Right, Elliot County Kentucky was always hardcore Republican.
So, for anyone curious, is a graph of 100 years of Presidential Elections in Elliot County, Kentucky....
Now because there are some 25+ US Pres elections it would be easy to mistake the Democratic '16 numbers with Republican 1912 numbers....
Note that although the first time in recent elections where it significantly swung Republican was in '00 (Without a Nader effect), this was totally reversed in '04 as a reset to a bit more of the norm.
Still, even in '08 Obama's numbers were relatively respectable, and 'Pub performance was only marginally improved from their '00 numbers.....
You really see the big swings happen in '12 and '16.....
There were definitely a ton of Obama/Trump voters in this County, many of whom had voted Democrat in just about every election.
Although Elliott County is perhaps one of the most extreme examples, I could certainly pull up some various precincts and towns in Oregon, where one would definitely observe the phenomenon of "Trump Democrats".....
As I stated previously in many parts of the Country in resource based communities and places with much deeper roots in the New Deal Labor movement, many of these voters have essentially functioned more as "swing voters" in Modern American Presidential Election History....
Although personally I don't believe that one's Party Registration status is the sole determining factor in Presidential Elections, it can definitely also be an indicator....
So, many people on Atlas were surprised that Columbia County, Oregon flipped and voted Republican for the first time since 1928!!!! I was not not completely surprised, since changes in voter registration patterns over the past few decades have generally been in the Republican's favor....
Additionally, as a County with a strong "New Deal Democrat" type mindset and strong Labor Union tradition, would be a place where Trump's economic Nationalistic message would likely appeal...
Still, Ronald Reagan lost by 2.5% to Mondale in '84, Reagan lost to Carter by 3.3% in '80, Nixon lost to McCarthy by 5.3% in '72!
George W. losing by only 2.8% in '04 should have been a warning sign....
Meanwhile Obama performs better than his National averages in '08/'12, and Trump wins by 11% in '16!
Shoot--- I know some Obama/Trump voters that are still friends of mine, (despite their '16 voting mistake imho),
Now, one could make an argument that in a State like Oregon where registered Independents are close to 1/3 voters in the State, that "they aren't Trump Democrats because they are not registered Democrats".
To go back to the WashPo original article, I think the whole concept of Partisan affiliation (Measured How? RV Party Affiliation, Self-Identification???).
Still, the easiest way to measure the phenomenon of "Trump Democrats" would be to pull data sets from various counties/cities/key precincts and Uninc Metro areas, and simply look at their voting history from 2000-2016....
It is patently clear that there were many people that voted for Trump in '16 after having voted for Obama 1x/2x, as well as many that swung back and forth between Dem/Rep in '00/'04, and we are not even talking about the Perot phenomenon as potentially being a leading indicator of the Trump phenomenon, that also started to indicate a fundamental break from a traditional Democratic constituency towards becoming a Republican constituency....
So was starting to crack a joke of my own making using arguably one one of best and classic VP Presidential Debates in Modern US History (1980+) the classic Bentsen-Quayle debate of '88.
* Insert personal brief anecdote*--- Coincidentally when I was in my Mid-Teens and we were driving through Iowa somewhere between Des Moines and Iowa City, as part of our annual Summer visits to visit my Mom's parents in PA..... Naturally the VP debate was on our car radio, not to far from where it was held in Omaha, Nebraska at the height of the Farm crisis...
My natural thought pattern on the attempted skewer line would be something like the following" "I know Trump Democrats... Trump Democrats are friends of Mine... Sir, you are no Trump Democrat"....
There are many swing voters that have been all over the map in Presidential Elections over the past few decades.... Many of them do not consider themselves either Democrat nor Republican.... Still, Trump was able to appeal to a significant enough chunk of these voters to actually narrowly capture the PV and win the EV in a few states.
The phrase "You are no Trump Democrat" will hit hard in '18, will hit hard among these Ancestral Democratic parts of the Country in the Midterm elections, since as we have discussed elsewhere these swings towards Trump between '08 and '16 happened
precisely in these areas....
Now that Trump is on the ropes towards the last Boxing rounds, these same fickle swing voters are more than likely to swing the other way, towards a Boxer from the other side.
Clinton was a horrible messenger to represent a Progressive Economically Populist message in many communities that voted Dukakis, Clinton v 1.0 wins but Perot voters swing hard Rep in George W. 1x or 2x, swung back towards Obama 1x or 2x, and then hard Trump '16.
What sometimes the commentators and pundits, including many of y'all on Atlas don't get, is how fickle those of us who feel like we've been screwed over for decades by Big Business, Big Banks, and Big Money, sometimes get....
We see a trickle up, but never a trickle down....
Yes---- Let's Make America Great Again (MAGA).... Although I respect Trump for calling out the BS elective wars overseas (Iraq) supported by Democrats and Republican alike at the highest levels of political office from 1990-2008.... I respect him calling out Democrats and Republicans alike for ramming through massive Free Trade agreements that started with MFN (China) under Bush Sr, NAFTA (Bill Clinton), TPP (Obama).
Ultimately, these Trade Agreements have resulted in a massively accelerated "Race to the Bottom" Globally, and especially so in the United States.
There is a reason that the "Left-Wing" of the Labor Movement has been fighting against this crap for over four decades!!!!
Interestingly enough, in the High-Tech Fortune 50 Company that I now work at as a contractor, jobs are coming back to America..... The Company bet on massive Corp Tax breaks under a 'Pub Pres (And is one of several HUGE tech comps on the radar for dodging Fed Taxes by shifting assets), and suddenly shut down all Production in Ireland to "bring jobs back to America".... Now contract workers in Oregon are getting paid Min wage to perform the same jobs, with no Benefits until 9 months into the job, where former MFG cleanroom workers were making $5/Hr more ten years back!
Now--- the plant I work at the vast majority of us Assembly Line workers are Bernie backers, regardless of the newer Millennials on the line, or those of us in the 40+ category....
So--- again back on topic. There are a ton of "Trump Democrats" out there, honestly not to mention some Sanders/Trump cross-overs (Not too many in Oregon, but sure there are quite a few in the Upper Midwest).
WashPo Story is crap.... as friend I used to work with who had no problem telling me even in the High-Tech setting about growing up a Redneck, where the deer is getting literally gutted on the dining room table after a score during hunting season, "If it doesn't pass the sniff test....).
The "No-Trump Dem" WashPo theory doesn't pass the sniff test. The concept and freak-out on the part of many Atlas posters regarding WWCs becoming a permanent Republican fixture does not have enough data points to pass the sniff test....
The theory of "Reagan Democrats" might be a bit bunk to explain Trump '16, but still, if one looks at Reagan's performance by County and adjust for age, ethnicity, and a few other variables, it does make sense that in places like Macomb County, there would actually be quite a few folks that are now retired UAW members, 65+, and large % of Pop with < college degree.
"Reagan Democrats" don't explain Michigan, but still he did pretty well in '80/'84 in many parts of the Country, that would now hit the key Trump Demographic range.
