I just cannot fathom an Obama 12/trump 16 voter. (and they exist)

[NOVA Green]

Maybe their logic went something like this:

Voted for Obama instead of Romney in 2012 because Romney was too close to Wall Street/Big Business relative to Obama.

Voted for Trump instead of Clinton in 2016 because Clinton was too close to Wall Street/Big Business relative to Trump.

Maybe their logic went something like this:

Then wouldn't that mean they voted McCain in 2008? Wall Street heavily supported Obama in 2008 since he was seen as the shoo in winner.

Voters who are hard core protectionists might do this.

I'm a Bush-Kerry-McCain-Obama voter who would vote for Trump if the election were held today.

And, yes, Free Trade is a big issue with me.

I think that most of your various comments are fair and accurate to some extent in explaining this phenomenon.

Indy Texas succinctly summarizes what I see as the fundamental logic behind that type of decision making for these voters.

Icespear raises a valid question, however for many of the Obama '08/ Trump '16 voters, they perceived Obama (and the Democrats) better able to undertake fundamental financial reforms to prevent another repeat of the Great Recession. Additionally, for many of these voters McCain's position of "doubling down" in Iraq was a non-starter, after arguably the biggest US Foreign Policy blunder in decades (Invasion and occupation of Iraq). Many Trump supporters have a relatively isolationist foreign policy attitude, and aren't crazy about starting elective wars overseas for no reason.

Torie raises the economic protectionist angle, which absolutely does fit to the extent that during the '08 Dem primaries, Hillary was weighed down with free trade policies that Bill Clinton signed into law in the '90s, whereas Obama was a bit more of an unknown.

To bring in an anecdotal story (sigh--- yes I know), I was having a conversation with one of my best friends of many years about the election last night for some time.

He was a Nader-Kerry-Obama-Obama voter who is currently leaning towards Trump.

I was quite surprised, considering he is completely disgusted with the bigoted comments that Trump makes, supports ACA as well as many of the signature accomplishments of the Obama administration, and is extremely concerned about some of the foreign policy statements that Trump has made...

Meanwhile his wife, who has been a Republican for many years is planning to vote Libertarian because she despises Trump and views Clinton as untrustworthy...

So far, he is the only person that I know who is an Obama and possible Trump voter, so an extremely small sample size with huge MOE.

[NOVA Green]

They exist in Nevada and in Iowa and probably some in maine and oregon as well.

Who in the world are these folks, and how do they not realize how ideologically different their voting habits are every 4 years?

I commented below on a few of my thoughts, but I did want to note that this is an interesting mix of states that share significant similarities and differences.

One item in common with these states, is that many voters register as independent and then switch over for the primaries/caucuses to support the candidate of their choice from either of the two major political parties.

Secondarily, the topic that has been discussed ad naseum is the correlation between relative education levels of white voters and support for Trump. There are significant manufacturing jobs in 3/4 states listed above, with Nevada being the major exception.

Tertiary, three of these four states tend to have a high proportion of 3rd party voting and "protest voting" compared to much of the rest of the country.

Of the four states listed, arguably Oregon is the biggest beneficiary of "Free Trade" as a result of its Pacific location and a large tech industry, as well as international exports of grain, timber, and manufactured goods. However, free trade has long been controversial in Oregon going back to the collapse of the Timber industry in Oregon in the 1980s, when forests were being clearcut like crazy by Junk Bond kings. while timber was being sent to Asia to be processed overseas, instead of going to (frequently family-owned) small timber mills throughout Oregon. Also, the tech sector has cut back significantly with Hewlett-Packard and Intel shifting high-paying manufacturing and Cleanroom/Fab jobs overseas to take advantage of corporate tax loopholes. Not so familar with IA and ME, but fairly sure much of manufacturing workforce in those two states used to be heavily unionized, and likely there have been significant union concessions since the '80s in order to keep jobs from moving to the non-union South.

[NOVA Green]

They certainly make far less sense than Romney '12/Clinton '16 voters, who I believe are a considerably larger group.

Objectively this is a 100% accurate statement of reality.

