Are dems punching above weight in Iowa?

[freepcrusher]

Here in the Hawkeye state it's been a rough outing for dems ever since Obama became president in 2008. But is it possible that the Dems here are actually doing relatively well since there's no chicago or twin cities?

Looking at precincts over 90 percent white, trump won 64 percent of the vote in Iowa. But here are his numbers in other states I've looked at on DRA

AL 86 percent
GA 81 percent
AR 79 percent
TN 79 percent
VA 75 percent
WV 74 percent
KY 74 percent
MO 74 percent
IN 72 percent
NC 70 percent
OH 69 percent
SC 68 percent
IL 68 percent
MD 68 percent

The only difference is that in Iowa, said precincts are 40 percent of the population. If it was 20 or 30 percent like it is in Indiana or Ohio, the state would probably elect democrats pretty regularly

[freepcrusher]

Admittedly it's a statistical tie with the margin of error and all that and that the DRA numbers are actually kind of funky to begin with but notable that Trump possibly did better amongst white voters in Virginia than in West Virginia.

EDIT: But per the exit poll Trump won 54% of white voters in Virginia. I just think the DRA numbers are real off.

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::46f48b1e-ac1e-4f92-87e9-369ba3378ffd

[freepcrusher]

Admittedly it's a statistical tie with the margin of error and all that and that the DRA numbers are actually kind of funky to begin with but notable that Trump possibly did better amongst white voters in Virginia than in West Virginia.

EDIT: But per the exit poll Trump won 54% of white voters in Virginia. I just think the DRA numbers are real off.

DRA numbers for the state as a whole are probably more accurate than exit polls, since data smudging and the absentee ballot vagueness of VA disappear in the aggregate.

Just did some quick math and indeed the VRA numbers are impossible.

Virginia was about 58% white alone and 62% white self reported last census. If we take the lower number and don't regard higher whire turnout 0.58×0.75=over 43%, and Trump received 44% in VA. That means he would have to received almost no votes whatsoever from the non-white voters. 1/42=2.3% so accounting for third parties Biden would still have to have won over 95% of the non-white vote!

Yeah I would not take the stats of the OP as an accurate measure of the statewide vote. Doing some back of the envelope calculations, the statewide vote is around ~37% for Biden, which is basically in line with Adam Griffin's estimates in 2012. I also assumed around 95% of Black voters for Biden, so if your model of Black voters in VA has them voting a little to the right of that the white vote for Biden goes up a bit.

Virginia is only a little over 20% black though. The rest is mostly Hispanic and Asian, who actually together almost make up almost as much as the black percentage, and obviously aren't going to be >90% for Biden.

Do you not listen very well? Did you not hear where I'm saying this applies only to 90 percent or more white precincts?

[freepcrusher]

Admittedly it's a statistical tie with the margin of error and all that and that the DRA numbers are actually kind of funky to begin with but notable that Trump possibly did better amongst white voters in Virginia than in West Virginia.

EDIT: But per the exit poll Trump won 54% of white voters in Virginia. I just think the DRA numbers are real off.

DRA numbers for the state as a whole are probably more accurate than exit polls, since data smudging and the absentee ballot vagueness of VA disappear in the aggregate.

Just did some quick math and indeed the VRA numbers are impossible.

Virginia was about 58% white alone and 62% white self reported last census. If we take the lower number and don't regard higher whire turnout 0.58×0.75=over 43%, and Trump received 44% in VA. That means he would have to received almost no votes whatsoever from the non-white voters. 1/42=2.3% so accounting for third parties Biden would still have to have won over 95% of the non-white vote!

Yeah I would not take the stats of the OP as an accurate measure of the statewide vote. Doing some back of the envelope calculations, the statewide vote is around ~37% for Biden, which is basically in line with Adam Griffin's estimates in 2012. I also assumed around 95% of Black voters for Biden, so if your model of Black voters in VA has them voting a little to the right of that the white vote for Biden goes up a bit.

Virginia is only a little over 20% black though. The rest is mostly Hispanic and Asian, who actually together almost make up almost as much as the black percentage, and obviously aren't going to be >90% for Biden.

Do you not listen very well? Did you not hear where I'm saying this applies only to 90 percent or more white precincts?

That's kind of a pointless number to use.

I'd argue it's illustrative. Like why are whites, when they have the place to themselves, so much more Republican?

[freepcrusher]

Admittedly it's a statistical tie with the margin of error and all that and that the DRA numbers are actually kind of funky to begin with but notable that Trump possibly did better amongst white voters in Virginia than in West Virginia.

