a crucial time for any campaign. Pundits will point to the scandal as responsible for the 1.2% margin by which Ms. Sink lost.

Yet it may have been another event, seemingly unrelated, that truly undid Ms. Sink. During the campaign’s final days, Independent Charlie Crist – running for Florida’s Senate seat – mounted a concerted effort to get Democrat Kendrick  Meek to drop-out. The coverage dominated national news, blackened the image of both participants, and demoralized Democrats everywhere in Florida.

It may have also led to Ms. Sink’s defeat. In many ways the candidate did what she had to do – she won the right places and improved on Mr. Obama in the most Republican part of Florida. I remember looking at her northern Florida numbers on election day and feeling somewhat optimistic about her chances. With the vote in at 50%, Ms. Sink stood behind by 5% – but the Democratic Gold Coast hadn’t started reporting. She could close things once the Democratic strongholds Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties came in.

But Ms. Sink never did fully close the gap. Democratic turn-out killed Ms. Sink, as it did with many others in 2010.

–Inoljt

P.S. Here is a table I created, some of whose information is used in this post.

Republican Margin: Change   from 2008 to 2010	2010 County Percent of Vote	2008 County Percent of Vote	Change in Turn-Out	Sink Under 2008 Electorate	County
0.11%	1.38%	1.50%	-0.12%	-26919	Alachua
-29.35%	0.15%	0.13%	0.02%	3091	Baker
-2.73%	1.03%	0.97%	0.06%	30805	Bay
-17.09%	0.15%	0.14%	0.01%	2706	Bradford
2.87%	3.66%	3.43%	0.23%	38254	Brevard
3.50%	7.83%	8.74%	-0.90%	-229201	Broward
-32.24%	0.08%	0.07%	0.01%	504	Calhoun
6.87%	1.11%	1.02%	0.09%	12047	Charlotte
-0.81%	1.02%	0.91%	0.11%	11629	Citrus
0.12%	1.19%	1.13%	0.06%	40617	Clay
10.14%	1.92%	1.69%	0.23%	46331	Collier
-12.40%	0.35%	0.34%	0.02%	6001	Columbia
-1.01%	0.13%	0.12%	0.01%	1146	Desoto
-30.47%	0.10%	0.09%	0.01%	1047	Dixie
3.81%	4.88%	4.95%	-0.07%	23793	Duval
-0.78%	1.79%	1.84%	-0.05%	28636	Escambia
11.39%	0.62%	0.59%	0.04%	4833	Flagler
-28.01%	0.08%	0.07%	0.00%	-10	Franklin
-7.45%	0.31%	0.27%	0.04%	-10451	Gadsden
-18.49%	0.10%	0.09%	0.01%	2214	Gilchrist
-0.63%	0.05%	0.05%	0.00%	832	Glades
-15.77%	0.09%	0.09%	0.01%	1693	Gulf
-13.24%	0.07%	0.07%	0.01%	75	Hamilton
-5.83%	0.10%	0.09%	0.01%	1761	Hardee
5.24%	0.12%	0.13%	-0.01%	1354	Hendry
4.90%	1.09%	1.05%	0.04%	7458	Hernando
2.20%	0.56%	0.53%	0.02%	9074	Highlands
3.79%	5.93%	6.12%	-0.19%	-17133	Hillsborough
-24.68%	0.11%	0.10%	0.01%	3460	Holmes
6.92%	0.88%	0.84%	0.04%	15364	Indian River
-24.48%	0.28%	0.26%	0.02%	754	Jackson
-14.85%	0.12%	0.09%	0.02%	-1476	Jefferson
-43.33%	0.05%	0.04%	0.01%	574	Lafayette
2.61%	1.90%	1.75%	0.15%	23697	Lake
11.33%	3.39%	3.21%	0.19%	58504	Lee
-11.04%	1.86%	1.77%	0.09%	-52485	Leon
-5.68%	0.24%	0.22%	0.01%	3976	Levy
-45.26%	0.04%	0.04%	0.00%	-43	Liberty
-10.71%	0.12%	0.11%	0.01%	-680	Madison
5.42%	1.98%	1.81%	0.17%	18952	Manatee
2.02%	2.13%	1.93%	0.20%	22073	Marion
2.07%	1.01%	0.93%	0.08%	12257	Martin
1.82%	9.11%	10.28%	-1.17%	-123556	Miami-Dade
5.01%	0.49%	0.48%	0.01%	48	Monroe
-4.23%	0.50%	0.46%	0.04%	15161	Nassau
0.69%	1.14%	1.14%	0.00%	43580	Okaloosa
-5.99%	0.15%	0.15%	0.00%	1684	Okeechobee
7.48%	5.07%	5.50%	-0.43%	-51546	Orange
13.29%	1.00%	1.20%	-0.20%	-6459	Osceola
4.16%	7.15%	7.03%	0.12%	-110658	Palm Beach
4.88%	2.55%	2.56%	-0.01%	18217	Pasco
2.55%	5.66%	5.53%	0.13%	-26374	Pinellas
4.83%	2.99%	2.92%	0.07%	26880	Polk
0.37%	0.40%	0.40%	0.00%	6523	Putnam
-3.26%	0.93%	0.91%	0.02%	34011	Santa Rosa
4.40%	2.71%	2.47%	0.24%	9360	Sarasota
4.00%	2.46%	2.45%	0.01%	13996	Seminole
-1.39%	1.40%	1.26%	0.13%	31952	St. Johns
7.18%	1.41%	1.44%	-0.03%	-5928	St. Lucie
1.21%	0.78%	0.58%	0.20%	13803	Sumter
-13.75%	0.25%	0.21%	0.04%	5189	Suwannee
-17.01%	0.12%	0.11%	0.01%	2058	Taylor
-46.53%	0.07%	0.06%	0.00%	169	Union
7.74%	2.94%	2.91%	0.03%	5093	Volusia
-21.92%	0.21%	0.17%	0.03%	415	Wakulla
-5.00%	0.35%	0.32%	0.03%	11029	Walton
-16.60%	0.15%	0.13%	0.02%	3462	Washington
3.97%	100.00%	100.00%	0.00%	15226	Total