[NOVA Green]

Think of it this way maybe. Imagine someone who's family was straight ticket Democrat and heavily identified with Democrats their whole life. They're big on protecting the little guy and support economic government programs to do so.  Much of this demographic is going to disproportionately rural, blue collar, and with lower levels of education. Maybe they're not happy with voting for Obama but because Romney is a shill for big business (as many people thought) he's not looking at protecting someone like me, nor does he speak in a direct easy way, he's just another standard politician who will do the same standard politician thing, and he'll give his rich buddies a break while not giving a sh**t about anybody else. That's the line of thinking anyway. So they vote Obama, even though they would probably skew socially conservative and authoritarian. But then Trump runs, and the rest can be filled in from here. Everything that was wrong with Romney isn't wrong with Trump. Someone that speaks to them directly and connects with them, someone who isn't bought and paid for, etc. A lot of that in fact can be turned around on Clinton so easily.

These voters are going to be your anti-establishment moderate voters, not the bigots or the people super enthusiastic about banning all Muslims or deporting all illegal immigrants.

I agree with most of your statements overall, and it actually represents the perspectives of some of the "reluctant Trump" Republican voters from Democratic Party backgrounds....

I disagree with the "socially conservative" angle, at least based upon the Trump supporters that I know, but hell there aren't a ton of those folks in Oregon, so doesn't represent other parts of the country....

[NOVA Green]

Think of it this way maybe. Imagine someone who's family was straight ticket Democrat and heavily identified with Democrats their whole life. They're big on protecting the little guy and support economic government programs to do so.  Much of this demographic is going to disproportionately rural, blue collar, and with lower levels of education. Maybe they're not happy with voting for Obama but because Romney is a shill for big business (as many people thought) he's not looking at protecting someone like me, nor does he speak in a direct easy way, he's just another standard politician who will do the same standard politician thing, and he'll give his rich buddies a break while not giving a sh**t about anybody else. That's the line of thinking anyway. So they vote Obama, even though they would probably skew socially conservative and authoritarian. But then Trump runs, and the rest can be filled in from here. Everything that was wrong with Romney isn't wrong with Trump. Someone that speaks to them directly and connects with them, someone who isn't bought and paid for, etc. A lot of that in fact can be turned around on Clinton so easily.

These voters are going to be your anti-establishment moderate voters, not the bigots or the people super enthusiastic about banning all Muslims or deporting all illegal immigrants.

Bolded final paragraph.

I believe that certain counties in Oregon were the tip of the iceberg back in 2000+ elections....

Coos County Oregon being a prime example of an overwhelmingly New Deal Democratic county for decades that moved away from the Party because of outmigration of youth and the politics of timber in Southern Oregon.

Douglas County Oregon (47% Dukakis '88) is another example of a heavily rural and small-town Oregon County that tilted heavily Republican in the '90s because of the politics of timber, and is now one of the most heavily populated Republican counties in the state.

At some point, many rural, small-town and working class Oregonians downstate abandoned the Democratic Party heavily because of the Neo-Corporatist politics of Bill Clinton and the "upstate-downstate" dynamics and felt that the state and national party was more interested in representing urban and suburban voters than the communities most impacted by these economic changes.

When you have a situation where rural and working-class mill workers in heavily Democratic precincts abandon the party within a decade or so, it makes one wonder if the "New Democratic Party" is really the party of the workers, or a party of corporate interests and "screwing the people over"...

Trump is an insensitive individual who has harnessed the forces of older White working-class Male resentment and used racist dog whistles to a degree not seen for decades (George Wallace???) but the reality is that as you surmised, there are many decent individuals somehow buy the BS that he is better on "jobs and the economy" and are essentially supporting Trump as a protest vote, and also a giant middle finger to the Republican Party that caused the economic collapse, war in Iraq, and are mainly disgruntled and frustrated that change and economic improvement has not happened fast enough under Obama.

[NOVA Green]

This whole concept of Obama '12/ Trump '16 voters being sexist argument is utterly bizarre, and so far I have not seen any real evidence to back this up.

Now, if one were to discuss the Dem primaries what would one make of a Hillary '08 (Primary)/ Obama '08 (General) and Romney '12 (General) voter leaning towards Trump '16?

