2016 White and Non-White Vote by County Project

[Antonio the Sixth]

...wow.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Whites in the Midwest left the Democrats like never before. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to believe they'll ever come back to Obama 2012 levels anytime soon.

Your logic is mind-boggling. "Well, these people were Democrats until yesterday but since they didn't vote for Hillary (who utterly ignored them in order to court muh moderate suburban voters), clearly now they're lost forever!!!"

[Antonio the Sixth]

Whites in the Midwest left the Democrats like never before. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to believe they'll ever come back to Obama 2012 levels anytime soon.

Your logic is mind-boggling. "Well, these people were Democrats until yesterday but since they didn't vote for Hillary (who utterly ignored them in order to court muh moderate suburban voters), clearly now they're lost forever!!!"

I'm looking at more than just the presidential vote. In 2014, Iowa voted for Joni f***ing Ernst, which should've been the first sign the state was moving hard away from Democrats. In 2016 in Wisconsin, Ron Johnson beat progressive stalwart Russ Feingold by a greater margin than Trump did. Further down ballot, Minnesota's congressional Democrats barely held on, and Republicans took control of both the MN and IA State House.

I'm not sure why it's so ridiculous to believe that the Midwest is trending hard R, and Trump just happened to catalyze that process.

Midterms are Midterms, and barely a third of the electorate even showed up to vote in 2014. In 2016 it's obvious that Presidential coattails dominated all downballot votes (literally every State voted the same on Senate elections as their Preisdential vote). You don't pronounce the death of Democrats in the Midwest over two atypical election cycles.

But of course, if Democrats accept your logic and decide that the Midwest in lost to them, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Michigan and Pennsylvania can be won back somewhat easier, but it won't be with the exact same coalition that Obama or any previous Democrat was able to put together.

But see, that's the whole issue. Becoming the party of urban centers and suburbs is not a viable strategy for the Democrats. Even if they can somehow muster an electoral majority with these coalitions, they will still be permanently locked out of the House (even with fair redistricting) and probably the Senate too. It will also lead to a voter base that's unwilling to support any serious redistributive policy, thus turning the Democratic party into the party of affluent, "cosmopolitan" managerial centrists who don't give a crap about poverty and inequality. That party would not even be worth supporting.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is really great (though also depressing)! Thanks Reagente and Adam.

I know you've discussed it a bit already, but would you mind explaining your respective methodologies and how they differ to a beginner?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I built in a elasticity to the non-White vote into my model, operating under the assumption that non-Whites in more Republican areas will be more inclined to support the GOP.

Do we have any empirical evidence for this? It seems reasonable to make this assumption for Asians and Hispanics, but my guess would be that Blacks vote pretty uniformly everywhere in the country.