Report: California’s Missing Voters

[Virginiá]

Who Is Not Voting and Why

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/r_0617emr.pdf

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Pretty good report on California's ongoing registration and turnout issues. The gist is basically that Hispanic and Asian citizens are causing a registration deficit and young voters are causing a midterm decline. Automatic voter registration and same-day voter registration should help solve some of the registration issues, but the turnout decline among young voters will take more intensive outreach.

Would recommend reading if the topic interests you at all.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Yeah...this is a problem for 2018. If you scroll through the districts that Democrats are targeting in 2018 in the state (using the first list the DCCC put out in January: Districts 10, 21, 39, 45, 48, and 49) you'll notice that the African American population in all districts is 4% or less while Asians and Hispanics make up the bulk in all of these districts (average for Asians is 14%, Hispanics is 35%).

So these districts are gonna come down to turnout among these voters (particularly the youth). I don't foresee wealthy Romney-Clinton Republicans who strongly backed their GOP representatives flipping to vote for the Democrats down-ballot just 2 years later in a hyperpolarized environment where the go to strategy for the GOP going into 2018 will be to attack the media and "Nancy Pelosi liberals". Can't speak for the other districts, but CA-48 residents will eat that sh*t up.

[Virginiá]

Yeah...this is a problem for 2018. If you scroll through the districts that Democrats are targeting in 2018 in the state (using the first list the DCCC put out in January: Districts 10, 21, 39, 45, 48, and 49) you'll notice that the African American population in all districts is 4% or less while Asians and Hispanics make up the bulk in all of these districts (average for Asians is 14%, Hispanics is 35%).

Apparently Orange County also opted not to start with mail voting-by-default in 2018, where ballots would be mailed to everyone and a reduction in in-person polling places would be implemented. This program was mentioned as a way to increase turnout among these particular groups.

I wouldn't be surprised if it came down to strictly partisan reasoning.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Yeah...this is a problem for 2018. If you scroll through the districts that Democrats are targeting in 2018 in the state (using the first list the DCCC put out in January: Districts 10, 21, 39, 45, 48, and 49) you'll notice that the African American population in all districts is 4% or less while Asians and Hispanics make up the bulk in all of these districts (average for Asians is 14%, Hispanics is 35%).

Apparently Orange County also opted not to start with mail voting-by-default in 2018, where ballots would be mailed to everyone and a reduction in in-person polling places would be implemented. This program was mentioned as a way to increase turnout among these particular groups.

I wouldn't be surprised if it came down to strictly partisan reasoning.

True. And I wouldn't be shocked if it was done for solely partisan reasons. We were taught to register people by having them fill out on their form for the mail-in-ballot option (or at the very least a sample ballot option) because people are far more likely to vote if they get to have their ballot or see a sample one weeks before the election date.

[Virginiá]

True. And I wouldn't be shocked if it was done for solely partisan reasons. We were taught to register people by having them fill out on their form for the mail-in-ballot option (or at the very least a sample ballot option) because people are far more likely to vote if they get to have their ballot or see a sample one weeks before the election date.

Honestly, if CA Democrats wanted to be a little more ruthless, they could have simply forced Orange County and all the other counties comprising 2018's targeted seats to participate in the pilot program. It's not like the rest of the state won't adopt it in 2-4 years anyway

If you look at how these elections turned out in 2016, I don't think the midterm issue is really going to make a big difference if you believe these particular white voters won't revolt against their incumbent Representatives. Last year already saw decent turnout among the demographic groups in question and still saw those Reps easily win reelection. If presidential year turnout doesn't do it, then no amount of work in 2018 will.

Personally, I don't think their easy wins in 2016 prevents them from losing in 2018. For all we know, they could have believed Trump was not going to win anyway, and would now be much more receptive to a "check and balance" pitch. Further, Obama's tenure was a relatively good example of people who voted against him but voted back in their incumbent Democrats then turning on said Democrats after Obama was elected. I'm not saying that is what will happen, but rather that it's not impossible to believe a Trump presidency actually does have the power to push them in our direction. If most people who disapprove of a president tend to vote against the president's party, what does that say about all those white college graduates who strongly disapprove of Trump?

