In Search of Obama-Trump Voters

[Badger]

Because there's a lot of them.

Look at several southern and southeastern rural Ohio counties that Obama lost by only a couple % or less 4 years ago. Morgan, Hocking, Perry, Scioto, Pike (Romney won by only one vote!), and Ross. Though Obama improved from his showing against McCain in these counties (especially thee last 3), he was still quite competative in these counties in 2008, despite all of them having negligible minority populations.

Trump won them all by approximately 40 points. Turnout was rather consistent from 2012 and doesn't even begin to explain this outcome.

Simply put, there were tons of Trump voters there--and across many counties in Ohio, the Rust Belt, and America, who were so "racist" and "far right wing" that they voted for Obama twice.

Pause and consider this closely.

IMHO, although he's the only one I know, I doubt Fuzzy Bear is a typical Obama-Trump voter. Although economics were important to him , the typical such voter is desperate as to the modern economy's devastation of their communities' economy. Main Street replaced by Wal-Mart; family farms replaced by factory farms; decent union jobs being replaced by temp agencies, are at best stagnant wages and reduced benefits. FB seems more entranced with returning to a more homogeneous pre-60's idyllic Leave it to Beaveresque America.

A ccouple other lessons: Many white Americans were just as willing to vote for an overt racist (albeit by excusing/denying/minimizing/ignoring said racism) willing to offer a change to their economic interests, just as they were willing to vote for a black man promising the same change. These voters arguably weren't racist, but racism (and sexism) simply weren't dealbreakers for them. It's more complex than both sides acknowledge.

I said earlier this campaign that Trump's real Achilles Heel was economic policy, and Clinton should have run against him the way Obama ran against Romney. The character and temperament issues would take care of themselves.

Yes, some of these were voters who just didn't trust Hillary, but again this can't begin to explain this magnitude of shift.

So how do Democrats tap into this without writing Trump's win as merely "whitelash"? What economic policies do they push?

Thoughts? Anyone know other Obama-Trump voters (especially 2 time Obama voters)?

[Mr. Morden]

non-college graduates, 2012 exit poll:
Obama 51%
Romney 47%
3rd party 2%

non-college graduates, 2016 exit poll:
Trump 51%
Clinton 44%
3rd party 5%

That seems to be the largest swing group away from Obama and towards Trump.

Though yeah, it would be nice if we had some data on how many of these folks are new voters and how many are old voters who swung from one party to the other.

[Badger]

non-college graduates, 2012 exit poll:
Obama 51%
Romney 47%
3rd party 2%

non-college graduates, 2016 exit poll:
Trump 51%
Clinton 44%
3rd party 5%

That seems to be the largest swing group away from Obama and towards Trump.

Though yeah, it would be nice if we had some data on how many of these folks are new voters and how many are old voters who swung from one party to the other.

What's the swing when correlated for race?

[Mr. Morden]

non-college graduates, 2012 exit poll:
Obama 51%
Romney 47%
3rd party 2%

non-college graduates, 2016 exit poll:
Trump 51%
Clinton 44%
3rd party 5%

That seems to be the largest swing group away from Obama and towards Trump.

Though yeah, it would be nice if we had some data on how many of these folks are new voters and how many are old voters who swung from one party to the other.

What's the swing when correlated for race?

There is no combined race-education breakdown in the 2012 exit polls, as far as I can see.  They give the breakdown for how different races voted, and how different education levels voted, but not the two combined.

[anthonyjg]

My Grandma voted for Obama twice but this year she was a big Trump supporter. I think this is dead on.

I said earlier this campaign that Trump's real Achilles Heel was economic policy, and Clinton should have run against him the way Obama ran against Romney. The character and temperament issues would take care of themselves.

Yeah she probably supports the wall/deportations/Muslim ban but I doubt it was the main reason behind her vote. From the few times I've talked politics with her, she places way more emphasis on America and its people getting ripped off by elites or by other countries. Other than this year she's a pretty reliable Democrat. If Democrats beef up the rhetoric on trade, unions, wall street, and safety net programs, I would be very surprised if she didn't start voting for Democrats again.