Asians are one of the most ignored constituencies in American politics. When most politicians think about the Asian vote, they don’t.

Yet the Asian-American population is increasing, both in absolute terms and relative ones. By 2050, the Census estimates that Asians will compose 7.8% of the American population. Although their voting rates will still fall far short of this, the population is becoming more influential. Predicting their future voting path therefore has some utility.

In previous posts, this blogger has argued that the Latino vote will likely trend Republican, as Latinos follow the path of previous immigrants and become more assimilated.

Will the same happen for Asian-Americans?

More below.

Probably not:

As the graph above shows, the Asian vote has steadily moved Democratic, in quite a significant manner. In 1992 Republican President George H.W. Bush won 55% of the Asian vote while losing the popular vote. 12 years later, his son won only 41% of Asians, despite winning the popular vote.

The trend also does not look bright for the Republican Party. Asian-Americans who have been born in the United States are, if anything, more Democratic than those who immigrated into the country (to be fair, the latter group dominates the Asian population and will continue to do so unless immigration is drastically curtailed).

Take, for instance, the Vietnamese-American population – strong supporters of the Republican Party. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, after conducting an extensive exit poll of Asians (perhaps the only detailed exit poll of the group in the country), found that:

Vietnamese American voters gave McCain the strongest support of all Asian ethnic groups at 67%. However, further analysis of Vietnamese American voters revealed 69% of those born in the U.S. and 60% of those 18-29 years old voted for Obama. Among Vietnamese American respondents, 15% were born in the U.S. and 25% were between the ages of 18 and 29.

The analysis goes on to conclude that:

AALDEF’s exit poll data shows that younger, U.S.-born, more recently naturalized, and English proficient Asian American citizens voted for Barack Obama for President by wide margins. Older, foreign-born citizens with limited English proficiency and who had been naturalized more than ten years ago voted in greater proportions for McCain.

There are several explanations for why this is happening. One quite plausible argument is that immigration has shifted the Asian-American population from Orange County anti-communists to Silicon Valley liberals.

Another revealing insight can be gained by comparing Asians to another very Democratic group: Jews. In many ways the two have a startling amount in common. Both groups are highly educated; both are primarily located in urban metropolitan areas; both have achieved substantial success in American society; and both have encountered quite similar types of discrimination. Even the stereotypes are similar.

Given these similarities, it is very conceivable that Asians could end up voting like Jews – one of the most liberal-minded groups in the nation.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

To follow up the series of posts on Colorado, I’ve posted a few recent presidential elections in the state (courtesy of the New York Times). Each map comes with some brief analysis.