[Technocracy Timmy]

Some of these districts are potential pickups. Issa, Royce and Denham are vulnerable. I'd be shocked if Rohrabacher (as stupid as he is) loses his seat. I also don't think Mimi Walters will lose her seat either (she won by 16-18 points as did Rohrabacher). Valadao won by 12/13 points so I'd say lean R for him.

I'd guess Dems go 3-3 in these districts (assuming there isn't a recession) since a hyper polarization strategy plus attacking the media will keep the GOP base angry and riled up enough. The fact that these voters are wealthier or more cosmopolitan doesn't take away from the fact that they've voted for the Republican Party their entire lives and have a genuine economic self interest to vote for them. The only possible thing in this Reagan alignment era that would lead me to think the Democrats can take back the House is a recession since clearly Trump f**king our civic institutions doesn't seem to even budge his approval among Republicans.

These voters are just...I don't want to be an ass but they're Fox News driven country club republicans who probably didn't vote for Trump because it would make them look "uncultured" in their social circles. They backed Romney, McCain, Bush, etc. and I don't see that changing in a mere 2 years. It takes longer than 2 years to see presidential results translate down-ballot and I wouldn't hold my breathe on these people actually stumbling into a polling booth and voting for a Democratic representative down-ballot. They'd had to be an Ossoff style moderate and that kind of candidate poses the risk of not being able to genuinely excite the Democratic base in these respective counties if they're viewed as just another country club style candidate who calls him/herself a Democrat.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Just gonna point out that a bunch of blue dogs in the south who lost by decent margins in 2010 had won by 18+ points in 2008.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Just gonna point out that a bunch of blue dogs in the south who lost by decent margins in 2010 had won by 18+ points in 2008.

...because the economy was in the worst recession since the Great Depression from the period those Democrats were in office January 2009-November 2010. This is precisely why I said the Democrats won't take back the House in 2018 unless there's a recession. Plus those blue dogs were courting a constituency that were far more likely to be hurt by a recession (WWC) while they were in office wereas the Democrats are targeting a constituency that won't be as hurt by a recession (wealthy Republicans).

[Virginiá]

Just gonna point out that a bunch of blue dogs in the south who lost by decent margins in 2010 had won by 18+ points in 2008.

...because the economy was in the worst recession since the Great Depression from the period those Democrats were in office January 2009-November 2010. This is precisely why I said the Democrats won't take back the House in 2018 unless there's a recession. Plus those blue dogs were courting a constituency that were far more likely to be hurt by a recession (WWC) while they were in office wereas the Democrats are targeting a constituency that won't be as hurt by a recession (wealthy Republicans).

Those are some pretty decent points actually. I hadn't considered the effects of a recession wouldn't be distributed equally. I'd still like to know exactly what the threshold would be, though. White college grads are by no means a consistently wealthy group of voters. Plus, you could still be fine but have your opinion affected by friends/family suffering, or even just find yourself strongly disapproving of the incumbent administration's actions. I think all of us could probably say we are influenced to varying degrees by events/issues that do not directly affect us.

Edit: I also wonder exactly how much of the recession contributed to the post-Obama collapse in the South. Yes, Kerry lost bigly in many of those states, but Bush was winning by ~2% nationally. Obama won by over 7 points and in many cases he lost by even more in those states. If the recession was a big issue to them, it should have hurt McCain at least somewhat, even after considering that it had only just begun at that point. There was definitely a backlash to Obama, and I think that contributed heavily to their downballot woes. I mean the recession argument just doesn't do it for me with those particular voters. I think Obama came to show them, rather quickly at that, that the Democratic Party was no longer on their side. Obviously the slow recovery hurt but I don't believe it was the primary factor.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Just gonna point out that a bunch of blue dogs in the south who lost by decent margins in 2010 had won by 18+ points in 2008.

...because the economy was in the worst recession since the Great Depression from the period those Democrats were in office January 2009-November 2010. This is precisely why I said the Democrats won't take back the House in 2018 unless there's a recession. Plus those blue dogs were courting a constituency that were far more likely to be hurt by a recession (WWC) while they were in office wereas the Democrats are targeting a constituency that won't be as hurt by a recession (wealthy Republicans).