[Badger]

My Grandma voted for Obama twice but this year she was a big Trump supporter. I think this is dead on.

I said earlier this campaign that Trump's real Achilles Heel was economic policy, and Clinton should have run against him the way Obama ran against Romney. The character and temperament issues would take care of themselves.

Yeah she probably supports the wall/deportations/Muslim ban but I doubt it was the main reason behind her vote. From the few times I've talked politics with her, she places way more emphasis on America and its people getting ripped off by elites or by other countries. Other than this year she's a pretty reliable Democrat. If Democrats beef up the rhetoric on trade, unions, wall street, and safety net programs, I would be very surprised if she didn't start voting for Democrats again.

yeah, notwithstanding her probable support of the Muslim ban and mass deportations, it's tough to call her much of a racist after voting for Obama twice. there are tons like her throughout the Rust Belt who swung the electoral college to Trump.

[SingingAnalyst]

In Macomb County, MI, in 2012 Obama beat Romney 208,000 to 192,000. In 2016 Trump beat Clinton 224,000 to 176,000. Clearly thousands of votes switched parties between the two elections.

[Badger]

In Macomb County, MI, in 2012 Obama beat Romney 208,000 to 192,000. In 2016 Trump beat Clinton 224,000 to 176,000. Clearly thousands of votes switched parties between the two elections.

Exactly.

Maybe my thread title wasn't clear enough. The fundamental question here is "Why?".

[SingingAnalyst]

In Macomb County, MI, in 2012 Obama beat Romney 208,000 to 192,000. In 2016 Trump beat Clinton 224,000 to 176,000. Clearly thousands of votes switched parties between the two elections.

Exactly.

Maybe my thread title wasn't clear enough. The fundamental question here is "Why?".

It was probably a combination of several small things. Perhaps Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comment or her supposed comment that "gun control is for the little people" or a tape that supposedly showed her making fun of Evangelicals and Catholics. It all added up, though, especially for swing, uncommitted voters.

[Lord_Gulgoth]

I know three 2x Obama-Trump voters. One is a manager at the factory that I work at; he was won over based on trade+immigration issues and hadn't forgiven Hillary for her husband's signing of NAFTA. He voted for Obama in 2008 enthusiastically and in 2012 reluctantly. Another one is an elderly part-time security guard at the college I went to (he's from Eastern Iowa originally), who was a typical union Democrat from the rust belt who never voted GOP ever and revered Kennedy and Tom Harkin. His vote was primarily due to trade issues, and that Obama hadn't done enough to try and stop the hemorrhaging of jobs. The last one is the father of a friend, who is a big swing voter (Reagan 80-84, Bush 88, Clinton 92-96, Bush 00, Kerry 04, Obama 08-12, and now Trump 16) and who mostly votes on whoever he trusts more.

As an aside, I know far more non-voters, and voters who don't vote often, who voted for Trump.

[Make My Bank Account Great Again]

I know three 2x Obama-Trump voters. One is a manager at the factory that I work at; he was won over based on trade+immigration issues and hadn't forgiven Hillary for her husband's signing of NAFTA. He voted for Obama in 2008 enthusiastically and in 2012 reluctantly. Another one is an elderly part-time security guard at the college I went to (he's from Eastern Iowa originally), who was a typical union Democrat from the rust belt who never voted GOP ever and revered Kennedy and Tom Harkin. His vote was primarily due to trade issues, and that Obama hadn't done enough to try and stop the hemorrhaging of jobs. The last one is the father of a friend, who is a big swing voter (Reagan 80-84, Bush 88, Clinton 92-96, Bush 00, Kerry 04, Obama 08-12, and now Trump 16) and who mostly votes on whoever he trusts more.

As an aside, I know far more non-voters, and voters who don't vote often, who voted for Trump.

