Catalist: What Happened in 2020

[compucomp]

Catalist (a progressive data firm) published their analysis of the 2020 election. Link is below.

I see some interesting findings, including the observation that the white non-college educated voters we like to bash still form a very large part of the electorate (44%). Also, there were actually more white non-college educated than white college educated Biden voters.

https://catalist.us/wh-national/

[Kamala's side hoe]

Two things that stood out to me:

1) According to their analysis Obama only won 66% of the AAPI 2-way vote and 70% of the Latino 2-way vote in 2012. This is noticeably worse than what the 2012 CNN exit polls showed. (The 2020 numbers are 67% and 63%)

2) Their “new voters” were equally or more D than 2016 voters at every age group. “New” 18-29 voters and “returning” 18-29 voters were both 62% Biden.

[Tartarus Sauce]

I'm much more inclined to believe these age breakdowns than the Edison/CNN exit polls. Also interesting how Nevada seemed to have the highest percentage of new voters of the battleground states. Its closeness this year and in 2016 were probably not flukes.

[Orser67]

I always enjoy their work. Here's a direct link to the crosstabs for anyone interested: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/hzqbc0gambbp7fidn3wld/wh2020_public_release_crosstabs.xlsx

Their analysis seems to show a lot of the same high-level trends as the Edison exit polls, which I looked at in this post, though Catalist tends to show much smaller swings. The most dramatic difference I notice is that Edison shows Biden with pretty substantial gains in rural areas, whereas Catalist shows that he basically treaded water.

Both Edison and Catalist show that Trump made significant gains with Hispanics and non-white voters without a college degree, and smaller (and sometimes related) gains with urban voters, African-Americans, and non-white voters with a college degree. Biden made important gains in the suburbs, with white college men, and with college-educated whites generally.

[Non Swing Voter]

"The voting electorate continues to become more diverse, and 2020 was the most racially diverse electorate ever. This was due to big turnout increases in communities of color, particularly among Latino and Asian voters."

I think this more than anything explains why Biden did "worse" among these two groups.  When the electorate becomes more generalized and less partisan it's going to revert to the middle on the margins.  Higher turnout among these groups brought out more non-partisan and swingy voters who probably split their vote 50/50 or somewhat close to that, which probably diluted Biden's margin. 

[Kamala's side hoe]

Non-Whites as a whole are probably trending R simply because the Black share of the non-white vote is decreasing as the Hispanic and Asian population increases.

Back in 1988, Black voters were 65% of non-white voters, and there has been a steady decline in that share.

1992: 65%
1996: 60%
2000: 59%
2004: 54%
2008: 53%
2012: 51%
2016: 47%
2020: 43% (source: Catalist)

The recent 538 Politics article on how white liberals and white conservatives are affected by the changing racial dynamics of the US was also really interesting. I think the idea of "performative wokeness" being more strongly associated with the Dems explains much of why white liberals and white moderates swung D rather than towards the incumbent- even after controlling for educational attainment, occupation, religiosity, and other demographic variables.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-politics-of-white-liberals-and-white-conservatives-are-shaped-by-whiteness/

On the other hand, white liberals often feel motivated to act in racially egalitarian ways to distance themselves from these same negative stereotypes of whiteness. The thinking may go something along the lines of, “Those white people are ‘bad,’ but I want to see myself as a good person.” However, committing to antiracist action is not a straightforward solution, as it is not always effective at staving off the negative emotions that come with acknowledging a legacy of racism. Moreover, this strategy can fall short in actually addressing racial inequality, as it does not alway prioritize the practical needs of people of color over the emotional and psychological needs of white antiracists.