Those are some pretty decent points actually. I hadn't considered the effects of a recession wouldn't be distributed equally. I'd still like to know exactly what the threshold would be, though. White college grads are by no means a consistently wealthy group of voters. Plus, you could still be fine but have your opinion affected by friends/family suffering, or even just find yourself strongly disapproving of the incumbent administration's actions. I think all of us could probably say we are influenced to varying degrees by events/issues that do not directly affect us.

Interestingly enough this is the same counter argument people use to defend the idea that the Brexit voters were not driven primarily by racism. Rich and poor areas both voted for Brexit; so clearly it must be that these voters were driven primarily by racism. The counter argument some people have used is that while a Brexit voter may personally be financially well off, they may get the feeling that the country as a whole is doing poorly enough to where they wanted to shake up the system.

Which one is true? Do people vote primarily on the financial well being of the country or themselves?  We'll see. But if Georgia 6 becomes the norm (Ossoff being the perfect moderate Democrat and losing to a non incumbent Handel) then hyper polarization will keep them in the GOP column. I predict that this will largely be the case (again, assuming no recession).

Edit: I also wonder exactly how much of the recession contributed to the post-Obama collapse in the South. Yes, Kerry lost bigly in many of those states, but Bush was winning by ~2% nationally. Obama won by over 7 points and in many cases he lost by even more in those states. If the recession was a big issue to them, it should have hurt McCain at least somewhat, even after considering that it had only just begun at that point. There was definitely a backlash to Obama, and I think that contributed heavily to their downballot woes. I mean the recession argument just doesn't do it for me with those particular voters. I think Obama came to show them, rather quickly at that, that the Democratic Party was no longer on their side. Obviously the slow recovery hurt but I don't believe it was the primary factor.

The southern trend towards the GOP has been decades in the making. But it seemed as though the poorer working class areas in the south and the rust belt (see the Walkerfication of Wisconsin) were most strongly affected by the Tea Party wave. I would venture to guess that this was due to both the recession and the belief that Obama and this newer more multi-racial and socially liberal Democratic Party didn't align with their cultural views. The abortion clauses in Obamacare may have really driven a wedge with the pro life Dems in these districts.

So economic and cultural grievances drove them from the Democrats in this time period. Trumps cultural conservative positions aren't gonna drive that big of a wedge for wealthy republican voters. After all, there was a recent study showing that the "socially liberal fiscally conservative" voter was much, much smaller compared to the socially conservative, fiscally liberal kind. Trump is governing like a neoliberal Republican and the stock market is at record highs so their financial accounts are doing great under Trump and their economic views align with the President's.

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Sad but not surprising. Lack of political engagement is a major and well-known problem with both communities. As an Asian American, I can vouch for the lack of outreach by both parties to the Asian community, thanks to our small size, heavy immigrant background, concentration in safe areas, and old fashioned racism. And while I'd hypothesize that things would be better for Hispanics due to their larger size, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they too face the same problem.

Maybe one day politicians will see the need to actually reach out to the Asian American community, lest the sins of soft bigotry cause them to miss important opportunities such as next year's midterms.

[uti2]

Just gonna point out that a bunch of blue dogs in the south who lost by decent margins in 2010 had won by 18+ points in 2008.

...because the economy was in the worst recession since the Great Depression from the period those Democrats were in office January 2009-November 2010. This is precisely why I said the Democrats won't take back the House in 2018 unless there's a recession. Plus those blue dogs were courting a constituency that were far more likely to be hurt by a recession (WWC) while they were in office wereas the Democrats are targeting a constituency that won't be as hurt by a recession (wealthy Republicans).

Those are some pretty decent points actually. I hadn't considered the effects of a recession wouldn't be distributed equally. I'd still like to know exactly what the threshold would be, though. White college grads are by no means a consistently wealthy group of voters. Plus, you could still be fine but have your opinion affected by friends/family suffering, or even just find yourself strongly disapproving of the incumbent administration's actions. I think all of us could probably say we are influenced to varying degrees by events/issues that do not directly affect us.