This is exactly why Trump was the only Republican that had any chance of actually expanding the map. Rubio, Bush, and Kasich wouldn't have been able to accomplish this. Even if they managed to squeak by a victory, MI, PA, and WI would've all gone to Hillary.

Trump was always the strongest GOP candidate. He attacked Hillary from her left on issues like Trade, Wall Street ties, and foreign policy.

[Lothal1]

I know some, and they generally have the same beliefs that made them support Trump: A negative opinion of Hillary, a feeling of being screwed, and believed that Trump would bring change.

[anthonyjg]

Van Jones did a segment on his show where he spoke to a family of people who supported Obama twice and voted for Trump this year, it sounds pretty similar to what has been posted so far.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLuLFDkYVL8

[vtred]

Top 10 Counties (based on 2016 vote totals) that switched to Trump after 2012/2008 voting for Obama:

Suffolk, NY
Pinellas, FL
Macomb, MI
Montgomery, OH
Hillsborough, NH
Stark, OH
Orange, NY
Northampton, PA
St. Lucie, FL
Gloucester, NJ

[justfollowingtheelections]

People often vote based on a candidate's personality rather than ideology.  Both Obama and Trump come off as "cool" (I'm not sure how else to describe it), manly men who get the job done and you can drink a beer with afterwards.  Romney and Hillary come off as cold and calculated.
That's my best explanation.

[Adam Griffin]

FYI:



A 26-point swing.

[mistertheplague]

Van Jones did a segment on his show where he spoke to a family of people who supported Obama twice and voted for Trump this year, it sounds pretty similar to what has been posted so far.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLuLFDkYVL8

Fascinating. The Seitzes are Democrats from Trumbull County, Ohio, an area I know very well. These folks come across as decent, thoughtful people. The most interesting moment in the segment was when the dad said of the Democrats this year, "We feel they came through and paid attention to the special interests and completely forgot about us."

Hearing that, I sat upright. What "special interests" was he referring to? Identity groups, maybe? Wish like hell Jones had followed up on that.

[mistertheplague]

This is exactly why Trump was the only Republican that had any chance of actually expanding the map. Rubio, Bush, and Kasich wouldn't have been able to accomplish this. Even if they managed to squeak by a victory, MI, PA, and WI would've all gone to Hillary.

Trump was always the strongest GOP candidate. He attacked Hillary from her left on issues like Trade, Wall Street ties, and foreign policy.

Spot on, and couple of other factors are likely causing many GOP strategists to eat a lot of Tums: the nature of Trump's candidacy and of their Democratic opposition.

Trump's candidacy isn't scalable, i.e., you're not likely to find a lot of Trump Republicans going forward the way every Republican since 1990 has claimed the mantle of Reagan or cited aspects of George W. Bush's legacy. Trump has divided and will continue to divide Republicans, but not nearly as much as Hillary Clinton unified them. My wife's uncle is a good example: he's as Republican as the Gipper himself, but in the end he could not bring himself to vote for Trump.

The only reason he hung on as long as he did was Hillary Clinton. Had almost anyone on planet Earth besides Hillary Clinton been the Democratic nominee, I think Trump would have lost WI, MI, PA, NC, and FL, and AZ and GA would have been a lot closer.

[mistertheplague]

People often vote based on a candidate's personality rather than ideology.  Both Obama and Trump come off as "cool" (I'm not sure how else to describe it), manly men who get the job done and you can drink a beer with afterwards.  Romney and Hillary come off as cold and calculated.
That's my best explanation.

They were framed that way, and they did a lot to help their opponents do it. The Obama campaign framed Romney as a plutocratic asshole who didn't care one whit about working people. Their ads featured working people telling their own stories about how they'd been screwed by Bain Capital. Takeaway: you can't trust this guy to look out for you and your family. He doesn't care.

The Clinton campaign had a similar line of attack against Trump in late Spring. I remember a commercial in which a contractor in Atlantic City talked about how Trump stiffed him after he completed work on one of Trump's casinos. It was powerful. 