Boosted by a Democratic National Convention held in Denver, Senator Barack Obama wins a thorough victory in the ultimate swing state of 2008. The Democratic candidate does especially well in the Republican-leaning suburbs of Denver – winning several outright and dampening margins in Douglas County and Colorado Springs.

More below.

Written off early as a sure Republican victory, Colorado surprises pundits in 2004 with a surprisingly strong Democratic performance. It is one of the few states where Democrats do better than in 2000 as they pick up the 2000 Ralph Nader vote.

______________________________________________________

Governor George W. Bush performs well throughout the Rocky Mountains in 2000, and Colorado is no exception. With Green Party candidate Ralph Nader pulling off a substantial bloc of liberal voters, Mr. Bush even cracks the Democratic “C” that composes the Democratic base of Colorado.

______________________________________________________

Conservative Colorado returns to form in 1996; President Bill Clinton loses the state by the barest of margins as conservative Ross Perot voters go Republican. Republican Bob Dole wins based off Republican strength in Colorado Springs and rural Colorado.

______________________________________________________

Surprise! – reliably Republican Colorado votes Democratic for the first time in a generation, and for the first time in a competitive race since the days of Harry Truman. To be fair, this map somewhat overstates Democratic strength: Republican margins are dampened by Ross Perot’s strength amongst conservatives.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/  

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

In the world of campaign commercials, race seems to be invoked in an increasingly and worryingly explicit way.

Let’s take a look at some old commercials and compare them to contemporary ones.

Here, for instance, is the famous “Willie Horton” commercial, which doomed Governor Mike Dukakis’s campaign for president:

More below.

This commercial is often the first thing people think about when talking about “racist” political ads. The story goes that the “death penalty” constituted a code word for race-baiting, and that the use of Willie Horton – a black man – was intended to arouse racial fears of black violence.

Let’s compare this old ad with a more modern one.

Here is a 2010 ad on undocumented immigrants:

This ad was shown by Republican Senator David Vitter in his 2010 re-election campaign. Mr. Vitter won an easy re-election, campaigning in a conservative state (Louisiana) in a conservative year.

With Mr. Bush’s ad, one has to look pretty hard to see the supposed racism. Only two pictures of a black man are used, and each image is fairly race-neutral by itself.

Mr. Vitter’s ad, on the other hand, is much more explicit. The ad shows endless hordes of brown people breaking through fences, while an announcer spits out “illegals” like a curse word. It’s pretty clear that all the “illegals” are Latino, and that all the victims are white.

On the score of which ad is more racist, Mr. Vitter’s ad – the more modern one – wins hands down.

This is true for other ads as well. Here is an ad on welfare by President Richard Nixon:

Mr. Nixon was accused of running an undercover “racist” campaign, using code words like “welfare” and “law-and-order” to appeal to racial resentments.

Yet out of all four ads, this one is probably the least racist by far. One has to really stretch to “find” racism in this ad (e.g. the construction worker is in the inner-city, which is full of minorities, and so the ad could theoretically be pointing out that inner-city minorities will benefit from welfare).

Now compare this to another contemporary ad:

This ad was run by Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln against her primary opponent, Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter. Ms. Lincoln went on to barely win the primary, only to lose by a landslide in the general election.

Once again, the more modern ad is much more obvious than Mr. Nixon’s ad in the use of race. Indian foreigners speaking accented English thank Mr. Halter for outsourcing jobs, while “Indian” music plays and stereotypic images of India play in the background.

The political equivalent in 1972 would have been to show black people in the ghetto thanking Democrats for welfare in “ghetto” English.

In 1972 politicians did not dare do this. Yet in 2010 they are more than willing to show Indians and Latinos in quite racist ads.

All in all, Americans – or, more accurately, humans in general – like to think that things are always getting better. Technology is always improving, people are always living longer, and freedom and democracy are always on the rise.

This applies with race relations as well. The dominant narrative is that America’s treatment of its minorities is in a continuous progression upwards, from the low beginnings of slavery to the first black president and onwards. America’s minorities have never been treated as well as they are now, in this view.

Everything that is said above is mostly true – indeed the world is healthier, freer, and more technologically advanced than ever before. And America’s minorities do have more opportunities than ever before.