Interestingly enough this is the same counter argument people use to defend the idea that the Brexit voters were not driven primarily by racism. Rich and poor areas both voted for Brexit; so clearly it must be that these voters were driven primarily by racism. The counter argument some people have used is that while a Brexit voter may personally be financially well off, they may get the feeling that the country as a whole is doing poorly enough to where they wanted to shake up the system.

Which one is true? Do people vote primarily on the financial well being of the country or themselves?  We'll see. But if Georgia 6 becomes the norm (Ossoff being the perfect moderate Democrat and losing to a non incumbent Handel) then hyper polarization will keep them in the GOP column. I predict that this will largely be the case (again, assuming no recession).

Edit: I also wonder exactly how much of the recession contributed to the post-Obama collapse in the South. Yes, Kerry lost bigly in many of those states, but Bush was winning by ~2% nationally. Obama won by over 7 points and in many cases he lost by even more in those states. If the recession was a big issue to them, it should have hurt McCain at least somewhat, even after considering that it had only just begun at that point. There was definitely a backlash to Obama, and I think that contributed heavily to their downballot woes. I mean the recession argument just doesn't do it for me with those particular voters. I think Obama came to show them, rather quickly at that, that the Democratic Party was no longer on their side. Obviously the slow recovery hurt but I don't believe it was the primary factor.

The southern trend towards the GOP has been decades in the making. But it seemed as though the poorer working class areas in the south and the rust belt (see the Walkerfication of Wisconsin) were most strongly affected by the Tea Party wave. I would venture to guess that this was due to both the recession and the belief that Obama and this newer more multi-racial and socially liberal Democratic Party didn't align with their cultural views. The abortion clauses in Obamacare may have really driven a wedge with the pro life Dems in these districts.

So economic and cultural grievances drove them from the Democrats in this time period. Trumps cultural conservative positions aren't gonna drive that big of a wedge for wealthy republican voters. After all, there was a recent study showing that the "socially liberal fiscally conservative" voter was much, much smaller compared to the socially conservative, fiscally liberal kind. Trump is governing like a neoliberal Republican and the stock market is at record highs so their financial accounts are doing great under Trump and their economic views align with the President's.

Be that as it may be, both Hoover and Carter foreshadowed FDR and Reagan. Carter was a centrist/conservative Dem who was at odds with the New Deal and wanted to hamper down on inflation and focus on balancing the budget. Hoover was a more liberal republican. What this suggests is that given that most of Trump's rivals were mainly right-wing republicans who refused to compromise with Obama - and given the nature of the GOP congress acting as a obstructionist as the 80s Dems did post-iran contra and as the GOP did under Truman's term, that the paradigm wasn't ready to reset. Biden/Hillary should've gotten another term for their party, but Trump was able to break the cycle early. It wouldn't be until 1952/1992/2020 that a genuine compromising opposition party (which would accept the basic tenets of obamacare, for instance) with a genuine compromising GOP congress that the GOP should be able to take power. If you look at the current dysfunction in the GOP congress, it shows that the GOP was not ready to make the early jump that it did. This is what you should note about cycle theory regarding the 2016 election. The Dem congress of '92 and the GOP congress of '52 were tamed and straightened out, the GOP congress of '16 absolutely was not.

[Virginiá]

Are you saying Obama was the Democrats Reagan? I mean really there are a lot more reasons to think that he isn't than there are in favor of him. One major one being that he barely broke from the current era's conservative-leaning politics. He was definitely closer to a Nixon-type president.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Are you saying Obama was the Democrats Reagan? I mean really there are a lot more reasons to think that he isn't than there are in favor of him. One major one being that he barely broke from the current era's conservative-leaning politics. He was definitely closer to a Nixon-type president.

I'm not sure what uti2 was getting at in his post. He did make a very enlightening connection with how Third Party movements foreshadow realigning Presidents. TD and I discussed this via PM and he wrote a two part article about it in his timeline.

