OK Medicaid Expansion

[Adam Griffin]

More evidence the progressive left needs to stop trying to pander to wwc.  

Well, they should look out for the white working class, but realize that Rural and religious voters are fools gold.

*Rural voters in the solid south.

That's still a significant number of them willing to get behind this who wouldn't get behind any ordinary Democratic bid.

Yeah, let's point out that in comparison to the 2018 gubernatorial election (where the Democrat lost by 12), the "No" counties actually delivered a greater overperformance for Medicaid expansion than the "Yes" counties and ultimately decided the outcome. That doesn't even get into how much more these counties preferred Medicaid expansion over federal DEM/GOP candidates.

I ran some quick numbers, first adjusting the turnout variance from the 2018 gubernatorial to match the 2020 Medicaid vote (the latter had 57% of the votes that the '18 GE had).

Simplifying/harmonizing the figures, Edmondson would have lost by just north of 80,000 votes among this turnout with a 12-point margin. Ultimately, the harmonized difference between '18 GE and '20 Medicare was approximately 84,000 net votes (-81,000 for Edmondson; +3,000 for Medicaid).

Yet harmonizing the '20 Yes margins to the '18 GE margins in all of the "Yes" counties, we only get a gain of around 34,000 votes: approximately 41% of the statewide improvement - yet these counties were 49% of Oklahoma's '20 primary electorate!

In short: the "No" counties comprised 51% of the state's population but were responsible for 59% of the harmonized margin improvement between Edmondson's '18 performance and the '20 Medicaid vote.

People on Twitter and here alike seem to fundamentally forget just how Republican most of Oklahoma is, opting to view a county that voted "No" and saying "RUBES!". Yet had these counties voted anywhere nearly how they did in the 2018 gubernatorial election - let alone how they vote in presidential elections - this measure would have resoundingly failed no matter how many rich white suburbanites you flipped in OKC or Tulsa. I'm not going to bother to crunch the numbers, but I'd have a hard time believing that (net) no fewer than 1 in 10 "No County"/Stitt voters supported Medicaid expansion, and probably more like 1 in 5 "No County"/Trump voters.

[Adam Griffin]

More evidence the progressive left needs to stop trying to pander to wwc.  

Well, they should look out for the white working class, but realize that Rural and religious voters are fools gold.

*Rural voters in the solid south.

That's still a significant number of them willing to get behind this who wouldn't get behind any ordinary Democratic bid.

I think they can and even do well with moderately religious or suburban WWCs. If you counted out Fundamentalist Catholics and Evangelicals, they can probably get close or win WWCs.

It's been 12 years and a lot of turnover since (for sure), but it's worth remembering that Barack Obama won West Virginians making less than $50,000 per year despite losing the state by 13 points. In many of these types of places, who votes and who lives there look fundamentally different. Obviously under no interpretation would a state like OK vote Democratic with an electorate matching its population, but it is worth remembering that in many rural, majority-white areas, the voters are astoundingly older, wealthier and more conservative than the populations themselves.

[Adam Griffin]

The precinct map made me wonder, if the 5th was Oklahoma County + Norman, would that be a D leaning district?

Under 2018 Census population estimates and as others have said, it's too big - but it's very easy to create an Edmondson +19 district (could probably quite easily get it to Edmondson >+20 with some slight edits).