Then the Clinton campaign veered from this thrust and began chasing Trump's Twitter account. That's when they lost this election, in my opinion.

[anthonyjg]

Van Jones did a segment on his show where he spoke to a family of people who supported Obama twice and voted for Trump this year, it sounds pretty similar to what has been posted so far.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLuLFDkYVL8

Fascinating. The Seitzes are Democrats from Trumbull County, Ohio, an area I know very well. These folks come across as decent, thoughtful people. The most interesting moment in the segment was when the dad said of the Democrats this year, "We feel they came through and paid attention to the special interests and completely forgot about us."

Hearing that, I sat upright. What "special interests" was he referring to? Identity groups, maybe? Wish like hell Jones had followed up on that.

I thought he was referring to lobbyists, corporations, wall street, etc. However, I am curious as to whether this is a Hillary problem or a Democratic party problem. I would've been very interested to hear their opinions about other major Democratic politicians like Bernie or Warren.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Van Jones did a segment on his show where he spoke to a family of people who supported Obama twice and voted for Trump this year, it sounds pretty similar to what has been posted so far.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLuLFDkYVL8

Fascinating. The Seitzes are Democrats from Trumbull County, Ohio, an area I know very well. These folks come across as decent, thoughtful people. The most interesting moment in the segment was when the dad said of the Democrats this year, "We feel they came through and paid attention to the special interests and completely forgot about us."

Hearing that, I sat upright. What "special interests" was he referring to? Identity groups, maybe? Wish like hell Jones had followed up on that.

I thought he was referring to lobbyists, corporations, wall street, etc. However, I am curious as to whether this is a Hillary problem or a Democratic party problem. I would've been very interested to hear their opinions about other major Democratic politicians like Bernie or Warren.

It's clearly a Hillary problem considering that the father said that "Obama's a good man" who "represents a lot of love" and "who did all he could". These are not characterizations that people use to describe their opponents; this is, at worst, an expression of disappointment.

Plus, the mom in that video voted for all Democrats and didn't vote for any candidate. That doesn't suggest that she has an issue with the Democratic Party.

[Mr. Morden]

My Grandma voted for Obama twice but this year she was a big Trump supporter. I think this is dead on.

I said earlier this campaign that Trump's real Achilles Heel was economic policy, and Clinton should have run against him the way Obama ran against Romney. The character and temperament issues would take care of themselves.

Yeah she probably supports the wall/deportations/Muslim ban but I doubt it was the main reason behind her vote. From the few times I've talked politics with her, she places way more emphasis on America and its people getting ripped off by elites or by other countries. Other than this year she's a pretty reliable Democrat. If Democrats beef up the rhetoric on trade, unions, wall street, and safety net programs, I would be very surprised if she didn't start voting for Democrats again.

yeah, notwithstanding her probable support of the Muslim ban and mass deportations, it's tough to call her much of a racist after voting for Obama twice. there are tons like her throughout the Rust Belt who swung the electoral college to Trump.

You might be interested in watching this clip of Bill Scher talking about how Clinton was the first Democratic presidential nominee to not “wink” at “white racial grievance”:

http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/44417?in=19:27&out=21:55

Which he also talks about here:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/basket-of-deplorables-strategy-democrats-214246

(Though that article was written pre-election, and video was taped post-election.)

The basic idea is that while, yes, Obama is black, he followed the lead of previous Democratic presidential nominees in terms of his handling of white racism:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Clinton, on the other hand, ran a campaign that confronted white racism more directly:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

So I guess what I’d say is that there are some people with attitudes that we might call “racist” who nonetheless are willing to vote for a black candidate, as long as that black candidate doesn’t try to challenge them on their racial beliefs.  In fact, they’d prefer voting for that candidate over voting for a white candidate who *does* challenge their racial beliefs.

[Badger]

My Grandma voted for Obama twice but this year she was a big Trump supporter. I think this is dead on.

I said earlier this campaign that Trump's real Achilles Heel was economic policy, and Clinton should have run against him the way Obama ran against Romney. The character and temperament issues would take care of themselves.

