Talk Elections

I posted this in the North Dakota megathread, and it only covers one demographic, but I thought I'd post it here anyway since we're getting nothing out of North Dakota.

AARP polled North Dakotans over 50:


Source: https://states.aarp.org/nd-2018-election-poll/ (https://states.aarp.org/nd-2018-election-poll/)

These polls where they only poll one demographic are really annoying.

Agreed. Maybe I'm just imagining it, but it seems like it is happening more frequently. But I'm desperate for anything out of North Dakota, so I posted this one.

Insofar as it tells us anything, I think it just says "still tossup." Heitkamp is probably doing somewhat better with younger voters (not sure how much), and that should more or less make up the difference.

These polls are meaningless but if Cramer is only up 3 with this group then I’d give Heitkamp a good shot

A lot of the older population in ND are old-school, farming, WWC Dems. The younger  generation is Likely R due to the oil boom.

AARP is one of the most Democratic organizations in the country.  I am not saying the poll is not legit. I hope you will forgive me for totally disregarding this poll.

The last time the Democrats won North Dakota at the presidential level is 1964 (which itsel was the first time since 1936). I don't think there are much ancestral democrats roots there.

They haven't been that wrong in the past.

I think he is thinking of Southeastern SOUTH Dakota around Vermilion. That's pretty much the place in the Dakotas where you have Minnesota-style populists.

That seems like good news.

I would agree.

Does anyone know if there's an age group breakdown for ND for 2016 or any previous years anywhere?

I looked for exit polls for the Dakotas in recent elections. There are none. Though IIRC, Prop 6 in South Dakota flopped amongst the younger voters and was neck and neck with older ones. This was in 2006.

We can't infer too much from this poll, but I am skeptical of the idea that older voters are always more Republican than younger voters in every state. In this state I think there's good reason to believe younger voters (maybe not 20's, but 30-50) vote more Republican than those over 50.

Still Tilt R, but a decent poll for Heitkamp.

Getting old now, but 2008 exit poll: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=NDP00p1

18-29: Obama +4
30-44: McCain +16
45-64: McCain +13
65+: Too low to sample

18-24: Obama +12
24-29: Too low to sample
30-39: McCain +16
40-49: McCain +20
50-64: McCain +9
65+: Too low to sample

White 18-29: TIE
White 30-44: McCain +19
White 45-64: McCain +14

McCain won ND by 9.

Heidi will win narrowly.

This old Gravis poll from February that had Heitkamp leading by 2% had an age breakdown:

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Then again...it is Gravis

Yeah, I'm really not sure what to make of this. It could plausibly be interpreted as good news for either candidate. Single demographic polls suck anyway.

Well, this was 10 years ago, so today's over 50s were most likely in the 40-65 range at the time. So that looks like a strongly Republican demographic.

I actually disagree. I'd much rather look at a poll with a decent sample size that's focused on one demographic than go through the crosstabs of regular polls like Atlas loves to do, where the subsamples are so small as to become meaningless.

Literally what purpose does this poll serve

Lemme state the obvious, WHY CAN’T THEY JUST POLL THE DAMN RACE?!

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If Heitkamp is holding her own among olds, then she's got this. The North Dakotan youth LOVE Heidi Heitkamp, almost as much as they love Beanie Babies and hula hoops.

Well Cramer is only leading by 2% among olds there, and he is leading by 3% among olds here. So it's basically the same result. If we extrapolate that number, then this poll has Heitkamp leading by 1%. However, she is the incumbent and if she is polling below 45 that's a huge problem for her, as undecideds tend to break towards the challenger.

Interesting that the earlier Gravis poll had Cramer winning Asians with 58%.

If this is the final margin among 50+ people then Heitkamp certainly wins.

Isn't North Dakota one of the few States in the Union that bans robocalling???

If so, then we aren't going to get that many good polls out of ND....

Additionally, I have no reason to doubt that the AARP had a decent polling database, and considering that 33% of the entire population of the State is 50+, and 45% is 18-49 it actually represents likely at least 50% of the voting population in November '18, even in a relatively high voter turnout state....

Haven't looked at all of the polling details landlines vs cell phones, but I'm not expecting the 13% of the entire state population that is 18-25 to vote in especially high numbers in a Non-Presidential Year election....

People can talk about the roughnecks in the Petro boom parts of the State, which likely accentuate the 18-25 Yr Old chunk of State Population, but the reality is that many of them are essentially migratory workers that drift from Boom Town to Boom Town, don't establish deep local roots, and quite frankly include a high % of Latinos (Check out Eagle Ford Shale jobs in Texas), and generally aren't that likely to vote locally if at all....

The oldies are where it's at in North Dakota, and people are pissed at Trump's attempt to gut certain parts of ACA....

Johnny Cash: "Proud to be a Roughneck"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_H4w1Id7yE

Isn't North Dakota one of those weird upper midwestern states with a reverse age gap? I wouldn't guarantee this is good for Heitkamp.

