You know the GOP looks at this and says "that's why we keep losing Minnesota; we gotta get that number down!"
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
You know the GOP looks at this and says "that's why we keep losing Minnesota; we gotta get that number down!"
yup
Doug Wardlow once told a Republicans-only audience his goal in attaining that office:
"If we win the attorney general’s office, which I can do, we can change the political complexion of the state long-term because the attorney general should be going after election fraud. We should be looking into illegal voting. It should be working with county attorneys to prosecute illegal voting.”
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY FIVETHIRTYEIGHT / GETTY IMAGES
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the week
The 2018 midterm election confirmed America’s urban-rural divide; Democrats excelled in cities, Republicans dominated in the country and the suburbs were the tiebreaker that handed Democrats the House. Will the 2020 election play out the same way? This week, we got two polls of President Trump’s approval rating that suggest it might.
First, a Selzer & Co. (one of our favorite pollsters) national poll conducted Nov. 24-27 for Grinnell College found that Trump had a 43 percent approval rating and a 45 percent disapproval rating among all adults. However, his support isn’t distributed equally across different types of communities. He’s enormously popular among residents of rural areas, with a 61 percent approval rating and a 26 percent disapproval rating. In small towns, that breakdown is 44 percent approve vs. 42 percent disapprove. But in suburban areas, only 41 percent of residents approve of the job that Trump is doing as president, while 50 percent disapprove. Trump’s approval rating is lowest among urbanites — 31 percent approve of him while 59 percent disapprove.
We saw similar geographic trends in an Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll that was conducted from Nov. 26 to Dec. 2. Trump again got the highest marks from residents of rural areas — a 62 percent approval rating and a 35 percent disapproval rating. And yet again, his standing took a nosedive among suburbanites and urbanites. In suburban areas, Trump’s approval rating was 32 percent, and his disapproval rating was 60 percent. In urban areas, his approval rating was 27 percent, and his disapproval rating was 67 percent. (The IBD/TIPP poll didn’t include “small town” as an option for respondents.) Overall, Trump’s approval/disapproval spread was much lower in the IBD/TIPP poll (39 percent approve, 55 percent disapprove) than it was in the Selzer poll, which explains why the IBD/TIPP poll is worse for Trump in all three geographic categories as well.
Here are the results of the polls side by side:
Trump is more popular in rural areas
Presidential net approval rating among adults by density type
CATEGORY
SELZER POLL
IBD/TIPP POLL
Urban
-28
-40
Suburban
-9
-28
Small town*
+2
—
Rural
+35
+27
Overall
-2
-16
* The Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll did not include a breakdown for “small town.”
SOURCES: SELZER & CO., GRINNELL COLLEGE, INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY
This is perhaps stating the obvious, but Trump would do well to approve his standing among suburban and urban voters before 2020. Less than 20 percent of the U.S. population lives in rural areas. Granted, not all rural voters will cast their ballot for the president, nor will all urban and suburban voters back whoever is the Democratic nominee. But elections are winner-take-all contests waged within discrete geographic areas — states or districts. According to the Congressional Density Index from CityLab, a news website covering urban issues, just 70 congressional districts are “pure rural,” and an additional 114 are a “rural-suburban mix.” CityLab is still in the process of making similar assessments for states, but David Montgomery, a journalist for CityLab, told FiveThirtyEight that 11 states could be classified as mostly rural, while an additional 17 could be classified as a mix of rural areas and suburbs. The former are worth a combined 53 electoral votes, while the latter are worth a combined 138; 270 are needed to win a presidential election.
None of this means that Trump lacks a path to electoral victory. It’s still early in the 2020 campaign; approval ratings may change, and a person’s feelings about the president aren’t the only determinant of his or her vote. But those numbers aren’t great for Republicans even if institutions like the Electoral College give disproportionate influence to rural areas. Without urban and suburban areas, they’ll find it difficult to cobble together a sustainable majority.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY FIVETHIRTYEIGHT / GETTY IMAGES
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the week
The 2018 midterm election confirmed America’s urban-rural divide; Democrats excelled in cities, Republicans dominated in the country and the suburbs were the tiebreaker that handed Democrats the House. Will the 2020 election play out the same way? This week, we got two polls of President Trump’s approval rating that suggest it might.
