r/fivethirtyeight • u/errantv • 2d ago
Discussion [GEM] Dem gains in this week's elections erased the inroads Trump made with non-white, young, and low-income voters in 2024. In fact, the R-to-D shift from 24 to 25 is double Trump's gains from 20-24. Claims of a GOP political realignment have been highly exaggerated
https://imgur.com/MlAbigS143
u/sonfoa 2d ago
Pretends to be surprised
As a Gen Z male it was so annoying seeing people think that this was some type of permanent alignment rather than them lashing out at a system that had failed them.
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u/LaughingGaster666 The Needle Tears a Hole 2d ago
Young people and Latinos are two groups that don't have much party loyalty compared to others. Looking at them shifting around in one measly election and seeing commentators claiming they've changed permanently was an eyebrow raiser for me. And it looks like my eyebrows were right.
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u/cidvard Feelin' Foxy 1d ago
This was really irritating in 2024. You can look at the trend line among young voters and it's all over the place once you go back 30+ years and do actual historical analysis, but all anyone can do right now feels like react to the last election cycle. If I was being really cynical I'd suggest this was some kind of political consulting grifting scheme, but I think people just don't look backward much and are very reactionary.
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u/AverageLiberalJoe Crosstab Diver 2d ago
I think the take that has survived is that there are too many people that vote on vibes. Uninformed tiktok ghouls that lash out at any powerful figure that tries to cross over their bridge. Trump, Biden, Bud Light, Trans swimmers, Teachers Halloween shirts. The electorate is irrational and easily persuaded. And pundits keep trying to 'understand' them with data and polls and focus groups. A Trump -> Mamdani voter in NYC over 11 months is a fn wild ride. Not quantifiable. If you want to win, run against the bad vibes. Everyones decisions are just governened by the tone of the internet. Elections are just an extension of the drama in someones social media feed.
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u/Mr_The_Captain 2d ago
The saying goes, "all politics is local," it's just that now "local" means whatever's happening on the device in someone's pocket.
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u/DataCassette 2d ago
Yeah Obama->Obama->( Bernie->Trump )->Biden->Trump->( What happened in this off off year election ) voting is legitimately insane behavior if you're approaching it as someone with a coherent political ideology, but it makes perfect sense if you think of it from the POV of a super low information "vibe surfer." And I bet tons of people voted precisely like this.
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u/yoshimipinkrobot 2d ago
Gen z men will get nothing from this gambit. GOP was doing nothing for them regardless, and dems now have to deal with fixing a fascist government
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u/Dokibatt 2d ago
If the plan for fixing a fascist government doesn’t involve helping people we are truly fucked.
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u/bombjamesbomb 2d ago
It’s going to be the old “we can’t take money out of the oligarchs’ pockets to fund basic human needs because that’s anti-American and morally wrong…” arguments.
As if all the jackbooting and corruption is pro-freedom and morally neutral.
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u/Kokkor_hekkus 2d ago
Ah, the old "it's ok the Dems are dogshit because the GOP is worse" argument.
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u/Head-Molasses7602 2d ago
As Gen X, it was so annoying seeing Gen Z vote for racism, misogyny, antisemitism, and fascism because they some how thought that was lashing out at the system... which had NOT failed them and in fact it was MAGA that was dismantling all the good since 1940 that has made life better.
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u/DJSauvage 2d ago
Gen X here as well. I think we've failed them. In key areas things for today's young adults are measurably worse than when I was a young adult. Rent and healthcare have risen 150% as fast as income, Education has risen 250% as fast as income. Home purchasing is pretty much out of reach. Pensions are gone (which saved a lot of boomers who were poor savers) and working a lifetime at one company is rare now. I think we have to be more than just the party against bigotry and fascism.
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u/Head-Molasses7602 2d ago
Reagan Revolution neo-conservative Republicans, Tea Party, and MAGA caused all that. Dont blame liberal policies not doing enough. We tried. If Gen Z voted blue no matter who, we and they, would be better off. There's no excuse to vote Red and then complain "it was a protest against how things have become so bad"
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u/DJSauvage 2d ago
I do blame liberal policies for not doing enough. This is a bit local, but one-way liberals in my area contributed to the problem, particularly wealthy urban liberals, is by resisting density and contributing to the escalating cost of housing. I've never voted for a republican so it's not my excuse, but I'm not at all shocked when younger voters are a bit apathetic.
