Talk Elections

Describe a voter who has voted against the winner every election.

And you can't say "a contrarian who votes against the winner every election in order to not appear too mainstream" because Hillary was perceived as the probable winner before the election, so this person would've voted for Donald Trump if this were case.

A moderate Republican who was anti-Bush in 2000 and 2004. Propably voted for Kasich in the primaries.

Hmm, my first instinct would a #NeverTump Republican that also opposed the War in Iraq, but that doesn't explain the Gore vote. Actually, I wonder how many places had both a Dole-Gore swing and a Kerry-McCain swing, I can't imagine it's very many...

Moderate anti war never trump republican who believed that gore would continue the boom of the 1990s

There were no McCain/Kerry/Dole voters. Prove me wrong!

The irony is that W. Bush and Trump are probably the most objectionable Republicans during this time.

It's interesting, because Bush in 2000 actually ran on a less hawkish platform than Al Gore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9SOVzMV2bc

I wouldn't go that far, but they are certainly very much a statistical rarity. It's not too hard to picture a person doing any of these individual swings, but all of them in the same person is another story...

What about someone in Massachusetts who usually votes Republican but wanted to support the nominee who was from his home state? There were four counties in Massachusetts that swung Republican in 2008.

Someone who always votes for veterans, but didn't like GWB?

-Dole got a much smaller percentage in 1996 than Bush04 did. The counties in Western Massachusetts that swung to McCain also swung to Bush04 as well.

There were actually three towns in Massachusetts that voted Gore/Kerry/McCain/Romney/Clinton. The Dole/Bush part is tough, though.

This actually sounds a lot like from friend Wes, who grew up, went to college and worked in Massachusetts before moving out to Oregon in the mid 1990s.

He was not a big fan of the DLC wing of the Democratic Party and Bill Clinton's support for Free Trade agreements (NAFTA), as a socially Liberal individual George W. turned him off with the excessive pandering to the evangelicals. He liked Gore on the labor & environmental position regarding free trade, plus as a techie he liked some of Gore's ideas on the tech sector, although I think he voted Nader in 2000 (Will need to ask him).

He thought the Iraq war was a huge folly, plus Kerry was from Mass.....

He was a bit torn in '08, because although personally he liked Obama, he also has a lot of respect of McCain for his "Maverick" brand, military background and experience (My friends Uncle died in 'Nam), and general rejection of the extremist religious agenda of the cultural warrior style Republicans.

2012, he liked and respected Romney, because of his Gubernatorial record in Mass, as well Obama.... I was living in NorCal at the time, so can't state definitively that he voted Romney, but suspect that was likely the case.

In 2016, he almost definitely did not vote Clinton in the GE, and although he disliked and despised much of Trump's style and substance, did support the more economic protectionist Trump messages (Minus the whole anti-immigrant Latino thing, Muslim bans and all that crap).... He was a strong Bernie backer in the primaries..... My suspicion is that he likely wrote-in Bernie rather than voting for either Trump or Clinton.

Out of the tens of millions of people who voted in 1996, 2004, and 2008, you're saying that not one of them was a Dole/Kerry/McCain voter? Couldn't it just be a Republican who didn't like Bush?

an anti iraq-war center of the road classical republican, focusing on fiscal policy.

A hawkish, environmentalist, classical liberal. George W. is far too populist on welfare and economics with "compassionate conservatism". Trump's populism and anti-free trade turns this guy off.

I can only find two counties - Russell, KS (Dole's home county) and Smith, TN (Gore's home county).


Not really 'Western' Massachusetts.

()

Makes sense, though I doubt either of them also has a Romney-Hillary swing. :P

A moderate Republican who had the basic decency to be repulsed at Donald Trump and who thought Iraq was a disaster in '04. Basically my aunt from Chagrin Falls, Ohio.

-But why the vote for Gore, then?

She liked Clinton enough to vote Gore.

-But then why the Dole vote?

How about a self-identified "intellectual" who typically votes Republican but was turned off Bush and Trump's "anti-intellectual" behavior.

I wonder how it feels like voting for the loser every election lol.

I voted Dukakis, Bush41, Dole, Bush 43 (who lost the popular vote). Then I stayed away from the voting booth the next 3 elections. Then I voted for McMullin.
I had more enjoyment the times I did not vote.

Awesome!

That's actually an extremely interesting and eclectic mix.

Why Dukakis in '88 since basically you went straight ticket Republican Pres '92-'00?

Then additionally not voting in '04/'08/'12 and jumping back in the ring to vote for the first time in twelve years for McMullin, is an interesting change after voting 16 years in a row at the Presidential level....

Not trying to get into your personal business, but wow!!!

Like when I lived in Texas, there's gotta be a story behind all that that is likely quite interesting, as part of the journey down the river over the decades on the small vessel called American Politics....