First, a Selzer & Co. (one of our favorite pollsters) national poll conducted Nov. 24-27 for Grinnell College found that Trump had a 43 percent approval rating and a 45 percent disapproval rating among all adults. However, his support isn’t distributed equally across different types of communities. He’s enormously popular among residents of rural areas, with a 61 percent approval rating and a 26 percent disapproval rating. In small towns, that breakdown is 44 percent approve vs. 42 percent disapprove. But in suburban areas, only 41 percent of residents approve of the job that Trump is doing as president, while 50 percent disapprove. Trump’s approval rating is lowest among urbanites — 31 percent approve of him while 59 percent disapprove.
We saw similar geographic trends in an Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll that was conducted from Nov. 26 to Dec. 2. Trump again got the highest marks from residents of rural areas — a 62 percent approval rating and a 35 percent disapproval rating. And yet again, his standing took a nosedive among suburbanites and urbanites. In suburban areas, Trump’s approval rating was 32 percent, and his disapproval rating was 60 percent. In urban areas, his approval rating was 27 percent, and his disapproval rating was 67 percent. (The IBD/TIPP poll didn’t include “small town” as an option for respondents.) Overall, Trump’s approval/disapproval spread was much lower in the IBD/TIPP poll (39 percent approve, 55 percent disapprove) than it was in the Selzer poll, which explains why the IBD/TIPP poll is worse for Trump in all three geographic categories as well.
Here are the results of the polls side by side:
Trump is more popular in rural areas
Presidential net approval rating among adults by density type
CATEGORY
SELZER POLL
IBD/TIPP POLL
Urban
-28
-40
Suburban
-9
-28
Small town*
+2
—
Rural
+35
+27
Overall
-2
-16
* The Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll did not include a breakdown for “small town.”
SOURCES: SELZER & CO., GRINNELL COLLEGE, INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY
This is perhaps stating the obvious, but Trump would do well to approve his standing among suburban and urban voters before 2020. Less than 20 percent of the U.S. population lives in rural areas. Granted, not all rural voters will cast their ballot for the president, nor will all urban and suburban voters back whoever is the Democratic nominee. But elections are winner-take-all contests waged within discrete geographic areas — states or districts. According to the Congressional Density Index from CityLab, a news website covering urban issues, just 70 congressional districts are “pure rural,” and an additional 114 are a “rural-suburban mix.” CityLab is still in the process of making similar assessments for states, but David Montgomery, a journalist for CityLab, told FiveThirtyEight that 11 states could be classified as mostly rural, while an additional 17 could be classified as a mix of rural areas and suburbs. The former are worth a combined 53 electoral votes, while the latter are worth a combined 138; 270 are needed to win a presidential election.
None of this means that Trump lacks a path to electoral victory. It’s still early in the 2020 campaign; approval ratings may change, and a person’s feelings about the president aren’t the only determinant of his or her vote. But those numbers aren’t great for Republicans even if institutions like the Electoral College give disproportionate influence to rural areas. Without urban and suburban areas, they’ll find it difficult to cobble together a sustainable majority.
^ Long term prospects for a party that is primarily focused on winning votes from uneducated white males is not the best. They will rue the day Trump descended from those escalators. No long term vision in the republican party. Only caring about short term gains.
^ Long term prospects for a party that is primarily focused on winning votes from uneducated white males is not the best. They will rue the day Trump descended from those escalators. No long term vision in the republican party. Only caring about short term gains.
Unfortunately it's not just short term gains. During Barack Obama's presidency the Republicans refused to fill empty judicial positions. The current government has been quietly loading the federal bench with hundreds of conservative judges. These judges will be in place for decades.
^ Long term prospects for a party that is primarily focused on winning votes from uneducated white males is not the best. They will rue the day Trump descended from those escalators. No long term vision in the republican party. Only caring about short term gains.
Unfortunately it's not just short term gains. During Barack Obama's presidency the Republicans refused to cut to fill empty judicial positions. The current government has been quietly loading the federal bench with hundreds of conservative judges. These judges will be in place for decades.