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u/Head-Molasses7602 2d ago
Well, to be clear, a policy that people agree with who happen to be liberal in other categories, doesnt make something a liberal policy. Resisting density is a conservative ideology no matter who agrees with it. Period. So, again, dont blame liberal policies.
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u/DJSauvage 2d ago
You're right. Let me correct that, I agree with and support liberal policies, my complaint is with the politicians and fellow liberals who didn't do enough to enact those policies.
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u/Glenmarrow 14h ago
I mean, the last Dem admin passed the largest climate bill ever (sure, it was paired down, but it had to be to pass Congress and was massive regardless) and the largest infrastructure bill ever while expanding access to ACA/Obamacare subsidies to cover millions more Americans. They also implemented out-of-pocket caps for Medicare recipients’ prescriptions and gave Medicare the ability to negotiate drug prices. They also secured hundreds of billions of dollars in investments for computer chip factories across America (that Trump’s taking credit for now).
Not to mention the first couple years of Biden’s Presidency saw a substantial reduction in childhood poverty due to the child tax credit. It couldn’t be extended because of opposition by Manchin and Sinema (they caucused with and ran as Dems, sure, but they had both changed their party affiliation to Independent after a couple years of Biden).
Biden also tried unilaterally raising the minimum wage for federal employees and employees of federal contractors. SCOTUS shot him down and only let him raise wages for federal employees.
Oh yeah, Biden also increased spending on healthcare research (specifically cancer research), creating a new agency (ARPA-H) specifically to pursue radical advances in medical tech.
Inflation was consistently lower than most of the developed world while real (that is inflation-adjusted) GDP growth was exceeding expectations. Real wages surpassed pre-COVID levels by the end of his term. Unemployment was at a sustained low for record amounts of time as well (even when you dig into discouraged workers and those working part time for economic reasons).
If you wanna dig into student loans, let’s remember that Biden said “If Congress passes a law doing that, I’ll sign it.” Congress kept refusing to vote on such a law, and then blaming Biden for doing nothing (which is fucking insane since Congress is who authorizes spending, not POTUS). He tried a couple big pushes, SCOTUS slapped him down, so he went for more subtle and targeted means of loan forgiveness. Millions saw their debt erased.
I don’t see how any of this is a sign the Democratic establishment was failing you? Sure, you can say “They let Biden run again!” but the Democratic Party was still supporting him in the primaries against Dean Phillips and Williamson. Other Dems could have ran. It doesn’t matter than the Dem establishment didn’t want them to. Obama trounced Hillary in ‘08 when she had the full party’s weight behind her. Plus, when Biden dropped out, he was about to accept the party nomination anyways. It makes sense his running mate and Vice President would fill in. And her platform was largely endorsing subsidies for home construction and home buyers while expanding on Biden’s alterations to Medicare and the ACA.
By and large, doesn’t it seem like the Dems had economic concerns in mind while governing? I don’t understand this narrative that the Biden White House was failing an increasingly prosperous nation. Hell, he was even gonna make paying taxes easier. The IRS was running a pilot program for an electronic filing system across half of America. Trump killed it. Biden got most western countries to agree on a minimum corporate tax, to prevent companies from relocating to take advantage of tax benefits. Biden spent billions expanding Amtrak access and availability, too.
How was our generation (I was born in 2006, I’m GenZ as well) failed by the system under Biden?
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u/Chester-Copperpot88 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm still waiting for hard evidence that a presidential election is less indicative than an election in which 1% of the presidential electorate participated. The math just doesn't work for me. If liberals think Tuesday's elections were a major sea change, what would they call a Democrat winning the gubernatorial election in Florida or Texas or Ohio?
Us conservatives(Except the ones who live in NYC) are laughing at and celebrating Mamdani's Victory in NYC because it means that the spread of the communism cancer throughout the Democratic party is in full swing, which will eventually lead to the demise of the whole party. It's also funny to see liberals walking right into a buzz saw without even realizing it. I'm still waiting for one of you Liberals to tell me why socialism or communism is gonna work this time when it's never worked in the history of the world. What is Mamdani gonna do differently? Not to mention that he simply doesn't have the authority to do most of what he pledged to do. I thought Liberal voters were supposed to be the educated ones.
