Facts about "Reagan Democrats"

[Meclazine for Israel]

Aaaagh, 1984.

This was my main memory of that fine year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu_nlPaI_0E

A phenomenon that went on to last a lifetime.

[pho]

Reagan Democrats mostly voted against Carter because the economy was miserable and against Mondale because he promised to raise taxes. Clinton won most of them back in 1992/96. There was never any real demographic beyond people who vote against the incumbent when the economy sucks.

[RINO Tom]

Little tidbit, if we are talking about Southern Democrats who voted for Reagan (and possibly Republican after that), they absolutely did not defect until 1984.  Jimmy Carter dominated the rural South in 1980 and only (barely) lost the Southern states that he did because Reagan won the more populated counties...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It kinda seems like right wing posters on this forum use the term "Reagan Democrats" in a manner that suggest it's like a video game power up...

"You acquired Reagan Democrats!!  +15% white vote to your score!"

And that's why they talk about this made up group, because it's easy to make outlandish predictions when you can just justify with a deus ex machina of some mythical voting bloc swinging to your candidate en masse.

If someone says "Trump can win New Jersey if he wins over blue collar swing voters", then that's easy to challenge. People will ask how many blue collar swing voters live in NJ and if they're even a particularly Trump-friendly group to begin with. But "Trump can win New Jersey if he wins over Reagan Democrats" isn't as easy to shoot down, because it's not a clearly defined group and it's a "group" the media basically defines as being willing to swing to Republicans, and likes to pretend always do en masse.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Little tidbit, if we are talking about Southern Democrats who voted for Reagan (and possibly Republican after that), they absolutely did not defect until 1984.  Jimmy Carter dominated the rural South in 1980 and only (barely) lost the Southern states that he did because Reagan won the more populated counties...

That's the point. These people were the real Reagan Democrats, and they aren't Democrats anymore.

If you're looking for a group of "Reagan Democrats" besides them, then best fitting candidate are middle class suburbanites who were buying into fears over crime and racial tensions. This group also voted for George HW Bush, but many did defect back to Clinton and have been swing to D-leaning voters since. And they also don't really exist anymore, since the crime issues today are NOTHING like in the 80s, and people in this group are exactly the type of swing voters who are likely to think Trump is an ignorant buffoon. It doesn't really matter who the Reagan Democrats were, they don't matter 32 years later.

[Badger]

the best i can tell the best equivilent to "Reagan Democrats" in this election are persuadables (i sometimes prefer that term to "swing voters") who strongly prefer Trump's protectionism to Hillary's generally free trade views. Voters like that are more likely to be blue collar and thus Dem leaning.

Maybe "Perot-Obama voters" is a slightly better (albeit still outdated) term?

[136or142]

Little tidbit, if we are talking about Southern Democrats who voted for Reagan (and possibly Republican after that), they absolutely did not defect until 1984.  Jimmy Carter dominated the rural South in 1980 and only (barely) lost the Southern states that he did because Reagan won the more populated counties...

The only Southern States Jimmy Carter won in 1980 were his home state of Georgia and West Virginia.  It is true that he lost many of them by around 1-2%.

[136or142]

the best i can tell the best equivilent to "Reagan Democrats" in this election are persuadables (i sometimes prefer that term to "swing voters") who strongly prefer Trump's protectionism to Hillary's generally free trade views. Voters like that are more likely to be blue collar and thus Dem leaning.

Maybe "Perot-Obama voters" is a slightly better (albeit still outdated) term?

Donald Trump is only a definite protectionist to the degree to which he doesn't personally negotiate the free trade deals himself.

[Fuzzy Bear]

It's not really fair to say Reagan Democrats were all Southerners.  Southern Democrats who voted Democratic in downballot races were part of Reagan's 1984 coalition, but it doesn't explain why New Jersey voted as Republican as Georgia in 1984.

Reagan won many white working-class votes in major cities in 1984 from voters who were culturally conservative, but registered Democrats at the "local level".  The local level reached all the way down to Congressional races.  Then, too, the parties were less ideological back then; lots of Democrats moderated their voting records to tailor them to their constituencies in ways that seem to be no longer tolerated. 

[136or142]

It's not really fair to say Reagan Democrats were all Southerners.  Southern Democrats who voted Democratic in downballot races were part of Reagan's 1984 coalition, but it doesn't explain why New Jersey voted as Republican as Georgia in 1984.

Reagan won many white working-class votes in major cities in 1984 from voters who were culturally conservative, but registered Democrats at the "local level".  The local level reached all the way down to Congressional races.  Then, too, the parties were less ideological back then; lots of Democrats moderated their voting records to tailor them to their constituencies in ways that seem to be no longer tolerated. 

