This is a fascinating discussion by Josh Marshall and @JoshuaGreen (Bloomberg News) of what went wrong. The Trump data people- who were very sophisticated - analyzing early voting began to see about 10 days out that there was a surge of older white voters across the northeast and midwest. That continued to build, helped by the Comey letter. They also saw a lower black turnout than 2012. That was widely reported but the emerging surge of older white voters was not.
The Trump people changed their formula - projecting a white and older electorate. Even they underestimated the surge. At the end they thought their chance was 30%. But the white voters who had been moving away from Democrats for the past 30 years just fell off a cliff. Many who had not voted for 12 years turned out.
The bottom line is that Hillary Clinton's numbers held up pretty well but Trump's surged. I guess you can attribute this in part to disliking Hillary Clinton or to liking Trump or both. My gut feeling is this, having watched Maine re-elect Trump-like Paul LePage: older white resentment is not simply of Blacks but of anyone who they think is getting an undeserved break. The people on food stamps, Medicaid, etc. Maine is the oldest and whitest state in the country. And the strongest Republican vote is in the rural counties which are the whitest.
So what is going on? It is, in the main, resentment of the status quo which has deprived them of optimism. Is it cultural distress? Is it racially motivated? My hunch is that cultural distress is minor.But economic stagnation is strong - and resented. Therefore an anti-establishment vote against Clinton - as there had been against Jeb, et al. It is not primarily racially motivated but it is racially insensitive: these voters were not offended by - in fact were drawn to - Trump's racism and xenophobia. -gwc
Episode 9: On How We All Got It Wrong (Short) by The Josh Marshall Show | Free Listening on SoundCloud
In this episode Josh brings Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Josh Green back to talk about how the polls and media completely missed the possibility of a Trump victory. Green, who has sources on the Trump campaign's data team, shares his insights, and they discuss what Trump's presidency might look like.
The Trump people changed their formula - projecting a white and older electorate. Even they underestimated the surge. At the end they thought their chance was 30%. But the white voters who had been moving away from Democrats for the past 30 years just fell off a cliff. Many who had not voted for 12 years turned out.
The bottom line is that Hillary Clinton's numbers held up pretty well but Trump's surged. I guess you can attribute this in part to disliking Hillary Clinton or to liking Trump or both. My gut feeling is this, having watched Maine re-elect Trump-like Paul LePage: older white resentment is not simply of Blacks but of anyone who they think is getting an undeserved break. The people on food stamps, Medicaid, etc. Maine is the oldest and whitest state in the country. And the strongest Republican vote is in the rural counties which are the whitest.
So what is going on? It is, in the main, resentment of the status quo which has deprived them of optimism. Is it cultural distress? Is it racially motivated? My hunch is that cultural distress is minor.But economic stagnation is strong - and resented. Therefore an anti-establishment vote against Clinton - as there had been against Jeb, et al. It is not primarily racially motivated but it is racially insensitive: these voters were not offended by - in fact were drawn to - Trump's racism and xenophobia. -gwc
Episode 9: On How We All Got It Wrong (Short) by The Josh Marshall Show | Free Listening on SoundCloud
In this episode Josh brings Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Josh Green back to talk about how the polls and media completely missed the possibility of a Trump victory. Green, who has sources on the Trump campaign's data team, shares his insights, and they discuss what Trump's presidency might look like.
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