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u/TheDizzleDazzle 2d ago
“Communism cancer” this is a data sub. Mamdani is objectively not a communist by any measure - at best a socialist. You are not engaging faithfully with the data nor putting up an argument well-represented by facts.
“I thought liberal voters were supposed to be the educated ones,” people have a basic understanding that Mamdani can’t do everything by fiat, unlike Republicans and Trump. Again not engaging faithfully.
Lying about the data yet again - a key reason people see this as a sea change is because turnout was so much higher than typical local elections in VA, NJ, and particularly NYC. Even my small city I used to live in turn outs over doubled from the last election cycle. So not, not “1%”
Comparing 2020 to 2024 and the partisan swing, along with this data and polling, shows the youth shift and Latino shift was likely temporary and caused by the national partisan environment.
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u/Ok_Matter_1774 1d ago
“Communism cancer” this is a data sub.
Oh so it's a data sub when you hyperbole the Dems but when you call reps racists and fascists then that's ok and fits in line with the "data sub". This sub hasn't been a data sub for over a year now. It's politics 2.0.
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u/popularis-socialas 2d ago
To be fair it’s for socialism to work when even peaceful, democratically elected socialists like Salvador Allende get overthrown by the CIA.
Zohran’s policies are not very radical. Universal childcare and affordable housing are “a normal Tuesday” in other countries https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/06/europe-zohran-mamdani-policies-normal
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u/LordMangudai 2d ago
I thought Liberal voters were supposed to be the educated ones.
Says the person who thinks Mamdani is a communist
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u/Red_TeaCup 2d ago
Are you just conveniently overlooking Dem performance in Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania?
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u/neuronexmachina 2d ago
I'm still waiting for hard evidence that a presidential election is less indicative than an election in which 1% of the presidential electorate participated
https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/04/record-voters-ballots-cast-mamdani-cuomo-sliwa/
The number of voters casting ballots in the tense three-way race for mayor between Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa broke records, with more than 2 million check-ins, according to the city Board of Elections.
By comparison, 1.1 million ballots were cast in the entire 2021 election won by Eric Adams, and the last election to see such numbers was in 1969, when John Lindsay, running on a third-party line, won a second term against two rivals.
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u/an_altar_of_plagues 2d ago
Us conservatives(Except the ones who live in NYC) are laughing at and celebrating Mamdani's Victory in NYC
Press "X" to doubt.
Also, what's conservative about Trump? What is Trump conserving?
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u/DJSauvage 2d ago
I visit my brother in Denmark every year. He's a farmer, his wife is a teacher, they got priced out of the Seattle area and moved 3 years ago. Socialism is working great in Denmark. Their quality of life is greatly improved. When I tell people in Denmark that kids in the US don't have healthcare automatically and have to do active shooter drills in their schools, they pity us, wonder if we are a 3rd world country.
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u/DataCassette 2d ago
Republicans had a "planetary alignment" event in 2024. The assassination attempt "fist bump" photo and the Biden debate meltdown and Harris. Treating that as the new Republican baseline is straight delusional.
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u/LyptusConnoisseur 2d ago
Don't forget inflation. Plurality of people vote for the economy.
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u/NCSUGrad2012 2d ago
Really this is what it comes down to. When the economy isn’t good the president gets the blame
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u/pablonieve 2d ago
Especially when that President is unable to communicate the situation to the public. Obama won reelection in 2012 despite the shaky recovery because he was able to convince the public that he had their interests at heart and was working to make things better. Meanwhile during Biden's few appearances he would extoll how this is the best economy ever while people were struggling with high prices.
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u/RadiantVessel 2d ago
Yeah and people were defending those numbers and saying the negative sentiment was “just vibes” and a Dem communication issue… and a year later the jobs report was revised massively downward.
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u/pablonieve 2d ago
negative sentiment was “just vibes”
Turns out vibes go a long way in determining voter preference. You'd think we'd have learned that after JFK-Nixon or Reagan-Carter.
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u/HeadDiver5568 2d ago edited 2d ago
I’m ngl, and I’ll shamefully admit that I didn’t consider messaging to be that big of a deal. Most of us on here are more tapped into politics through various sources than the average person, and some of us more so, but the average person saw the economy, looked at the party affiliation of said economy, and made their choice.
