MN: Why did Trump win the 18 to 24 year olds + and tied the under 50 k income earners?

[LAKISYLVANIA]

This is exit poll data for Minnesota. I chose Minnesota because of it being a roughly white state that swinged a lot to the right.

In 2012 the poor overwhelmingly favoured Obama while the richer voted Romney



In 2016, the poor were tied, the middle class voted for Trump, and the richer saved Clinton's ass by voting for her. The same people that favoured Romney. That swing of the richer class didn't made up for the swing for the poorer to Trump but it's evidence of Obama - Trump voters being poorer and lower educated in general while Romney - Clinton voters are better educated and generally richer. That saved Minnesota for Clinton, while if the rich voted like in 2012 Minnesota would have gone to Trump by like 5.

Turn-out numbers also indicate that a lot of the poor stayed home in 2016 because turn-out decreased and is up with the rich relatively.

MN has some more weird exit poll data, like the 18 to 24 year olds voting for Trump. It wouldn't surprise me if they did it again in 2020, since Biden is technically an even worse fit for the youth than Hillary Clinton, although I doubt some would vote for Trump again after his false promises. He isn't exactly a president for the youth. Bernie is someone who would drive youths en masse to the polls and flip them back easily with his campaign like cancelling study debt.



Some of these "newer" voters definitely have an influence on the "income" exit polls data, as students are generally poorer than older aged voters.



Obama won that group with +34. Trump won them by +5, a 39 point swing. (not the same voters obviously, except for the 23 year olds and 24 year olds and some 22 year olds). And again also a sign that a lot of the Obama youth stayed at home, as turn-out is generally down (14 and 7 to 10 and 9).

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

How big are these sample sizes? I wouldn't read too much into small sample sizes for hyperspecific crosstab subgroups

[rosin]

Don't forget that in 2016, for many people, Trump was - except for some buzzwords - a blank sheet of paper, politically wise - absolutely not seen as an traditional Republican. Combine that with a very unpopular Hillary and a (mis)understanding among big parts of the electorate, that Trump was too toxic to ever come near the White House, and you have the perfect protest candidate.

This year (2020), things look very different...

[LiberalDem19]

They ended up breaking to Walz by 50 points in 2018. Exit poll data can be weird. I wouldn't read too much into it.

[slothdem]

Trump did not win 18-24 year olds in Minnesota. Any data that says so is clearly wrong.

[TML]

I think this is primarily the result of decreased turnout among these voting groups compared to 2012.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I did notice that the exit polls showed Trump doing surprisingly well with young voters in states that showed significant trends in his direction (Iowa, Wisconsin, and Maine were similar stories).

[SingingAnalyst]

I'm not surprised at the income gradient, since urban and suburban residents tend to be wealthier than rural/small town residents.

As for 18-24 year-olds voting Trump, I don't buy it. Even if the sample size were 5,000, the 18-24 year-olds would have a 4.5% margin of error.

[tagimaucia]

I trust this Catalist data a lot more than the exit poll because its based on the actual voter file.  It shows that Hillary won 18-24 year olds by 8 points (it does agree with the exit poll that the age group is a lot more Republican in Minnesota than 25-39 year olds).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ILunS4s_MvMNCOyTgD3XGz88p77aQuvcGNe2BOpvnfE/

An amazing stat is that 18-29s voted 23% third-party in MN in 2016.

Also, its hard to tease everything apart, but it really looks like nearly everyone in that age group who voted third party for president in 2016 and didn't stay home in 2018 probably voted for Democrats for senate and governor.