Plenty of presidents, including Obama, Clinton and Reagan, recovered from poor midterms to get re-elected. But those presidents typically sought to pivot or “triangulate” toward the center; we don’t know if the political rebound occurs if the pivot doesn’t. Instead, Trump has moved in the opposite direction. Despite some initial attempts at reaching out to the center, such as in passing a criminal justice bill in December and issuing trial balloons about an infrastructure package, Trump’s strategy of shutting down the government to insist on a border wall was aimed at placating his critics on the right, such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, and members of the House Freedom Caucus.
Maybe Trump took some of the wrong lessons from 2016. Trump may mythologize 2016 as an election in which he was brought into the White House on the strength of his base, but that isn’t necessarily why he won. And even if it was, trying to duplicate the strategy might not work again:
He won’t necessarily be the preferred candidate for voters who are on the fence between Trump and his opponent. (In 2016, voters who disliked both Clinton and Trump went for Trump by 17 points.)
If he’s pursuing policies such as shutting down the government to demand a border wall, swing voters may no longer see Trump as a moderate, as (somewhat contrary to the conventional wisdom) they did in 2016.
Trump might or might not benefit from the same Electoral College advantage that he had in 2016.
Given that, perhaps 2018 is a better model for 2020 than 2016. In the midterms, voting closely tracked Trump’s approval ratings, and he paid the price for his unpopularity. According to the exit poll, midterm voters disapproved of Trump’s performance by a net of 9 percentage points. Not coincidentally, Republicans also lost the popular vote for the House by 9 percentage points.
There’s plenty of time for Trump’s numbers to improve, but for now, they’re getting worse. So while the shutdown’s consequences may not last into 2020, it has been another step in the wrong direction at a moment when presidents have usually pivoted to the center.
Of course Trump took the wrong message, but he really has no choice. He has so alienated the moderately engaged voter, he has nothing but his base. And he needs the base to prevent impeachment. Trump's strategies are literally day to day. There is not long game. He is surviving this crisis and will focus on the next when he can.
Comments
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
yup
Doug Wardlow once told a Republicans-only audience his goal in attaining that office:
Evidence of fraud mounts in uncertified North Carolina race won by Republican
A narrow victory by Republican Mark Harris may be thrown out amid evidence of fraudulent absentee voting
https://www.salon.com/2018/11/30/evidence-of-fraud-mounts-in-uncertified-north-carolina-race-won-by-republican/
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-really-popular-in-rural-areas-other-places-not-so-much/
Trump Is Really Popular In Rural Areas. Other Places, Not So Much.
By Nathaniel Rakich and Dhrumil Mehta
Filed under Pollapalooza
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY FIVETHIRTYEIGHT / GETTY IMAGES
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the week
The 2018 midterm election confirmed America’s urban-rural divide; Democrats excelled in cities, Republicans dominated in the country and the suburbs were the tiebreaker that handed Democrats the House. Will the 2020 election play out the same way? This week, we got two polls of President Trump’s approval rating that suggest it might.
First, a Selzer & Co. (one of our favorite pollsters) national poll conducted Nov. 24-27 for Grinnell College found that Trump had a 43 percent approval rating and a 45 percent disapproval rating among all adults. However, his support isn’t distributed equally across different types of communities. He’s enormously popular among residents of rural areas, with a 61 percent approval rating and a 26 percent disapproval rating. In small towns, that breakdown is 44 percent approve vs. 42 percent disapprove. But in suburban areas, only 41 percent of residents approve of the job that Trump is doing as president, while 50 percent disapprove. Trump’s approval rating is lowest among urbanites — 31 percent approve of him while 59 percent disapprove.
We saw similar geographic trends in an Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll that was conducted from Nov. 26 to Dec. 2. Trump again got the highest marks from residents of rural areas — a 62 percent approval rating and a 35 percent disapproval rating. And yet again, his standing took a nosedive among suburbanites and urbanites. In suburban areas, Trump’s approval rating was 32 percent, and his disapproval rating was 60 percent. In urban areas, his approval rating was 27 percent, and his disapproval rating was 67 percent. (The IBD/TIPP poll didn’t include “small town” as an option for respondents.) Overall, Trump’s approval/disapproval spread was much lower in the IBD/TIPP poll (39 percent approve, 55 percent disapprove) than it was in the Selzer poll, which explains why the IBD/TIPP poll is worse for Trump in all three geographic categories as well.