No, that would be MN. ND is just a normal, older R, younger D, state.

I don't know if this is a good poll for Heitkamp or Cramer, but I do think Cramer will win.

Nationwide polls suggest that elderly voters (65+) are turning against Trump. Maybe they have memories of Richard Nixon's dirty tricks and best recognize Donald Trump as monstrously abnormal in American politics. They have never seen his antics in American politics, and they find his conduct terribly upsetting.

Note also that farm owners are a very old demographic, and Trump's trade war hurt them. North Dakota farmers stand to be hurt by the tariffs and trade war that cuts commodity prices (revenue) and increases costs (anything imported or that can be consigned to pay for something imported, as with vehicle insurance... in case your auto liability ends up paying for foreign-made parts for a vehicle). Farmers buy much imported stuff, and tariffs are in essence a steep sales tax on imports, even if the tariffs have some exemptions.

But with farm owners are also farm families... and those are chips off the old block in politics. If you are 40 and still living on the farm where your 68-year-old parents are, you want the family farm to prosper.. and you know what butters your bread (if you are a dairy farmer) and where your bread comes from (if you are a grain farmer).

The younger generation in North Dakota may be more conservative due to the oil boom in North Dakota, as Trump is extremely sympathetic to the energy industry -- even to the extent of trying to get people to buy gas-guzzling vehicles as replacement for gas-sipping vehicles. But this said, those oil-field workers buy imported stuff, and when their i-devices start getting much more expensive due to tariffs on imports they won't be happy.

Tariffs are taxes -- bad taxes, capriciously imposed and administered. tariffs can more than offset the minuscule scraps that people other than the super-rich get in cuts in income taxes. I doubt that that goes well in even the most conservative states.

The AARP poll demonstrates that older people in North Dakota, as in Maine (a very different state in demographics and political heritage), are no longer sympathetic to Trump. Note well that the average age of a voter in America has typically been over 50. This age group is still amenable to mainstream GOP values. I'm guessing that North Dakota politics heavily involve farm families and their interests, and that so long as Republican policies do not hurt farm interests, farm families largely vote Republican out of concern for taxes... in most political years. 2016 may have seemed normal enough in North Dakota, but 2018 isn't, and 2020 probably won't be.  

North Dakota has not voted for a Democratic nominee for President since 1964, and hasn't otherwise voted for the Democratic nominee for President since 1936. It was one of only twelve states to vote for Dewey in 1944 and one of only ten to vote for Willkie in 1940. In 1928 it may have been more Democratic than the USA as a whole in Hoover's blowout defeat of Al Smith in 1928 (roughly 55-44, nationally 58-41 for Hoover -- economic distress was hitting farm states before the 1929 Market Crash), but it went nearly 70-28 for FDR in 1932.

Wild swings can happen, and I am not predicting one in North Dakota. Farmers and farm families vote their pocket-books, and they are not stupid.        

It cannot help Cramer. He must show himself a conventional Republican without being unduly connected to the personality of Donald Trump to win the Senate race in  North Dakota. In a normal political year, Heitkamp goes down, as do McCaskill in Missouri, Brown in Ohio, Donnelly in Indiana, Manchin in West Virginia, Nelson in Florida, Smith in Minnesota (appointed and not elected), and perhaps even Baldwin in Wisconsin, Casey in Pennsylvania,  and Stabenow in Michigan. Heller holds on in Nevada, and even if Flake retires, Democrats have no chance of picking up an open seat in Arizona. The GOP lead in the Senate goes from one seat or two (assuming that Doug Jones gets no chance at a flukish win in Alabama) to nine or more, and Republicans might even get a filibuster-proof Senate. But President Trump makes the 2018 midterm abnormal.  

How would that change American life? I can imagine that the Pledge of Allegiance  is amended to include "the capitalist system" as an object of patriotic reverence.

At this point, the only choice that North Dakota voters (or any other voters in states with Senate races) have is to vote in such elections as there are in North Dakota. If they dislike Trump and his policies enough they will vote for the Democrat.

The Gravis poll of North Dakota is old, antedating the tariffs and of course the severest legal problems for the President. This is worse than the entire dirty-tricks campaign of Richard Nixon which took more than four years to have an effect upon the political order. Senator Heitkamp practically must run against the President in a state that is usually arch-conservative but holds the erratic and corrupt Donald Trump in contempt.

It's Cramer who stands to lose in North Dakota.  

I'm pretty sure WV is the only state where Olds are more Democratic than Youngs, and it's VERY ancestrally Democratic in a way that ND isn't.

Actually, its much larger than you think. The entire Appalachia region and South still have elders who vote D, in fact, in most of the Deep South(excluding GA) they and AAs represent the D coalition. ND, however, has its roots in farming, which is an ancestrally R group, still is.

I REALLY want a real poll out of this state but this is a pretty good result for Heitkamp. I've always thought that she'll pull it out in the end- polls had her down in 2012 too.