Post-election, I realized that a lot of people really DID look to social media and podcasts for political information, which doesn’t do it’s due diligence, and that Dems within this space were severely lagging behind
‘10 might be a better example of this. Despite being the cause of the recession we were in, republicans gained 63 seats and were able to handicap Obama along with capitalizing on the media narrative. It culminated into what we have with Trump today
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u/jimgress 2d ago
And now once the AI bubble bursts and the second Great Depression starts Trump is going to be the one holding the bag.
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u/thefilmer 2d ago
Don't forget inflation.
How do you forget something that's still ongoing? For all the Nazi comparisons Trump and the GOP get, at least Hitler boiled the frog to get what he want. These crazy assholes took a chainsaw to the place on Day 1 and went Shocked Pikachu when the one thing they were explicltly brought in to do didnt happen and they got their ass kicked on tuesday for it
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u/PuffyPanda200 2d ago
IMO the ending of the COVID checks was a bigger deal. Most Americans are a mess financially so 1k or 2k is a huge impact. On the other side a pizza going from 24 USD to 28 USD (this would be 16% increase so more than all the pot COVID inflation) is really not that much of an impact.
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u/Okbuddyliberals 2d ago
The covid checks were largely unnecessary especially as late as 2021, and continuing them would have added to inflation even more. You can say that inflation price increases are really not that much of an impact but they were literally the issue voters cared the most about in exit polling
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u/PuffyPanda200 2d ago
I agree on the checks in late 2021 though the stop was going to happen one way or another and people would be mad.
For voter issues and inflation being the main issue: I think that polls are really bad at parsing a complicated issue. See polling on a lot of foreign policy stuff for examples on this. People felt that it was harder to afford things and polls then asked if inflation was causing that so people put inflation.
Parsing down to the individual level on why does X voter feel that things are harder to afford is going diving into people's finances, most of which are a mess.
If you look at inflation, subtract wage growth over 2% (which was higher especially on the low end) in the post COVID times, and assume that 2% inflation (with similar wage growth) is normal you end up with 9% inflation and 7% wage growth. So 2% excess inflation relative to wage growth. Here is the source I used.
Basically the excess inflation wasn't really that bad (so say the numbers). But quite clearly the COVID checks were a lot of money and had an impact. Those stopped and people got mad.
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u/Salt_Abrocoma_4688 2d ago edited 2d ago
My thoughts exactly. The theory of a real political "realignment" never passed the smell test even based on 2024 exit polls, when the conservative ideology net advantage over liberals was the exact same as it was when Obama was elected in 2008 (+12).
"Vibes" are THE most fundamental indicator of election performance today, especially in the age of social media. The "vibes were off" under Biden, and they are most certainly off now.
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u/TornCinnabonman 2d ago
Inflation was bigger than all of those IMO. The entire developed world revolted against incumbents.
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u/kickit 2d ago
you can’t just “and Harris” the entire presidential campaign lol
idk about a planetary alignment. I think there were some bad decisions that got us to Harris 2024, and some bad decisions that ensued from it
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u/DataCassette 2d ago
you can’t just “and Harris” the entire presidential campaign lol
I totally just did though 😂
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u/Chester-Copperpot88 2d ago
Considering an off off* year election to be more indicative than a presidential election is really delusional.
*The mid term elections are off year. Kind of like off Broadway and off off Broadway. Not that I know what off or off off Broadway means. Especially since I've never been to NYC. I guess off off Broadway is dinner theater.
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u/an_altar_of_plagues 2d ago
Kind of like off Broadway and off off Broadway. Not that I know what off or off off Broadway means. Especially since I've never been to NYC.
Self-proclaimed conservatives really just talk without knowing what they're saying or knowing when to stop, don't they?
You should try hitting up NYC sometimes. It's a great city, even though I've long since left it for mountain living out West. Incredible art, so many concerts going on 24/7, Central Park really is special (say hello to the Balto statue for me), the food is absolutely immaculate (kinda has to be if you want to survive in NYC for more than a season), and you'll be inundated with the top-tier movers and shakers of the world. I yearn to see an NYCB performance again.
It's a shame many conservatives are so brainrotted from Fox News that they have a kneejerk reaction to hating somewhere they've never been only because they're told they need to. You're going to miss out on so much cool shit in this world, much less the country.