I do reject his premise that Obama was a realigning President though (which seems to be what he's suggesting in his post). He may have had the potential to be one if he and the Demcorats sat down and completely restructured our macroeconomy that was in dire need of a system reboot similar to that of 1932 or 1980; but bailouts were easier and the same exact system has stayed basically in place since then. His two most prized accomplishments was a centrist free market healthcare plan and a re-regulation of our financial system. All in all he stayed with the neoliberal tradition of Reagan more than recreating a new era.

[uti2]

Are you saying Obama was the Democrats Reagan? I mean really there are a lot more reasons to think that he isn't than there are in favor of him. One major one being that he barely broke from the current era's conservative-leaning politics. He was definitely closer to a Nixon-type president.

I'm not sure what uti2 was getting at in his post. He did make a very enlightening connection with how Third Party movements foreshadow realigning Presidents. TD and I discussed this via PM and he wrote a two part article about it in his timeline.

I do reject his premise that Obama was a realigning President though (which seems to be what he's suggesting in his post). He may have had the potential to be one if he and the Demcorats sat down and completely restructured our macroeconomy that was in dire need of a system reboot similar to that of 1932 or 1980; but bailouts were easier and the same exact system has stayed basically in place since then. His two most prized accomplishments was a centrist free market healthcare plan and a re-regulation of our financial system. All in all he stayed with the neoliberal tradition of Reagan more than recreating a new era.

Does that mean because Obama failed to realign - the GOP would go harder-right in response?

Because in that context, the GOP candidates and the GOP congress were offering even more right-wing agendas than Reaganism. Truman/JFK and their congresses were more moderate than FDR, and the Bushes and their congresses were more moderate than Reagan (compassionate conservatism).

How do you go from hard-right to hard-left or vice versa? More moderate candidates like Carter and Hoover both foreshadowed their successors.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Are you saying Obama was the Democrats Reagan? I mean really there are a lot more reasons to think that he isn't than there are in favor of him. One major one being that he barely broke from the current era's conservative-leaning politics. He was definitely closer to a Nixon-type president.

I'm not sure what uti2 was getting at in his post. He did make a very enlightening connection with how Third Party movements foreshadow realigning Presidents. TD and I discussed this via PM and he wrote a two part article about it in his timeline.

I do reject his premise that Obama was a realigning President though (which seems to be what he's suggesting in his post). He may have had the potential to be one if he and the Demcorats sat down and completely restructured our macroeconomy that was in dire need of a system reboot similar to that of 1932 or 1980; but bailouts were easier and the same exact system has stayed basically in place since then. His two most prized accomplishments was a centrist free market healthcare plan and a re-regulation of our financial system. All in all he stayed with the neoliberal tradition of Reagan more than recreating a new era.

Does that mean because Obama failed to realign - the GOP would go harder-right in response?

Because in that context, the GOP candidates and the GOP congress were offering even more right-wing agendas than Reaganism. Truman/JFK and their congresses were more moderate than FDR, and the Bushes and their congresses were more moderate than Reagan (compassionate conservatism).

How do you go from hard-right to hard-left or vice versa? More moderate candidates like Carter and Hoover both foreshadowed their successors.

My theory in full. The GOP are on a crash course with macroeconomics the same way the GOP was leading up to the Great Depression and the Democrats were leading up to stagflation.

[uti2]

Are you saying Obama was the Democrats Reagan? I mean really there are a lot more reasons to think that he isn't than there are in favor of him. One major one being that he barely broke from the current era's conservative-leaning politics. He was definitely closer to a Nixon-type president.

I'm not sure what uti2 was getting at in his post. He did make a very enlightening connection with how Third Party movements foreshadow realigning Presidents. TD and I discussed this via PM and he wrote a two part article about it in his timeline.

I do reject his premise that Obama was a realigning President though (which seems to be what he's suggesting in his post). He may have had the potential to be one if he and the Demcorats sat down and completely restructured our macroeconomy that was in dire need of a system reboot similar to that of 1932 or 1980; but bailouts were easier and the same exact system has stayed basically in place since then. His two most prized accomplishments was a centrist free market healthcare plan and a re-regulation of our financial system. All in all he stayed with the neoliberal tradition of Reagan more than recreating a new era.

Does that mean because Obama failed to realign - the GOP would go harder-right in response?