Hard to say regarding New Jersey, as while George H W Bush won approximately 54% of the vote there in 1988 he won 57% of the vote in New Jersey.

That the state became fairly heavily Democratic at the Presidential level (and at the state level most of the time) is likely part of the change from the suburbs being heavily Republican (except for the inner suburbs) to outside the south the suburbs at least leaning Democratic.

[RINO Tom]

Little tidbit, if we are talking about Southern Democrats who voted for Reagan (and possibly Republican after that), they absolutely did not defect until 1984.  Jimmy Carter dominated the rural South in 1980 and only (barely) lost the Southern states that he did because Reagan won the more populated counties...

The only Southern States Jimmy Carter won in 1980 were his home state of Georgia and West Virginia.  It is true that he lost many of them by around 1-2%.

I'm aware, but 1) the South was still Carter's best region and 2) if you look at the county results, Carter dominated the rural South while losing the suburban vote (which was already trending Republican in the 1950s and especially since the late '60s) ... I think it's pretty obvious that most "Yellow Dog Democrats" that we tend to picture when we talk about old Southern Democrats stuck with Carter in 1980 and didn't defect until 1984.

[IceSpear]

From what I've read part of what the first two posters wrote is both true.

In regards to the second poster, he is correct that Bill Clinton won some of these former Reagan Democrats back in 1992 or 1996.  However, many of the seemed to favor George W Bush over Al Gore in 2000, and contrary to what the second poster wrote, there is very little evidence that hardly any of these voters or, as the second poster wrote, these type of voters, voted for Barack Obama in 2008 or 2012.

Most of this 'working class' demographic had become fully Republican at the Presidential and Congressional level by 2000 over social issues.

The first poster is correct in that Politico recently took a look at these supposedly new voters that Trump brought into the primary process, and concluded that nearly all of them had regularly voted previously, just not in primaries.  They also concluded that nearly all of them were long time Republican voters, though I'm not sure how they figured that out.

This. SOME of the "Reagan Democrats" came back for Bill in the 90s, though even then many supported Bush/Dole and Perot. It was in 2000 when Democrats lost this mythical demographic, and they haven't come back.

Anyway, it won't matter. The LBJ Republicans will come home to Hilldawg, deliver her Utah, and make this all a moot point.

[IceSpear]

It kinda seems like right wing posters on this forum use the term "Reagan Democrats" in a manner that suggest it's like a video game power up...

"You acquired Reagan Democrats!!  +15% white vote to your score!"

And that's why they talk about this made up group, because it's easy to make outlandish predictions when you can just justify with a deus ex machina of some mythical voting bloc swinging to your candidate en masse.

If someone says "Trump can win New Jersey if he wins over blue collar swing voters", then that's easy to challenge. People will ask how many blue collar swing voters live in NJ and if they're even a particularly Trump-friendly group to begin with. But "Trump can win New Jersey if he wins over Reagan Democrats" isn't as easy to shoot down, because it's not a clearly defined group and it's a "group" the media basically defines as being willing to swing to Republicans, and likes to pretend always do en masse.

Haha, you're on a roll here. The media really likes to invent stuff out of thin air.

Remember in 2012? "Muh white male blue collar auto workers will deliver Obama an easy win in Ohio because he saved GM and Romney is a vulture capitalist who wanted Detroit to go bankrupt!"

White men in the exit poll: Romney +26 (18 point swing from 2008!)

lol

Turns out he only won Ohio because white women only swung 2 points to Romney and black turnout went up.

[Wisconsin+17]

West Virginia is Southern?

[136or142]

West Virginia is Southern?

From wiki

The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century.

As defined by the United States Census Bureau,[1] the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U.S. residents, lived in the South, the nation's most populous region.[26] The Census Bureau defined three smaller divisions:

The South Atlantic States: Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware
The East South Central States: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee
The West South Central States: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.

1.People are paid to research this?
2.What kind of research could you do?  "No, I'm still needed to work on this, just let me check that map again."  ??

I'm joking, of course by a map, West Virginia is hardly geographically in the South.

The one on that list though that makes no sense to me is Delaware. And,  if Delaware is considered 'southern' then why not Maryland?

[RINO Tom]

West Virginia is Southern?

Everyone outside of some Southern states (I mean, I've met people from AL who don't consider TN Southern) considers WV to be part of the South.

[Wisconsin+17]

Sheesh, Wheeling is about 40 degrees North. It's as southern as Wyoming.

[RINO Tom]

Sheesh, Wheeling is about 40 degrees North. It's as southern as Wyoming.

Yeah, because we're strictly talking about geography ... Is NM as Southern as SC now?

[LANDSLIDE REAGAN]

Do Reagan Democrats exist; if they do, then they became Republican during the primaries by registering Republican to vote for Trump, didn't they?