Here are the results of the polls side by side:
Trump is more popular in rural areas
Presidential net approval rating among adults by density type
* The Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll did not include a breakdown for “small town.”
SOURCES: SELZER & CO., GRINNELL COLLEGE, INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY
This is perhaps stating the obvious, but Trump would do well to approve his standing among suburban and urban voters before 2020. Less than 20 percent of the U.S. population lives in rural areas. Granted, not all rural voters will cast their ballot for the president, nor will all urban and suburban voters back whoever is the Democratic nominee. But elections are winner-take-all contests waged within discrete geographic areas — states or districts. According to the Congressional Density Index from CityLab, a news website covering urban issues, just 70 congressional districts are “pure rural,” and an additional 114 are a “rural-suburban mix.” CityLab is still in the process of making similar assessments for states, but David Montgomery, a journalist for CityLab, told FiveThirtyEight that 11 states could be classified as mostly rural, while an additional 17 could be classified as a mix of rural areas and suburbs. The former are worth a combined 53 electoral votes, while the latter are worth a combined 138; 270 are needed to win a presidential election.
None of this means that Trump lacks a path to electoral victory. It’s still early in the 2020 campaign; approval ratings may change, and a person’s feelings about the president aren’t the only determinant of his or her vote. But those numbers aren’t great for Republicans even if institutions like the Electoral College give disproportionate influence to rural areas. Without urban and suburban areas, they’ll find it difficult to cobble together a sustainable majority.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/have-republicans-given-up-on-winning-black-voters/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Have Republicans Given Up On Winning Black Voters?
Long term prospects for a party that is primarily focused on winning votes from uneducated white males is not the best. They will rue the day Trump descended from those escalators. No long term vision in the republican party. Only caring about short term gains.
During Barack Obama's presidency the Republicans refused to fill empty judicial positions.
The current government has been quietly loading the federal bench with hundreds of conservative judges.
These judges will be in place for decades.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-shutdown-is-hurting-trumps-approval-rating-but-will-it-hurt-him-in-2020/
The shutdown has prompted Trump to double down on his all-base, all-the-time strategy
But if Trump wants to get re-elected, his biggest problem isn’t what Republicans think about him; it’s what the rest of the country does.
The lesson of the midterms, in my view, was fairly clear: Trump’s base isn’t enough. The 2018 midterms weren’t unique in the scale of Republican losses: losing 40 or 41 House seats is bad, but the president’s party usually does poorly at the midterms. Rather, it’s that these losses came on exceptionally high turnout of about 119 million voters, which is considerably closer to 2016’s presidential year turnout (139 million) than to the previous midterm in 2014 (83 million). Republicans did turn out in huge numbers for the midterms, but the Democratic base — which is larger than the Republican one — turned out also, and independent voters strongly backed Democratic candidates for the House.
Plenty of presidents, including Obama, Clinton and Reagan, recovered from poor midterms to get re-elected. But those presidents typically sought to pivot or “triangulate” toward the center; we don’t know if the political rebound occurs if the pivot doesn’t. Instead, Trump has moved in the opposite direction. Despite some initial attempts at reaching out to the center, such as in passing a criminal justice bill in December and issuing trial balloons about an infrastructure package, Trump’s strategy of shutting down the government to insist on a border wall was aimed at placating his critics on the right, such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, and members of the House Freedom Caucus.
Maybe Trump took some of the wrong lessons from 2016. Trump may mythologize 2016 as an election in which he was brought into the White House on the strength of his base, but that isn’t necessarily why he won. And even if it was, trying to duplicate the strategy might not work again:
Given that, perhaps 2018 is a better model for 2020 than 2016. In the midterms, voting closely tracked Trump’s approval ratings, and he paid the price for his unpopularity. According to the exit poll, midterm voters disapproved of Trump’s performance by a net of 9 percentage points. Not coincidentally, Republicans also lost the popular vote for the House by 9 percentage points.
There’s plenty of time for Trump’s numbers to improve, but for now, they’re getting worse. So while the shutdown’s consequences may not last into 2020, it has been another step in the wrong direction at a moment when presidents have usually pivoted to the center.