Nevertheless, in at least one aspect of race relations, America portrays minorities worse than it did two generations ago.

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The recent mid-terms were, by all accounts, very bad for Democrats. They lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives and 6 seats in the Senate. In many ways things were worse than in 1994, when Republicans won landslide victory.

There is another analogy to 1994, however, which will probably make Democrats happier. President Bill Clinton, after devastating mid-term losses, went on to win a comfortable re-election campaign. Can Mr. Obama do the same?

The book “The Keys to the White House,” by Professor Allan J. Lichtman provides a fascinating answer. Mr. Lichtman argues that the results of a presidential election can be predicted months or years beforehand by a series of thirteen “keys.” According to this theory, if the incumbent party or current president captures a certain number of “keys”, it will win the election. Otherwise it will lose.

More below.

This can readily be applied to the 2012 presidential election. Here are Mr. Lichtman’s exact words:

The Keys to the White House are stated as conditions that favor reelection of the incumbent party. When five or fewer statements are false, the incumbent party wins. When six or more are false, the incumbent party loses.

Key 1: Incumbent-party mandate – After the midterms the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections.

Key 2: Nomination-contest – There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination.

Key 3: Incumbency – The incumbent-party candidate is the sitting president.

Key 4: Third party – There is no significant third-party or independent campaign.

Key 5:  Short-term economy – The economy is not in recession during the election campaign

Key 6: Long-term economy – Real annual per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

Key 7: Policy change – The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

Key 8: Social unrest – There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

Key 9: Scandal – The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

Key 10: Foreign or military failure – The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

Key 11: Foreign or military success – The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

Key 12: Incumbent charisma – The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

Key 13: Challenger charisma – The challenging-party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

A year before the 2008 presidential election, Mr. Lichtman used these keys to confidently predict that Democrats would win the coming election. Seven of the keys – the incumbent-party mandate, the nomination contest, incumbency, policy change, foreign/military failure, foreign/military success, and incumbent charisma – were going against the Republican Party at that point. As the election went on, three other keys turned against them: short-term economy, long-term economy, and challenger charisma. The Republican Party thus went into the 2008 presidential election with ten of the thirteen keys turned against them. In this context, it is not surprising that Senator John McCain lost.

Let’s take a look at how the keys are stacking up in 2012:

Key 1: Incumbent-party mandate – After the midterms the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S.  House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm  elections.

Democrats would have had to lose twenty-three or less seats for this statement to be true. That definitely did not happen. This statement is FALSE.

___________________

Key 2: Nomination-contest – There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination.

Nobody has the stature to contest Mr. Obama in the Democratic primary, even with recent liberal unrest over his tax cut deal. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 3: Incumbency – The incumbent-party candidate is the sitting president.

The Democratic candidate is indeed the sitting president. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 4: Third party – There is no significant third-party or independent campaign.

Ralph Nadar and 2000 effectively killed-off third-party candidacies for a generation. At the moment, 2012 isn’t looking any different. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 5:  Short-term economy – The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.

This is a tough one – the economy probably won’t be in recession in 2012, but it certainly could feel like a recession. Given that so much of Democratic troubles stem from the short-term economy, for the moment this statement will be FALSE.

___________________

Key 6: Long-term economy – Real annual per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

This particular statistic is also tough to find, but we can certainly infer some things from just looking at real GDP. According to my calculations, Mr. Bush averaged 2.0% real GDP growth (the relevant websites are here and here). That’s pretty low, but real GDP growth was – 2.6% in 2009 because of the recession. The first quarter of 2010 was 3.7%. The second quarter was 1.6%. The third is estimated to be 1.5%. So real GDP growth under Mr. Obama has been something like an average – 0.5%. Over the eight quarters left until November 2012, real GDP would have to grow by something like an average 4.2% for Democrats to win this key. That’s just within the conceivable bounds of possibility, although it’s quite unlikely. This statement is UNKNOWN – LEANING FALSE.

___________________

Key 7: Policy change – The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

Health care definitely was a major change in national policy. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 8: Social unrest – There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

Tea Party shenanigans don’t count as “sustained social unrest.” This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 9: Scandal – The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

The Obama administration has not yet had a major scandal. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 10: Foreign or military failure – The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

Likewise, Mr. Obama hasn’t suffered a major failure overseas yet. (Although Afghanistan is not looking too good these days.) This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 11: Foreign or military success – The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

But neither has Mr. Obama achieved a major success overseas. This statement is FALSE.