There are a huge chunk of Hillary '08 Dem Primary voters that supported Bernie '16 in the primaries, of which there is a small number leaning towards Trump.

Are they all sexist too???

In fact, in many states Bernie performed extremely well in counties that Hillary won in '08, where a large majority of Democratic Primary voters are women, because so many White Males have become Republicans over the years....

I have many examples down to precinct level data from Oregon, and looking at county election returns in some other states, we can observe the same phenomenon, so it is not confined to one state in the Pacific Northwest.

It does a huge disservice to Democratic Primary voters to claim that "sexism" is the reason for the under-performance of Clinton's campaign in historically Democratic counties and cities throughout the country, as opposed to many voters (Male and Female) that don't identify with the Clinton brand on economic and foreign policy related grounds, and additionally buy some of the BS from the Trump campaign as part of a "throw the bums out movement" when they feel that the past eight years of a Democratic Presidency (Whom many of these voters supported in '08 and or '12) but still haven;t seen any significant improvement in their economic situation after the Republican "Great Recession" caused a huge collapse in household net worth for almost 50% of Americans.

[NOVA Green]

There are a lot of people who voted for Obama in '08 or even '12 who believe the following:

1. The economic recovery that Obama was supposed to bring never arrived.
2. Illegal immigration is a huge problem and Obama is actively stymieing any effort to deal with it - and is in fact encouraging more illegal immigration with his executive orders.
3. In general, Obama is usurping power through executive orders - something that has become a huge issue in his second term.
4. Racism and hatred against white people is being actively encouraged by the Obama administration.
5. With the rise of ISIS and increased terror abroad, terrorism has become a clear and present danger.  This has also become a huge issue in the past four years.

In general, there is an "enemy at the gates" mentality, and many voters believe Clinton would simply open the door and let the enemy in, as they believe Obama is already doing.  They may not like Trump, they may find him personally repugnant, but they believe he speaks the truth about these issues in a way no one else is willing to.

One thing that has really changed:  Compare the prevalence and penetration of social media in 2012 with today.  People were on Facebook and Twitter on 2012, certainly, but not to the extent where social media circles provide people their main sources of information.   The ideological echo chambers we have today were only just forming in 2012.  In 2016 we now have a full-blown herd mentality with respect to news and information.  Your social circle is posting NowThis and Upworthy links, or they are posting Breitbart or Newsmax links. 

It's no longer a matter of differing opinions; people now live separate realities with separate facts.  Browse my Facebook feed back in March, and it was objective reality that Bernie Sanders was going to win the Democratic nomination.  On those of some of my old friends from rural Wisconsin, in their feeds it's objective reality that Hillary Clinton is a war criminal, that terrorists are continually crossing the border to kill us, that people of color are being incited into racial hatred against whites, and that Obama and Clinton want to embarrass the United States and strip it of power and sovereignty.  A lot of these people have unfriended or even blocked me because of my political views.

There is no more middle.  Everyone is being forced to choose "sides."

Although I understand and agree on the polarization and echo chambers tied to social media and cable news outlets, and sorry that some of your friends have defriended you because of political differences, I don't believe that the vast majority of Obama/Trump voters believe that all of items #1-5 are true.

I would suggest that most of these voters may agree with one or two of the statements above, but reject several of the others.

Reality is that most "swing" or "persuadable" voters that shift between candidates and parties usually have multiple and complex reasons, rather than immediately shifting from an angle of waking up one day and buying the entire Trump agenda or talking points.

Por Ejemplo, you had a decent chunk of Gore/Bush Jr/Obama voters, Bush Jr/Obama/Romney voters, etc and for voters that swung parties, it generally was either a combination of factors, but generally either economic or foreign policy concerns were paramount in those swings.

Trump appears to be holding onto, or slightly expanding White Working Class support over Romney '12 numbers concerned about either economic insecurity, worries about terrorist attacks on American soil, or a perception that somehow illegal immigration is dramatically decreasing the quality of American life, but I find it hard to believe that Obama/Obama/Trump voters are completely rejecting the entire platform that they supported, but rather only parts of it, and some of this is a typical "throw the bums out" type attitude that you frequently see when one party has held the Presidency for two cycles.