EDIT: But per the exit poll Trump won 54% of white voters in Virginia. I just think the DRA numbers are real off.

DRA numbers for the state as a whole are probably more accurate than exit polls, since data smudging and the absentee ballot vagueness of VA disappear in the aggregate.

Just did some quick math and indeed the VRA numbers are impossible.

Virginia was about 58% white alone and 62% white self reported last census. If we take the lower number and don't regard higher whire turnout 0.58×0.75=over 43%, and Trump received 44% in VA. That means he would have to received almost no votes whatsoever from the non-white voters. 1/42=2.3% so accounting for third parties Biden would still have to have won over 95% of the non-white vote!

Yeah I would not take the stats of the OP as an accurate measure of the statewide vote. Doing some back of the envelope calculations, the statewide vote is around ~37% for Biden, which is basically in line with Adam Griffin's estimates in 2012. I also assumed around 95% of Black voters for Biden, so if your model of Black voters in VA has them voting a little to the right of that the white vote for Biden goes up a bit.

Virginia is only a little over 20% black though. The rest is mostly Hispanic and Asian, who actually together almost make up almost as much as the black percentage, and obviously aren't going to be >90% for Biden.

Do you not listen very well? Did you not hear where I'm saying this applies only to 90 percent or more white precincts?

That's kind of a pointless number to use.

I'd argue it's illustrative. Like why are whites, when they have the place to themselves, so much more Republican?

Ye it's not unless, but def don't extrapolate too much.

Generally speaking, I think folks who self-sort into all-white communities are naturally going to be more conservative than those who move to nearby racially diverse neighborhoods.

which is odd since it used to be that whites in diverse areas (like memphis or detroit) were much more prone to racial backlash than whites in places like Nebraska or the Dakotas. Like look at the Wallace numbers in places like downriver Detroit.

[freepcrusher]

Some other 2020 numbers I got

PA 66 percent trump
MI 63 percent
NJ 58 percent
NY 58 percent
CT 48 percent
NH 48 percent
RI 45 percent
MA 41 percent
VT 37 percent

You could argue that in some ways looking at 90 percent+ white precincts in Virginia vs West Virginia is much more an apples to apples comparison. A white living in an all white area in VA is going to have much more in common with a white in wv than a white living in oakton.

I also think I've refuted my own argument. Iowa whites are probably not unusually less Republican and the reason I thought that was because I was looking at Appalachian states first.

If Michigan is only at 63 percent, I'd guess Minnesota and Wisconsin is at high 50s/low 60s. Illinois is actually higher than Iowa but that's because a lot of the all white areas of IL are south of the 40.5 parallel (IA/MO border). So it's less Germanic Lutheran and more scots Irish.

I would say that the divisions I am seeing now are east west (between New England and New York as well as ia/mn and Nebraska/dakotas) and the more traditional north south.

[freepcrusher]

I remember seeing a map of the 2012 election showing the winner of the white vote in every state. Iowa was blue while California and Illinois were red.

I think without question, WWC voters in Iowa hold on to more of the Democratic tradition than in other places. Parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota would be included in this as well.

Unfortunately for Democrats, these states are so white that it still isn’t enough to win there.

Wisconsin and Minnesota are out of reach for Democrats?

No states are completely out of reach. The trend has made winning there a lot more difficult because the states are so white. Iowa is most challenging, which I believe is the whitest.

Yeah, Iowa doesn't have the large metro comparable to the Twin Cities/Milwaukee that is trending left or a booming secondary metro that continues to add thousands of Democratic voters every cycle like Madison.

fun fact - if Kennedy and Nixon got the exact same percentages in 1960 that Biden and Trump did in 2020 in all 99 counties - Nixon would have gotten 57% of the vote (which is actually what he received). The very republican counties near the Missouri and Nebraska borders are losing voters both as a % but also in raw numbers.

So there will be a path to winning Iowa on a "cities only" basis but it will be viable around the time of the tricentennial.

[freepcrusher]

if you were to try to calculate the actual percent of the white vote nationwide - would you try to get a bigger sample size so that it's 60-65 percent of the electorate. So if you classify every precinct either more than 75% white, or if below that, 60+ percent for Trump as "white", what percent of the electorate would that be?

When I was looking at just 90% white precincts - it's interesting to see a north south divide. In states like Wisconsin - there are far more 90%+ white precincts than 75%+ Trump precincts. In the southern united states, there are far more 75%+ Trump precincts than 90%+ white precincts.