State Political Evolution

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This was the second half of a post I was making in the "What should be GOP economics" thread, but I split off and now am going to make a thread based on it's topic since it largely focuses on why states evolve politically. It also augments the generational theory of politics, with certain contextual understandings regarding not just age groups, but who they are and where they are.

Before Trump ever came on the seen, we had trends demonstrated in the 2014 exit polling that sunbelt belt younger millenials/early Zers are solidly Democratic. Whether it is SC, GA, MS, LA, CO or TX, the numbers for the presently GOP or former states in the Sunbelt are horrendous. Adam Griffin mapped this somewhere, but I am assuming the thread it was in got deleted since I cannot seem to find it.

The Trump map and the 2016 trends are an acceleration of those generational based trends. These trends exist for largely 3 reasons that people don't comprehend.

1. Racial/Ethnic/Religious Demographic Changes
2. Higher College Education Rate
3. Generational Rebellion - Against either the Parents or the Party that dominates said State.

We have seen this before as high end Republican suburbs turn into high end latte Liberal suburbs. Just like in CA, the same is happening in the South. I once joked to Benconstine, when he said "we stole your suburban voters" that no "You buried them and stole their children".

Yes the older generation starts it by voting Dem for Clinton in 1992 or Obama in 2008, but they still vote Republican down ballot (Specter and Republican Judges winning Philly Suburbs into the 2000's), it is their children that don't split their tickets.

If this sounds familiar, it is how the South evolved. The Greatest Generation voters who voted for Ike, Nixon and Reagan, still voted Democratic down ballot. The Silents less so, and The Baby Boomers went hog wild Republican as did Gen X. So it is not until the 1990's and 2000's when state legislatures flip and Congressional delegations.

In 2016 we saw exit polling in many heretofore Democratic states, showing Trump doing well or even winning the youngest cohort of voters (MN, ME, PA, WI etc). And some previously existing GOP States as well like KY and MO I think.

What is driving this is in my opinion the above factors.

1. In these states, those younger voters are much less diverse compared to the national picture for that group.
2. In the rural areas and small towns of those states, there will be a heavy skew towards non-college because college educated whites tend to not return to those areas.
3. Their parents are probably Democrats and their states have for a while leaned Democratic. They probably don't vote in off year elections, which is the specials and such in Minnesota reverted to normal as the rurals who abnormally voted for Trump, who are older reverted to form (restoring the tradition margins). If history is any guide, their kids will not do likewise.


Now you can tear this apart or use the on coming Sanders revolution to prove that the current dynamics will completely invert over night and WV will be solid Dem and NOVA will start being Republican again. But generally speaking I don't think these changes happen from the top down. I think these changes occur naturally and the parties react to them, not the other way around.

[Annatar]

I agree that due to demographic changes, the shift of young voters in the sunbelt towards the Dems and the shift of young voters in the midwest towards the GOP does portend that the states will re-align accordingly. I should note out though that the sunbelt should probably be divided into 2 regions, the south-west and the south-east.

In the south-west, the age gap is very small and there is evidence that the GOP is doing better among young voter's, in Nevada for example, Trump only lost the 18-29 vote by 17 points, 52-35, while losing the state by 2 points, meaning 18-29 voters were only 15 points more democratic then the state as a whole, a smaller gap the national gap which was 17 points. Furthermore, voters over the age of 65 were actually democratic, voting for Clinton by 5 points. Hence, the age gap was only 12 points, compared to the national average of 26 points.

In Colorado, 18-29 voters voted Dem by only 14 points, whereas the state went Dem by 5, meaning 18-29 voters were only 9 points more democratic then the state, one of the smallest gaps in the nation. And again, voters over the age of 65 went for Clinton by a point, hence the age gap was small, only 4 points, virtually non-existent.

The south-east though is a different story altogether and the age gaps are massive, likely meaning that states like Georgia will shift Democratic in the future.

In Georgia, 18-29 voters went Dem by 30 points, 11 points more then the national average and they were 35 points more Dem then the state as a whole. 65+ voters went for Trump by 36 points meaning the age gap was 66 points which must be one of the biggest in the nation. Likewise, the age gap in North Carolina was 45 points with 18-29 voters being 26 points more democratic then the state.

As a rough guide, I think any state where the 65+ to 18-29 age gap exceeded the national average of 26 points and where the 18-29 vote was more then 17 points more democratic then how the state voted, 17 points being the national gap, can be said to be one which is more likely then not to trend in favor of the Democratic party.

[PoliticalShelter]

I think I found that post by Adam Griffin:

I thought it'd be interesting to explore how the youngest and oldest cohorts are currently voting and measure the discrepancy between those two groups' margins as a way of peeking into the future.

I decided to look at 2014 for multiple reasons, including the fact that it is the most recent election and that these individuals (especially going forward for the young cohorts) are/will be the core, reliable voting blocs for each subset of the population. I could have used 2008 data, but sheesh: it's 8 years old now.

Obviously we don't have exit polling data for every state, but you can use it to observe general trends for several regions of the country, and definitely so for the South. All but two states' (ME & WV) youngest voters are more Democratic than their oldest voters; in WV, the margin difference was 2 points.

Shades indicate the difference between 18-29 & 65+ voters' margins in 2014. In states where exit polling was available for both gubernatorial and senatorial races, both outcomes were averaged together to produce the result.



The five states with the biggest discrepancies between 18-29 & 65+ groups:

State	'14 Mar-Diff (Pts)	18-29	65+
CO	81	D+61	R+20
SC	58	D+19	R+39
MS	43	D+3	R+40
GA	43	D+13	R+30
TX	42	R+3	R+45

As far as trend (in the Atlas sense of the word) is concerned, I looked at the national House vote exit polling, which showed a margin discrepancy between the two groups of 27 points (18-29: D+11 & over 65: R+16), and then made this map to show which states had discrepancies that were larger or smaller than the national House vote discrepancy. I know, it's a bit of apples and oranges, but that's all the store had. There is no Gov/Sen national exit poll.

Shades indicate trend in 2014 margin discrepancy shown above relative to national House margin discrepancy for the two groups. White equals no trend. Both maps show same thing (one with gradient, one w/o):





There are a couple of outliers on the map based on this measurement - which is to be expected given the nature of this - but I think it's interesting nonetheless. I'm wondering if all of that Latino infusion into western KS is starting to produce small but noticeable dividends in the youngest voting blocs.