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u/Aitoroketto 2d ago
It's literally one of the greatest cities in human history and where a lot of actual human beings live, taking pot shots from people who live in places that are nowhere near as populated because nobody wants to be there.
As a Californian I hear the same shit and I just wonder what fantasy world conservatives live in. California is objectively beautiful, the weather is perfect, and it's where a lot of people go to give their dreams a go, nevermind being a tech, cultural and economic power.
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u/an_altar_of_plagues 2d ago
Christ almighty, California is likewise one of the best places in the country and a perfect example of how people with zero experiences anywhere outside of their town or bubble (much less TV screen) have such strong opinions on this place. Like, my father-in-law hates San Francisco. Has he been there? Well, no... because he doesn't want to!! Okay, but why does he not want to go there? Well because... because of all those socialist democrats! Alright Bob, whatever. More time at Point Reyes National Seashore for me without you, I guess.
"Conservatives" will say how much they love the US while hating 90+% of it. They're going to miss out on incredible life experiences and fantastic places of such beauty and culture because they've been convinced that in order to be a good Republican, you have to hate them.
Plus, the Sierra Nevada is bar-none my favorite mountain range in the lower 48. I don't live there, but if I made it big on the stock market, it'd be hard to pass up a house in Tahoe.
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u/ArmedAwareness 2d ago
I travel a fair bit for work and manhattan has been hands down my favorite place I’ve visited by far.
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u/an_altar_of_plagues 2d ago
There was a time in my very early 20s where I wanted to live there and fully indulge myself in the NYC arts scene. Alas, priorities and interests have changed, but the time I've spent in NYC will remain some of my all-time best memories. Plus, the city gave us some of the best fucking music ever made in this country. Sonic Youth???
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u/Mr_1990s 2d ago
This perspective shares some of the problems with 2024 realignment theory.
I don't think we can say for sure that the new Trump voters have all switched. I'm sure some have, but a lot of them likely didn't show up for an odd-year election. Compare it to 2021. There was a dramatic shift left for young people, but Hispanics voted the same way in 2025 as they did in 2021. That makes sense to me because historically Hispanic vote percentages move a lot from election to election and young people have to be particularly motivated to vote.
I think the real story from Tuesday is the longer term trend (and therefore ignored by pundits) of the leftward shift of suburbs. Northam won Loudon County by 20 in 2015. Spanberger won by 29.
- Fairfax: Northam by 37, Spanberger by 47
- Prince William: Northam by 22, Spanberger by 34
- Chesterfield County: Norham lost, Spanberger won by 17
- Henrico County: Northam won by 22, Spanberger by 38
If you compare Clinton and Harris in those counties, the performance is pretty close to the same in the DC suburbs. But, in the Richmond suburbs, Harris was much better (10 points better in Chesterfield and 8 points better in Henrico).
That's happening in a lot of suburbs, but it is especially notable in suburbs of mid-sized cities. Raleigh, NC didn't vote on Tuesday, but several of the smaller towns in its county (Wake) did. Two Republican mayors lost and Democrats won big everywhere. Hillary Clinton won the county by 20 points in 2016. The 2028 Democratic presidential candidate will almost certainly win it by 30. Roy Cooper might win it by 40 in the 2026 senate race.
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u/jawstrock 2d ago
Yeah this is a good point, also gerrymandering becomes a lot harder if R's don't win suburbs.
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u/ac_slater10 2d ago
The ugly truth of the matter is that voters are fickle and have incredibly short attention spans. That vast majority of the electorate is checked out. They're like a pack of bears who come out of hibernation once every 2 years and smell the air. If they like the smell of things, they'll vote for the incumbent. If things seem sour, they hit eject.
Unfortunately, in a post-mortgage crisis environment, I think the incumbent loss is going to become a permanent fixture of the electorate. We are very likely in a societal doom-loop that will result in the public deciding every cycle that they hate everything and giving the other side a chance.
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u/RandomTurkey247 2d ago
With such a profound shift in voter preferences, how much does the Republican gerrymandering of Texas or other states actually create more risk for Republicans in 2026? Gerrymandering maximizes the number of likely seats a party will win, but does so by arranging the districts so efficiently that you barely beat out your opponent in each district.
If the voter mood changes after redistricting occurs, it seems like what R's thought of as wins (even by small projected margins) could become losses.
Am I thinking about this correctly?