Why?
I don't mind telling you some "personal" stuff.
I'm gay.
In 1986 the Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that laws banning "sodomy were constitutionally permissible. For about the next three years I was on the gay community's bandwagon about wanting that decision - Bowers v. Hardwick - overturned. So I voted for Dukakis for only one reason - to make the Supreme Court a little bit more liberal. It was a mistake. I regretted it the next year and I've continued regretting it - my motive for the Dukakis vote, not the consequence - ever since.
In 1989, I realized my overall philosophy was more right-of-center than to the left, and it made more sense for me to be a Republican. In 1990 I began intensely studying constitutional law. Robert Bork's "The Tempting of America" was a very important early influence. Voting Republican for the next three elections was my way of trying to put more Borks on the Supreme Court. By that I mean "originalists" ... people dedicated to giving all clauses in the Constitution the meanings they were intended to have.
Then what happened in Dec. 2000? Bush v. Gore. That proved to me that the Republicans did not appoint better Supreme Court Justices than the Democrats.
And in 2003, Lawrence v. Texas overturned Bowers. I hate the Lawrence decision, and the Court's opinion, passionately. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote both Bush and Lawrence. I loathe him so much I can't even begin to describe, ..... it's like flames on the side of my face, .....
There was just no point in voting any more. If the Supreme Court can hand down a secision that could prevent my vote from being counted, why bother? If the Supreme Court defines "liberty" whatever way they feel like, they could strike down laws I voted for (and which I am 100% positive are not truly unconstitutional), why bother to vote?
I voted for McMullin because he was the only one who said the right thing appoint what kind of people should be appointed to the Court.

It's the Gore vote over Bush 43 that's difficult with this list. The rest of the sequence is quite logical for a certain species of not-very-ideological Republican, but that one is difficult. At some point, you have to kinda cop out and say "a Republican who happened not to like either Bush 43 or Trump". Maybe instead of the Iraq War (if they were upset enough at the Iraq War to vote for Kerry, they were likely an Obama '08 vote as well), this person was upset at Bush's racialized anti-McCain campaign in South Carolina? Someone who normally votes Republican but is very sensitive to racial issues is probably the most logical explanation for this sequence.

Wouldn't some like that be more likely to vote for Obama than Gore or Kerry, though? Or am I misunderstanding what "very sensitive to racial issues" means...

Cool--- Thanks MarkD!

I remember well the Bowers-Hardwick ruling, although I was only 12 at the time listened to NPR throughout the day and watched the MacNeil-Lehrer Report M-F on PBS, as part of my homeschooling (Non-Evangelical) educational experience.

It was absolutely absurd even then for me, that State Governments should be allowed to dictate sexual behavior among consenting adults within a private sphere, regardless of sexual orientation.

Your voting history and based upon your perspective on constitutional law, from an historic Supreme Court decision in '86 that supported the state of Georgia, which was deliberately designed to target Gay Men, makes absolute sense . I confess that like many others, I get slightly lost with the most of jurisprudence, legal philosophies/theories and legal decisions at the Supreme Court level, aside from the "top line" decisions.

The odd thing about many of these types of threads is that it is rare to actually have individuals that talk about their own voting history, and the motivations behind their decisions.

Generally, it is more like "in theory this a XYZ voter living in a certain state/region from a certain socio-economic category and then maybe because they are part of a cultural minority (Religious/Sexual Preference, environmentalist....) that for whatever reason this explains the voting patterns.

We do have individuals, including myself, that will occasionally pull up close friends, family members, coworkers, etc that are essentially secondary sources.

This Forum is heavily dominated by a relatively younger set, so obviously this increases these types of responses to these types of threads....

Those of us 40+ years are heavily underrepresented on the Forum... since as kids born in the early 1970s, that came of voting age in the late '80s/ early '90s "We lived it man"

Boy, I should have edited that last post better. Embarrassing.

Without picking apart every thing you said which made me go "Hm, ...."


Yes, this is one of the most tiresome things to see in these threads -- people trying to come up with theories based on stereotypes about why certain demographic groups vote the way they do.

No, you've got it right, that voter would probably rather like Obama. It's a hard list to explain in a logical fashion.


Well, in terms of individuals, the answer is rather easy: someone who votes, as many people do, using personal characteristics and has eccentric taste. That's not very interesting. Coming up with a demographic that might've done so is more challenging and more interesting, especially on a forum dedicated to electoral demography.

If you're gay, why do you hate the Lawrence decision, when you opposed Bowers? Or is this a typo?

That's not a typo. I opposed the Bowers decision for a period of about three years because I made a subjective and uninformed decision based only on my need at the time. I changed my mind based on knowledge I didn't have before and persuasive arguments. The new, opposite decision I made - that Bowers was the correct conclusion - was based on objective analysis and having accurate information what certain clauses in the Constitution were intended to mean. I hate the Lawrence decision because it was neither an objective nor an accurate interpretation of the Constitution.

Are you saying you disagree with sodomy laws, but believe they are not unconstitutional?

Yes. State legislatures should have repealed those laws, like they did in most states, but there is no constitutional guarantee of "liberty."