___________________

Key 12: Incumbent charisma – The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

Mr. Obama certainly fits the definition of “charisma” to the word. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 13: Challenger charisma – The challenging-party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

Although this could change, the current crop of Republican candidates doesn’t look very charismatic. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

All in all, the Democrats end up holding nine keys out of thirteen (they need seven to win). Four statements are false or unknown; nine are true. Under Mr. Lichtman’s system, then, Mr. Obama looks set to win re-election in 2012.

Of course things might change and get worse for Democrats. The Republicans might nominate somebody like Senator Scott Brown, who is readily equipped with charisma – winning the “challenger charisma” key. Afghanistan might turn into Mr. Obama’s military failure, making him lose that key. The Obama administration might become engulfed in scandal and lose another key.

On the other hand, things might also get better. The economy might be growing steadily come 2012, for instance winning Democrats that key. Mr. Obama might miraculously create peace between Israel and Palestine, winning another key.

But whatever changes happen, Mr. Lichtman’s system gives Democrats surprisingly bright prospects in the 2012 presidential election. Democrats are quite gloomy nowadays, but come November 2012 their spirits may be a bit brighter.

A long time ago, I posted a series of posts analyzing the swing state Pennsylvania. One section of this series focused specifically on the city of Philadelphia. This section analyzed Philadelphia’s vote by precinct results and mapped out the results of several previous elections.

Of particular interest was the difference between the results of the 2008 presidential election and the 2008 Democratic primary, which illustrated a political divide not seen in presidential elections: between Democratic-leaning white Catholics in the northeast and Democratic-voting blacks in the west.

Here is Philadelphia in the 2008 Democratic primary. Take a note at the region the question mark points to, which this post will discuss:

More below.

(Note: Both images are taken from a website which maps historical Philadelphia election results.)

Here is Philadelphia in the 2008 presidential election:

Most of the different voting patterns between these two elections is fairly easy to explain: blacks in west Philadelphia voted for  Barack Obama both times, while white Catholics in the northeast voted strongly for Hillary Clinton in the primary and then lukewarmly Barack Obama in the general election. There is generally a scaling relationship between the two groups: as an area gets more white and less black, its support for Mr. Obama decreases in both elections.

There was, however, a group of precincts in Philadelphia which did not follow this model. These precincts are marked by the question mark in both maps. This group behaved quite strangely. It gave incredibly strong support to Ms. Clinton in the primary and then even stronger support to Mr. Obama in the general election. In the map of the 2008 primary, a number of these precincts cast more than 70% of their ballot to Ms. Clinton. All of them then vote more than 90% Democratic in the general election.

This behavior was quite puzzling, and something that the model did not explain. Initially this author hypothesized that these voters were white liberals in gentrifying areas of Philadelphia and then eventually forgot about the mystery.

The answer, as it turns out, was not white liberals. Here it is:

The mysterious precincts were Hispanic!

The above image was created using Daves Redistricting Application. Due to the tremendous efforts of David  Bradlee, one can map the ethnic composition of every state in incredibly detail.

This provides some interesting insight into the behavior of Hispanics in inner-cities. If what holds for Philadelphia also holds for other cities (which is not a 100% certainty), inner-city Hispanics strongly supported both Hillary Clinton and then Barack Obama.

It is an insight provided by Daves Application which can be extended to many other areas and groups.

–Inoljt

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

In little more than a year several months, the great city of Chicago will select its next mayor. Following the retirement of Mayor Richard Daley, the field is wide open.

Enter Rahm Emanuel. A powerful Democrat and President Barack Obama’s former chief-of-staff, Mr. Emanuel currently looks like the front-runner for the office. With many strong candidates declining to run and his potential opposition divided, things look good for Mr. Emanuel.

And yet one shouldn’t overestimate Mr. Emanuel’s chances as media-anointed front-runner. Mr. Emanuel has a number of hidden weaknesses that may combine to badly damage his campaign.

More below.

A strong attack, for instance, could be levied against Mr. Emanuel as a Washington insider who doesn’t care for the little man. This attack is all the more damaging because its first portion is completely true: it is hard to find a politician more immersed in Washington than Mr. Emanuel.