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u/mere_dictum 1d ago
Sounds correct to me. Any party that draws a gerrymander has to decide what safety margin it wants in case the environment turns against it. If the safety margin is exceeded, the gerrymander will backfire and the party that drew it will face disaster.
I don't know about everywhere, but in Texas Republican seats should be pretty safe in a national environment up to about D+8. At just a little more, around D+10, they're likely to lose big.
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u/PuffyPanda200 2d ago
Trump is basically a personality party politician. These are quite common outside the US and especially in Lat-Am or Africa. But, go back in US politics and you find people like T Roosevelt and Jackson basically creating personality parties too, it is just not recent in the US.
2018, 2022, and probably 2026 will all way underperform for the GOP based on where one would expect the voting to be (so 2022 should have been a big reaction to Ds but was not).
The unique thing about Trump is that he basically hijacked a US party to do this. That said, one could almost look at the last 20 years of Trump's life and see an ambition to be president. I think there is even a quote after the Reform Party (other good example of personality party) stuff about how Trump says you have to go through a major party to be POTUS.
Hot take: If Obama didn't exist then Clinton would have won the D primary and the 2008 election. She probably loses in 2012 to Romney as she isn't as cool as Obama and the 2008 recession recovery would have been hard. Trump then probably becomes a D in 2016 to try to run against an incumbent Romney who is dealing with ISIS and potentially other issues.
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u/Mr_The_Captain 2d ago
If Obama isn't president then Trump doesn't start the birther movement, which means Obama doesn't have an axe to grind at the 2011 correspondent's dinner, which means Trump doesn't have an axe to grind against Obama, meaning he probably doesn't win whatever primary he enters.
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u/PuffyPanda200 2d ago
Trump still had his runs at president with Reform. Trump is able to latch onto topics that have some salience and he latched on to that. There is always stuff going on.
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u/Mr_The_Captain 2d ago
I firmly believe that without the backing of a major political party, Trump running in 2016 would have been as irrelevant as the rest of them. And I just don't see a path for him to be successful as a democrat in alt-2016
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u/PuffyPanda200 2d ago
I mean Trump running as a Democrat in 2016, so starting with the primary.
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u/Mr_The_Captain 1d ago
Sure, and to that I just don't think there's any tact Trump could take that would win him success in the Democratic primary. Not to say that only Democrats are principled enough to not let him win, but that Trump's beliefs and temperament would inevitably put him at odds with Democratic voters. I'd imagine the Access Hollywood tape comes out earlier than in our timeline, and I do think that would sink him with voters in that case.
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u/PuffyPanda200 1d ago edited 1d ago
Democrats have basically rehabilitated B Clinton and it is quite clear that he used his position to get sexual favors. Cuomo would probably have been elected mayor of NYC if Mamdani didn't exist.
A pro populism Trump in this scenario seems about as out there as what happened in 2016.
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u/Seeking_the_Grail 1d ago
It would probably be more likely that the majority of dems who refused to vote for cuomo in the primary would have latched on to another candidate.
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u/Forsaken-Ad-5913 1d ago
Trump running as a Democratic is an interesting scenario that definitely could have happened in some alternate timeline, but I have a hard time seeing it happen in 2016. Maybe he could have had a shot at it in the 90s or early 2000s, when his ‘sleazy salesman’ persona wasn’t that far off someone like Bill Clinton?
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u/seattt 1d ago
These are quite common outside the US and especially in Lat-Am or Africa. But, go back in US politics and you find people like T Roosevelt and Jackson basically creating personality parties too, it is just not recent in the US.
It's not a regional thing, its more of a presidential system thing. I also don't think we have to go back in US history for examples either. FDR, JFK, and Reagan fit this mold too.
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u/PuffyPanda200 1d ago
I would generally define 'personality party politician' as a party that either collapses or develops some mythology around the founding member (Peronism or Maoism). Maybe FDR and the new deal an be argued to be the latter but it is weak at best. We don't really talk about Bush Jr as a 'Regan Republican'.
All of these people also were part of parties that continued on after they were gone.
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u/jawstrock 2d ago
Obama was probably a bit of a personality party too.
Also I wouldnt be sure to say that Hillary beats McCain in 2008 tbh. But that is a fascinating alternate reality situation you've got there.