Right to privacy and liberty are some of the implied but not explicit rights in the constitution. It is also implied by the ninth amendment which states that there are rights individuals enjoy that are not enumerated in the constitution. Also I think it would be quite contrary to our founding principles to assert that the constitution does not protect our right to liberty; liberty is the most often cited constitutional value/right among both liberals and conservatives.

Also Bowers' decision was based more in homophobia than in any constitutional reasoning. After all, Burger's concurring opinion referred to homosexual sex as sodomy, thereby implying that he agreed with the law as a legislative matter, and not that he was concerned with whether it was constitutional to ban sodomy (among homosexuals or otherwise). Justice White even framed the legal question in terms as if they were deciding whether there was a right to gay sex, not whether the constitution guaranteed a right to privacy in the bedroom (Bowers didn't challenge Griswold's finding that there was a right to privacy to begin with).
tl;dr Bowers decided that, yeah there is a right to privacy but not for homosexuals because gay sex is immoral.

The Ninth was the provision of the Constitution I was thinking about the most during the three years I was hoping to overturn Bowers. But that was before I learned what the Ninth was originally intended to mean. So the first thing I studied carefully and thoroughly was the Ninth.
All of the first ten amendments were originally understood to be binding only on the federal government. The Bill of Rights was proposed and ratified only in order to restrain the federal government's powers, not the states. That's what the Supreme Court said, unanimously, in Barron v. Baltimore. Furthermore, the purpose of the Ninth is parallel to the Tenth: they both require the federal government to justify the laws of Congress by pointing to constitutionally delegated, enumerated powers. For example, if someone challenges the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act by saying that Congress was never delegated the power to pass laws requiring people to get health insurance, that was a Ninth Amendment claim. (That's what they should have argued.)
States should not be forced, by the federal government, to respect any un-enumerated, substantive rights, except the right to travel within the United States. That's one of the originally intended purposes of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment. The other purpose of that clause was to require the states to respect rights that are enumerated in the first eight amendments, thus overturning Barron. Imposing the concept of the Ninth on the states is implausible.
Inferring the "right to privacy" from the rights enumerated in the first eight amendments was the slight-of-hand trick that Justice William O. Douglas performed in Griswold v. Connecticut. I have no respect for that inference; the late Prof. David P. Currie said Griswold is "one of the most hypocritical opinions in the history of the Court."
If there are many conservatives and many liberals who respect an interpretation of the Due Process Clauses that those clauses protect substantive "liberty," in addition to procedural fairness, then they're cynics who just want that doctrine to exist so that they can disempower their opponents.

Someone who is attracted by the "establishment", kind of dry, moderate tone that also hated trump. (most people aren't super ideological, and vote based on tone and feel. The strength of Obama, Bush, and Bill came from them being the kind of "regular folk" a lot of the swingy lower middle class low-info voters would like to have a beer with. Someone attracted to the less "regular folk", more "high-class" dry tone would likely vote for the people who are closer to that tone.

Or someone who's ideology/preference in candidates changed over the years. That seems to be underrated in these questions. My grandmother was a Goldwater/Nixon/McGovern voter.

I voted Bush, McCain, Johnson, Hillary.

Not quite what the OP was asking, but still.

Cobb or Gwinnett? Lol

Grew up in Gwinnett. But I moved out over ten years ago. I was so proud to see my former county vote against the Fuhrer last year.

Cool!

Sounds a bit like on my son-in-laws, older Millennial from Hall County Georgia....

His Father, who just recently passed away, was a Doctor and his mother a former Playboy Bunny from Louisiana who grew up dirt poor in New Awlins....

Not sure how and if he voted in 2000/2004, but pretty sure he voted for Obama in '08, Romney '12, and either Johnson or Clinton in '16.... Would have asked him directly earlier today at one of our Grandkids B-Day Party, but just pulled up this thread and it's a bit too late to call even on PST....

Couldn't this just be a relatively moderate independent voter from the Tennessee?

My grandmother hasn't voted for a winner since 1988.

She's a staunch Republican who turned on Bush during the early 90s recession (her only precious D votes had been for Kennedy and Johnson). She liked the way things were going so voted Clinton then Gore. She opposed the war so Kerry in 04. She LOVES John McCain so she voted for him in 08. She stuck by the GOP in 2012. She was repulsed by Trump and Hillary so she didn't vote this year.

Excluding the first one, this voter is Donald Trump.

Someone who switched to being a Democrat in 2000 but was too racist to support Obama either times.

a person with very bad luck, or otherwise a fiscal conservative who voted for bush and then dole because he didn't trust democrats in economic matters, doesn't like nepotism either so voted to gore and Kerry this last due to opposition to Iraq war, then he didn't trust Obama in economy matters and voted for mccain and then Romney, and then due to repulsion over trump voted for Clinton

Rich person from Bergen County NJ

Maybe a McCain loyalist who voted for Gore out of anger at the way McCain had been treated by Bush in South Carolina.

There is a Township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania that voted exactly this.

Yeah, that might make some sense.