Democrats are surprisingly NOT dependent on minority votes to win

[Angrie]

For all the talk about how Trump and other Republicans are kneecapping themselves with non-white voters, especially with Hispanics, Democrats are apparently actually surprisingly NOT dependent on minority votes to win the presidency.

For the scenarios in this post, I am using the 538 demographic calculator and leaving everything at the 2012 baseline, except for changing minority turnout as I describe.

First, what if literally ZERO Hispanics or Asians voted? I know that nothing like that is going to happen, but the point is to see how dependent Democrats are on votes from Hispanics and Asians in order to win. So with Hispanic and Asian turnout both dropping all the way to ZERO, here's what you get:

Clinton 283 EV; 48.1% PV
Trump 255 EV; 50.2% PV

NV, CO, NM, and FL flip. Trump wins the popular vote 50.2%-48.1%, but loses the electoral college 255-283. Even while winning the popular vote by 2 points, Trump is still a ways away from winning the electoral college. The next closest states are Ohio (50.1%-48.3% Dem) and Pennsylvania (50.1%-48.6% Dem).

What's particularly interesting about this is that Clinton wins the electoral college comfortably, even though Trump wins the popular vote by more than 2%. Clinton could lose one other state like Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Virginia, and still win.


So next, if we keep Hispanic and Asian turnout at ZERO, how far does black turnout have to drop in order for Trump to win? Black turnout has to drop to 58%, at which point VA and PA flip to Trump:

Trump 288 EV; 51.0% PV
Clinton 250 EV; 47.3% PV

PA flips before OH because it has more Hispanics and Blacks than Ohio. Democrats are more reliant on minority voters to win PA than OH.

So the Democrats' electoral college advantage and lack of dependence on Hispanic and Asian voters is such that Trump could win the popular vote by almost 4%, with ZERO Hispanic or Asian voters turning up to vote, and with black turnout dropping 8 points to 58%, and Trump would only BARELY just win.


What this shows pretty clearly is that the Democratic electoral college majority does not depend much at all on Hispanic and Asian voters. Support from Hispanic and Asian voters is just gravy.

But what about African Americans? How much more reliant are Democrats on African Americans than upon Hispanics and Asians to win the electoral college majority? In this scenario, I keep Hispanic and Asian turnout at the same levels as in 2012, and instead see how far Black turnout could hypothetically drop, with Hillary still winning. Again, I know that this won't happen. The point is to see how reliant Democrats are on black voters for an electoral college majority. With this scenario, black turnout drops all the way from 66% to 30%:

Clinton 272 EV; 48.4% PV
Trump 266 EV; 49.8% PV

FL, VA, and OH flip. Trump wins the popular vote 49.8%-48.4%, but loses the electoral college 266-272. He loses PA 49.3%-49.2%, so if black turnout dropped to 29% instead, Trump would narrowly win with PA as the tipping point state.

So the conclusion from this is that Democrats are more reliant on the Black vote than the Asian vote and the Hispanic vote to get an electoral college majority. But still, in a scenario with incredibly low black turnout, in which Trump wins the popular vote by 1.4%, he still loses the electoral college. Overall, Democrats are surprisingly NOT dependent on minority votes to win. When you drastically cut minority turnout, Trump could win the popular vote by a substantial margin but still lose the electoral college.

[Angrie]

Black voters are going to make the difference in FL, OH, VA and PA if Clinton wins. And Hispanic voters will make the difference in NV, CO and NM. To say that Clinton is not dependent on minority voters is ridiculous.

Nice "analysis." If you think you can make that argument, then let's see it with some numbers and maps.

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So if the facts are against you, you have to resort to ad hominem to distract from the subject, eh?

Don't call her that - it's offensive. You would never even think to call a man a "climber" just because he deigns to run for office.

[Angrie]

Kind of assumed this going in.  VA and FL were the only states Obama won in 2012 while doing worse than nationally with the white vote.  Quantitatively, Hispanic and Asian voters are just too packed into CA and TX to have much influence on the electoral college.  The former are decisive in NV and especially NM, but that's only 11 EV.  And my understanding is that the HI Asian vote is actually right of the HI white vote.