Because in that context, the GOP candidates and the GOP congress were offering even more right-wing agendas than Reaganism. Truman/JFK and their congresses were more moderate than FDR, and the Bushes and their congresses were more moderate than Reagan (compassionate conservatism).

How do you go from hard-right to hard-left or vice versa? More moderate candidates like Carter and Hoover both foreshadowed their successors.

My theory in full. The GOP are on a crash course with macroeconomics the same way the GOP was leading up to the Great Depression and the Democrats were leading up to stagflation.

During political realignments, it's not one party that changes course - it's both parties. It took defeats in both 1948 and 1988 for Republicans and Democrats, respectively, to moderate. The current GOP is actually to the right of the Reagan-era GOP, so how do you expect both parties to moderate when the GOP refuses to do so?

When Carter and Hoover were elected, their respective parties were already starting to moderate.

Going by that - the unmangeable GOP should've been conditioned to moderate after suffering a defeat with a Generic Republican in 2016.

What you're suggesting is that the GOP would drive far-right, while the Democrats would simultaneously drive far-left? What incentive would the GOP have to moderate and drive forward the next political paradigm if they succeed electorally by running ultra-right wing campaigns?

[Technocracy Timmy]

Carter and Hoover both enacted "soft" policies that would presage the incoming opposition Party realignment, yes. Crises will cause Party leaders to do things so drastically different that even their Party shifts during it. Bear in mind that Carter's Democratic congress were New Dealers when he came in and it was very difficult for him to work with them until stagflation and the crisis really began ratcheting up. There will be a crisis in the early 2020's (maybe sooner-though I doubt it) and God knows we need one to bring this incredibly polarized country together. The macroeconomic foundations are there for a crisis; we had one in 2008 based largely on the same neoliberal mantra. We bailed it out instead of restructuring it and that crisis wasn't caused solely from poor financial regulation. Those same problems will come to the forefront sooner or later and the Reaganite neoliberal GOP will be helpless to fix it.

Crises either wreck Parties or force them to moderate to survive. Notice how Tip O'Neill and the southern Demcorats gladly worked with Reagan to enact almost his entire agenda and completely restructured our economy in the 80's. The GOP were thrown out in 1932 and didn't moderate until Eisenhower. The Demcorats literally rebelled in 1860. The Federalist Party died in 1800. Opposition parties either go down fighting until they moderate to come back or they're cast off into the wilderness (and in the case of the Federalist Party: they died). President Trump and/or President Pence will be no different.

We will see how exactly it plays out. Maybe the crisis happens now (though I question if it'll be that soon) or maybe in 2021-2024. I don't know when exactly but I'd be shocked if the Democrats came back before the crisis hit given that Obama and Clinton were minority coalition Presidents who accepted the Reagan neoliberal mantra and governed largely as such. How did these two come to power? An economic downturn. That's what has allowed former Democratic presidents to swoop to power and that is what will  allow the Democrats to swoop in and realign the country: an economic crisis.

[The_Doctor]

Are you saying Obama was the Democrats Reagan? I mean really there are a lot more reasons to think that he isn't than there are in favor of him. One major one being that he barely broke from the current era's conservative-leaning politics. He was definitely closer to a Nixon-type president.

I'm not sure what uti2 was getting at in his post. He did make a very enlightening connection with how Third Party movements foreshadow realigning Presidents. TD and I discussed this via PM and he wrote a two part article about it in his timeline.

I do reject his premise that Obama was a realigning President though (which seems to be what he's suggesting in his post). He may have had the potential to be one if he and the Demcorats sat down and completely restructured our macroeconomy that was in dire need of a system reboot similar to that of 1932 or 1980; but bailouts were easier and the same exact system has stayed basically in place since then. His two most prized accomplishments was a centrist free market healthcare plan and a re-regulation of our financial system. All in all he stayed with the neoliberal tradition of Reagan more than recreating a new era.

I think Obama is a foreshadowing president, not a realigning one, to be clear in case this was a reference to me.

[Technocracy Timmy]

^ Oh I know. I was referring to uti2's post which seems to suggest that Obama was a realigning President Good catch.