There are other variations on this theme. There is the geography version: Mr. Emanuel is a carpet-bagger who hasn’t lived in Chicago and doesn’t care about it. There is the populist version: the Washington elite may have already declared Mr. Emanuel the winner, but Chicago doesn’t have to listen to what the elite say. There is the class version: Mr. Emanuel is one of the rich elite who don’t understand the concerns of the working-class. There is the race version: Mr. Emanuel is one of the white elite who don’t understand the concerns of Chicago’s minorities.

None of this possibilities has yet been tried out, or turned into a coherent critique of Mr. Emanuel. It is too early in the game for that. But already there are signs that Mr. Emanuel has limited appeal amongst Chicago’s poor and its minorities (who compose a majority of the city’s population).

Mr. Emanuel does have a lot of things going for him, more than for any other single candidate. He has the support of most of Chicago’s machine, the business community, the politically influential North Side, and probably President Barack Obama (although most pundits probably overrate the importance of an Obama endorsement). Other candidates would probably love to be in his position.

On the other hand, Harold Washington had all this interests aligned against him when he campaigned for mayor. Yet Mr. Washington – the first and to date only black mayor of Chicago – still won consecutive elections on the back of minority support.

Chicago has a run-off system, in which if nobody gets more than 50% of the vote, then the first two winners go on to a second-round.  Most experts expect Mr. Emanuel to get in the somewhere in the 40s, if not an outright majority of the vote.

But it’s also quite conceivable that Mr. Emanuel polls in the low 30s come election day, if he fails to attract the working-class and minority votes that he needs to win in a place like Chicago.

This is the second part of two posts analyzing in more detail the 1928 presidential election.

The Great Realignment

The previous post noted that:

In 1928 the Democratic Party nominated Governor Al Smith of New York. Mr. Smith was nominated as a Catholic Irish-American New Yorker  who directly represented Democratic-voting white ethnics. Mr. Smith’s  Catholicism, however, constituted an affront to Democratic-voting white  Southerners, who at the time were the most important part of the party’s  base.

The 1928 presidential election thus saw a mass movement of white  Southerners away from the Democrats, corresponding with a mass movement  of white ethnics towards the Democrats. This was the beginning of the  great realignment of the South to the Republican Party and the Northeast  to the Democratic Party.

This change can be illustrated with a map detailing the state-by-state shift from the 1924 presidential election to the 1928 presidential election:

There are a number of things that stand out with this map.

More below.

The first, as has been previously noted, is the degree to which the shift replicates the current electoral map.

This is not all, however. Two other things are very, very out-of-whack here. To get a hint at what these are, it is useful to compare the 1924 to 1928 state-by-state voting shift to that of different elections.

One example is the change from 2004 to 2008.

In 2008 President Barack Obama improved by 9.7% from the performance of the previous Democratic candidate, Senator John Kerry. In 1928 Governor Al Smith improved by 7.8% from the performance of Democratic candidate John Davis. The shift from 1924 to 1928 is therefore roughly comparable to the shift from 2004 to 2008.

Here is a map of that shift:

Although both Democratic candidates improved by roughly the same percentage from the previous election, where and how they improved look completely different.

In 2008, Mr. Obama generally improved everywhere. In only five states does he do worse than Mr. Kerry. This is the famous Appalachian corridor with which Mr. Obama was so weak.

Moreover, the degree of movement is generally modest. Only two states – Hawaii and Indiana – have more than a 20-point shift from how they voted in 2004. No state shifts more than 40 points (although Hawaii certainly comes close, going from a 8.7% Democratic margin to a 45.3% Democratic margin).

These two patterns: uniform and moderate movement (i.e. when a candidate does better in the popular vote, said candidate does better in almost every state, and states generally do not have wild swings from how they voted from the previous election) are not just confined to 2008. Here is the shift from 2000 to 2004, when President George W. Bush improved by 2.9% from his performance four years earlier:

One again we see that the national shift right brought most of the states with them, and that only three states shifted more than 10% from 2000.

Let’s take another look at 1928 to finish:

Here neither pattern is present. In 1928, the country moved 7.8% more Democratic from 1924. Despite this, Democratic candidate Al Smith did worse in 23 out of 48 states. Three states – Florida, Georgia, and Texas – voted more than 40% more Republican than they did in the previous election. In Texas, Republicans went from 19.8% of the vote in 1924 to 51.8% of the vote in 1928. Fifteen states voted more than 10% more Republican than they did in 1924.