So another interesting thing is that, since the Democratic electoral college advantage does not depend on minority votes (in particular Hispanic and Asian votes, and to a lesser extent Black votes), you would think that means that it must depend upon white votes.

But that's not actually the case either. If you increase white turnout to 100% and keep everything else at the 2012 baseline, here's what you get:

Clinton 272 EV, 48.1% PV
Trump 266 EV, 50.2% PV

So the Democratic electoral college advantage is really a structural thing. It arises from the way Democratic and Republican voters are distributed across states, and it is strongly immune to drastic drops in the votes Democrats get from any one demographic.

[Angrie]

Angrie, you should just ignore TNVolunteer. From what I've heard, he was a huge fan of Scott Brown in 2014, and when Brown lost, he needed an excuse on why Shaheen won. Thus, the angry NH women theory was born.

I was ignoring him. He's the one who came in here, to a thread that has absolutely nothing to do with Maggie Hassan, and hurls unprovoked sexist attacks at her to try to compensate for the fact that on a completely unrelated point he has no argument and the numbers of the demographic calculator go against him. Get that out of my thread please.

The point of this thread is to discuss the Democrats' electoral college advantage, and what it depends on. If posters have constructive contributions or criticisms of that, then please post them. But let's please not derail from the subject with sexist drivel.

[Angrie]

Are african Americans not minorities? Romney won the white vote in almost every state outside of Washington Oregon Iowa and New England. And maybe Delaware. Democrats are absolutely dependent on minority voters to push them over the top.

Yes. Obviously Democrats do need some votes from minorities to win, in particular from African Americans.

The point is that many fewer votes from minorities are needed than one would probably presume. So much so that with drastically reduced minority turnout (including ZERO Hispanic turnout and ZERO Asian turnout), Hillary could lose the popular vote by several points and still win the electoral college. That's the central point. It seems surprising to me, but that's what the demographics and the numbers are.

[Angrie]

The problem is that your "analysis" didn't even prove that such an advantage exists, Angry.

I realize the 538 calculator may not be perfect, and 2016 will differ somewhat from 2012. But for whatever it's worth, the 538 calculator definitely does show a strong Democratic electoral college advantage, which is strongly robust to a loss of votes from any one minority group (especially non-Blacks).

In every one of these cases, Trump has to handily win the popular vote before he wins the electoral college.

All you have posted to try to argue against that is one map without any specific numbers, and without any explanation as to the demographics that you think produce it.

[Angrie]

These calculators all assume uniform swings, which is simply not how things work.

Granted. But on the other hand it's better than just saying, without evidence or any specific numbers, that a swing will be concentrated in some particular non-uniform way that happens to benefit Trump.

[Angrie]

Are african Americans not minorities? Romney won the white vote in almost every state outside of Washington Oregon Iowa and New England. And maybe Delaware. Democrats are absolutely dependent on minority voters to push them over the top.

Yes. Obviously Democrats do need some votes from minorities to win, in particular from African Americans.

The point is that many fewer votes from minorities are needed than one would probably presume. So much so that with drastically reduced minority turnout (including ZERO Hispanic turnout and ZERO Asian turnout), Hillary could lose the popular vote by several points and still win the electoral college. That's the central point. It seems surprising to me, but that's what the demographics and the numbers are.

Back when the electoral college was a good thing!

I have never thought the electoral college is a good thing, and I don't think I said that anywhere earlier in this thread.

[Angrie]

Hmm, TN Volunteer/MT Treasurer PMed me about this and I sent a response there before I realized this thread was resurrected, but it got eaten in my outbox or something somehow.

So I will just say here this actually seems to be borne out by the 2016 results. Clinton did not in fact lose the Electoral College because of a drop in support/turnout from minority voters. Trump won because he made significant gains among whites - so the case seems to be strengthened that Dems were not reliant on minority voter support to win the electoral college. Instead, it is clear that what Democrats such as Obama were reliant upon was a basic level of support from white voters. That is what fell through the floor on 2016 (particularly in the North and Midwest) - and that is why Trump was able to win.