Describe a Mondale 1984/Trump 2020 voter

[Blow by blow, the passion dies]

I refuse to accept there were dozens of counties, including some I can name off the top of my head, that voted this way.

[Sumner 1868]

Coalfields and Northern Minnesota resident come to mind quickly.

[Mr. Smith]

Fuzzy Bear

[darklordoftech]

The Mondale 1984/Trump 2020 counties could be a result of the Mondale voters in those counties getting old and dying and/or moving away or Trump voters being born, turning 18, and/or moving in.

[Mr. Smith]

The Mondale 1984/Trump 2020 counties could be a result of the Mondale voters in those counties getting old and dying and/or moving away or Trump voters being born, turning 18, and/or moving in.

Does that explain...your grandma?

[I’m not Stu]

A retired unionized coal miner from West Virginia.

[Bush did 311]

Blue collar whites in appalachia. These voters had already all but abandoned the party by 2020 and it happened over several cycles. But you can see in 1984 maps Mondale clung to a decent presence in this region, and the black majority counties, despite bombing in most of the usual dem strongholds.

[Ragnaroni]

Young person voting in 1984, doesn't support the current democratic party in 2020.

[Stranger in a strange land]

I refuse to accept there were dozens of counties, including some I can name off the top of my head, that voted this way.

People's views and priorities can change considerably over the course of 36 years, which is also enough time for generational turnover to occur: The WWII/Depression/FDR generation were loyal Democrats for their entire lives, especially in regions which had seen huge benefits from the New Deal and Great Society, and they were still around and still voting in huge numbers in the 80s, but were almost all gone by 2020.

[pbrower2a]

Late convert to the Religious Right.

[darklordoftech]

Hated Biden for voting for NAFTA and the WTO or the Iraq War and/or believed the “Trump the dove” narrative.

[PickleMan]

Blue collar union member.

[Vosem]

Here's a 1984-->2020 swing map; note that this corresponds to about a 23-point swing nationally, from R+18 to D+5, which would be represented on the map by the D>70% shade (like GA, RI, NC, TX, and NE).

Eight states swung Republican outright (had a better margin for Trump '20 than Reagan '84), all of which are safely Republican states under the modern paradigm, though a few of the specifics may surprise you. Only in four of those did Trump do more than 5% better than Reagan.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Here's a 1984-->2020 swing map; note that this corresponds to about a 23-point swing nationally, from R+18 to D+5, which would be represented on the map by the D>70% shade (like GA, RI, NC, TX, and NE).

Eight states swung Republican outright (had a better margin for Trump '20 than Reagan '84), all of which are safely Republican states under the modern paradigm, though a few of the specifics may surprise you. Only in four of those did Trump do more than 5% better than Reagan.

Wyoming is actually surprising here, given that since the 1950s it's been a traditionally Republican state in a way that IA/WV/AR/etc weren't.

[Vosem]

Here's a 1984-->2020 swing map; note that this corresponds to about a 23-point swing nationally, from R+18 to D+5, which would be represented on the map by the D>70% shade (like GA, RI, NC, TX, and NE).

Eight states swung Republican outright (had a better margin for Trump '20 than Reagan '84), all of which are safely Republican states under the modern paradigm, though a few of the specifics may surprise you. Only in four of those did Trump do more than 5% better than Reagan.

Wyoming is actually surprising here, given that since the 1950s it's been a traditionally Republican state in a way that IA/WV/AR/etc weren't.

Yeah, I think the fact that Wyoming is so Republican, and the fact that the counties which are winnable for Democrats are the richies in Jackson and the college students in Laramie, allowed people to overlook that a huge portion of the Democratic base there was actually old-timey coal miners, and so the bottom utterly fell out in the 2010s with Trump registering totally ridiculous performances (...as in WV).

Wyoming was not actually a place that liked Reaganism that much relative to other sorts of Republicanism -- Clinton kept it relatively close in 1992, and the Senate election there in 1988 was a knife-edge fight decided by a few thousand votes (and Democrats also contested it in 1982). 1994 hit it insanely hard and it was still basically pretty safe Republican in the 1980s (part of what was going on was also that Malcolm Wallop was, for whatever reason, a really unpopular incumbent, even though people liked Alan Simpson), but there was a bit of a wavering.

Democrats also made a run at WY-AL in a 1989 special and in the 1990 midterm, although after that Craig Thomas became entrenched. Dick Cheney was, sigh, a popular incumbent in his day.

[JoeyJoeJoe]

Here's a 1984-->2020 swing map; note that this corresponds to about a 23-point swing nationally, from R+18 to D+5, which would be represented on the map by the D>70% shade (like GA, RI, NC, TX, and NE).

Eight states swung Republican outright (had a better margin for Trump '20 than Reagan '84), all of which are safely Republican states under the modern paradigm, though a few of the specifics may surprise you. Only in four of those did Trump do more than 5% better than Reagan.

Wyoming is actually surprising here, given that since the 1950s it's been a traditionally Republican state in a way that IA/WV/AR/etc weren't.

Yeah, I think the fact that Wyoming is so Republican, and the fact that the counties which are winnable for Democrats are the richies in Jackson and the college students in Laramie, allowed people to overlook that a huge portion of the Democratic base there was actually old-timey coal miners, and so the bottom utterly fell out in the 2010s with Trump registering totally ridiculous performances (...as in WV).

Wyoming was not actually a place that liked Reaganism that much relative to other sorts of Republicanism -- Clinton kept it relatively close in 1992, and the Senate election there in 1988 was a knife-edge fight decided by a few thousand votes (and Democrats also contested it in 1982). 1994 hit it insanely hard and it was still basically pretty safe Republican in the 1980s (part of what was going on was also that Malcolm Wallop was, for whatever reason, a really unpopular incumbent, even though people liked Alan Simpson), but there was a bit of a wavering.

Democrats also made a run at WY-AL in a 1989 special and in the 1990 midterm, although after that Craig Thomas became entrenched. Dick Cheney was, sigh, a popular incumbent in his day.

More recently, Barbara Cubin seemed to consistently underperform as well  I never really figured out why that was, it may have been personality or poor constituent servies, maybe.