In comparison, in 2008 only one state – Arkansas – voted more than 10% more Republican than it did in 2004 (and it did so by the barest of margins: 10.1%). This was despite Mr. Obama’s improvement from 2004 being roughly equivalent to Mr. Smith’s improvement from 1924.

A lot of interest has gone into Mr. Obama’s weakness in Appalachia. But Mr. Smith’s Southern problem in 1928 (i.e. the fact that he was a Catholic) makes Mr. Obama’s Appalachian problem look puny.

If Mr. Smith improved by 7.8% from the performance of his Democratic predecessor with so much weakness in the South, the shift in the states that voted more Democratic must have been huge. And indeed, the New Yorker gained more than 20-point shifts in nine states. In Massachusetts, Democrats went from 24.9% of the vote in 1924 to 50.2% in 1928.

All in all, the 1928 presidential election was the scene of some enormous movement on a state-by-state basis. In 2008 only two states shifted more than 20 points from 2004, as Mr. Obama did 9.7% better than Mr. Kerry. In 1928, on the other hand, sixteen states shifted more than 20 points from 1928, as Mr. Smith did 7.8% better than the previous Democratic candidate.

This is what a realigning election looks like – extreme movement on from one state to the next, enormous differences by region, and a powerful correlation between which states shift Democratic and which states are voting Democratic almost a century later.

P.S. For those interested, here is a table of the state-by-state voting shift from the 1924 presidential election to the 1928 presidential election:

State	1928 Republican   Margin	1924 Republican   Margin	Change
Alabama	-2.84%	–40.80%	37.96%
Arizona	15.34%	5.79%	9.55%
Arkansas	-20.96%	-31.93%	10.97%
California	30.50%	48.97%	-18.47%
Colorado	30.78%	35.04%	-4.26%
Connecticut	8.06%	34.01%	-25.95%
Delaware	30.42%	20.90%	9.52%
Florida	16.72%	-28.82%	45.54%
Georgia	-13.19%	-55.77%	42.58%
Idaho	29.30%	30.76%	-1.46%
Illinois	14.65%	35.48%	-20.83%
Indiana	20.09%	16.56%	3.53%
Iowa	24.20%	38.39%	-14.19%
Kansas	44.96%	37.94%	7.02%
Kentucky	18.82%	2.95%	15.87%
Louisiana	-52.58%	-56.21%	3.63%
Maine	37.66%	50.20%	-12.54%
Maryland	14.74%	4.00%	10.74%
Massachusetts	-1.09%	37.40%	-38.49%
Michigan	41.44%	62.24%	-20.80%
Minnesota	16.94%	44.38%	-27.44%
Mississippi	-64.20%	-81.79%	17.59%
Missouri	11.43%	5.79%	5.64%
Montana	17.89%	23.12%	-5.23%
Nebraska	27.01%	17.51%	9.50%
Nevada	13.07%	19.81%	-6.74%
New Hampshire	17.63%	25.11%	-7.48%
New Jersey	19.97%	34.76%	-14.79%
New Mexico	18.16%	5.50%	12.66%
New York	2.35%	26.63%	-24.28%
North Carolina	9.87%	-19.16%	29.03%
North Dakota	10.34%	40.72%	-30.38%
Ohio	30.43%	34.63%	-4.20%
Oklahoma	28.28%	-5.59%	33.87%
Oregon	30.04%	26.83%	3.21%
Pennsylvania	31.35%	46.26%	-14.91%
Rhode Island	-0.61%	23.17%	-23.78%
South Carolina	-82.85%	-94.35%	11.50%
South Dakota	20.98%	36.34%	-15.36%
Tennessee	7.72%	-9.21%	16.93%
Texas	3.67%	-53.92%	57.59%
Utah	7.72%	19.32%	-11.60%
Vermont	34.00%	62.55%	-28.55%
Virginia	8.01%	-29.69%	37.70%
Washington	35.75%	42.08%	-6.33%
West Virginia	17.39%	5.38%	12.01%
Wisconsin	9.24%	28.96%	-19.72%
Wyoming	28.31%	36.28%	-7.97%
Total	25.22%	17.42%	-7.80%

–Inoljt