Yeah she probably supports the wall/deportations/Muslim ban but I doubt it was the main reason behind her vote. From the few times I've talked politics with her, she places way more emphasis on America and its people getting ripped off by elites or by other countries. Other than this year she's a pretty reliable Democrat. If Democrats beef up the rhetoric on trade, unions, wall street, and safety net programs, I would be very surprised if she didn't start voting for Democrats again.

yeah, notwithstanding her probable support of the Muslim ban and mass deportations, it's tough to call her much of a racist after voting for Obama twice. there are tons like her throughout the Rust Belt who swung the electoral college to Trump.

You might be interested in watching this clip of Bill Scher talking about how Clinton was the first Democratic presidential nominee to not “wink” at “white racial grievance”:

http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/44417?in=19:27&out=21:55

Which he also talks about here:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/basket-of-deplorables-strategy-democrats-214246

(Though that article was written pre-election, and video was taped post-election.)

The basic idea is that while, yes, Obama is black, he followed the lead of previous Democratic presidential nominees in terms of his handling of white racism:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Clinton, on the other hand, ran a campaign that confronted white racism more directly:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

So I guess what I’d say is that there are some people with attitudes that we might call “racist” who nonetheless are willing to vote for a black candidate, as long as that black candidate doesn’t try to challenge them on their racial beliefs.  In fact, they’d prefer voting for that candidate over voting for a white candidate who *does* challenge their racial beliefs.

I think that misses the point. There's very little about Obama that didn't confront that reality. The difference as noted in his quote above is he never lost sight of the fundamental economic anxiety middle class voters--predominantly white voters--feel. Clinton did and pushed economics to the back burner.

THAT is, I believe, the real lesson here.

[Nym90]

Ta-Nehisi Coates had a great conversation with Ezra Klein on Ezra's podcast recently about the issue of race in America (among other topics) and specifically refuting the logic that an Obama-Trump voter by definition can't be racist since they voted for a black candidate.

His point on this issue was that there is no way that a black person who acts like Trump and had his past and record would have a prayer of being elected President. On the other hand, Obama had to have a spotless record of character to be elected.

In other words, you don't have to hate all black people to be racist. You simply have to hold blacks to different standards than whites.

By that definition, America is most definitely still a very racist country.

Here's the link to a partial transcript. http://www.vox.com/conversations/2016/12/19/13952578/ta-nehisi-coates-ezra-klein

I think there's no doubt this is true. The closest equivalent to a black Trump would be Al Sharpton, and look at how spectacularly Sharpton failed in his 2004 Presidential bid. He didn't even win the black vote, and obviously did pitifully among whites even in the Dem primary (imagine how badly he would have done in the general if he had somehow won the nomination).

[smoltchanov]

I know three 2x Obama-Trump voters. One is a manager at the factory that I work at; he was won over based on trade+immigration issues and hadn't forgiven Hillary for her husband's signing of NAFTA. He voted for Obama in 2008 enthusiastically and in 2012 reluctantly. Another one is an elderly part-time security guard at the college I went to (he's from Eastern Iowa originally), who was a typical union Democrat from the rust belt who never voted GOP ever and revered Kennedy and Tom Harkin. His vote was primarily due to trade issues, and that Obama hadn't done enough to try and stop the hemorrhaging of jobs. The last one is the father of a friend, who is a big swing voter (Reagan 80-84, Bush 88, Clinton 92-96, Bush 00, Kerry 04, Obama 08-12, and now Trump 16) and who mostly votes on whoever he trusts more.

As an aside, I know far more non-voters, and voters who don't vote often, who voted for Trump.

I know only one, but - direct relative.   My cousin in Indiana. It's all very simple for him - absolute personal rejection of Clinton's personality. His words about her: "liar", "corrupt", "smug", "heartless". "cynical",  and so on. By his own words - he (and almost anyone around) was ready to vote for Sanders. But - not for her. I think such cases of personal rejection were rather frequent...