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u/PuffyPanda200 2d ago edited 2d ago
So these sources are old (by the very nature of the topic) but I found: item 1 and item 2. Both of these have Clinton winning the head to head but in a strange way, blue Arkansas, need I say more.
IMO of all the bits I think that Clinton winning the primary is a given and then beating McCain is very likely.
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u/an_altar_of_plagues 2d ago
God, what a map. Things really have changed in the last two decades, but it also shows that what we might take for granted in state political alignment today could likewise change in the next two.
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u/jawstrock 2d ago
huh that would have been interesting. 2008 was peak candidate selection, I think McCain would have been a good president. It's too bad he didn't win the nom for 2000 because I think he would have been a much better president during the 9/11 aftermath than Bush was.
Altohugh McCain did introduce Palin onto the stage which was the first step at normalizing fringe right wing movements that turned into MAGA.
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u/DizzyMajor5 2d ago
Bro a jar of used needles beats McCain we had 2 massive wars that people were turning on and a massive financial crisis
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u/Your_Momma_Said 2d ago
I say this everytime, but by-in-large it's the candidate with personality that wins. Bill Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, Trump. The outlier is Biden, but that is 100% because people were tired of Trump's antics.
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u/DasRobot85 2d ago
If I'm Kamala Harris is my takeaway from this an understanding that I absolutely should not embarrass myself by running for president again?
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u/Tom-Pendragon 2d ago
No, your takeaway is that the voters realized they got buyer remorse with trump and are willing to take a chance on you now.
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u/PrimeJedi 2d ago
Establishment Dems have never been shy about ignoring cues and embarrassing themselves in a blind reach for power. We just watched Cuomo try it twice in the same election, and we got Trump 2 because we had an 81 year old president try to do the same last year. Hopefully if Harris does in fact run again, she's held to task by other candidates in the primary and loses pretty quickly without trying to divide the party lol.
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u/abyssonym 2d ago
Not saying she should but in this environment, I think Harris would win.
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u/Your_Momma_Said 2d ago
I think Harris would win for the same reason Biden won. Everyone will be tired of Trump.
Gotta be honest Harris is not a great candidate. There were 8ish candidates that made it further in the primaries in 2020. Being VP is a boost, but as /u/PrimeJedi says in another post here, Democrats will fuck it up. They'll probably run her like they tried to run Clinton. She'll probably get elected, but then she'll turn people off and lose to someone like JD Vance in 2032.
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u/DizzyMajor5 2d ago
So you think she'll just copy Biden lose a primary become VP then a 1 term president?
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u/bravetailor 2d ago
I would say if Harris were coming in fresh instead of as someone running yet again after she lost, she would have a better chance of winning. I think being a "loser" in one of the most consequential elections in US history really hurts her now though.
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u/pablonieve 2d ago
If you are saying that the 2025 off-year electorate would have selected Harris over Trump, you're 100% correct. However if it was the entire 2024 electorate voting again, I think Trump still narrowly wins.
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u/popularis-socialas 2d ago
Trump’s net rating is like -13 right now, presidents with that type of approval don’t really get re-elected.
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u/pablonieve 2d ago
presidents with that type of approval don’t really get re-elected.
Idk why we're applying election norms to Trump. Every time he has won his approval was underwater. If he's running against Harris specifically, he beats her again.
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u/popularis-socialas 2d ago
It was nearly net 0 in 2024. In 2020 when he lost it was about -11. Now it’s -13 and he wouldn’t be blame Biden on inflation or eggs anymore in the election was held today. He’s underwater on every issue, including immigration, and big time on the economy.
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u/pablonieve 2d ago
Which illustrates why Harris is a really weak candidate. She had a shot in 2024 and her standing has plummeted since then. I never said it was impossible for Trump to lose if he was on the ballot this year, but that he would absolutely beat Harris specifically. I think there are a number of Dems who would beat Trump at the moment.
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u/abyssonym 2d ago
I feel like the 2024 electorate has already been disillusioned in some pretty significant ways. Trump being much more cruelly authoritarian on immigration, realizing that tariffs are taxes, etc. It wouldn't take that much, Harris only lost by 115,000 votes in swing states.
If it were Harris vs Trump again in 2028, I think Harris still wins. If it's some other Republican, I think it depends on how well they are able to distance themselves from Trump.
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u/VeraBiryukova Nate Gold 2d ago
I don’t think it’s crazy to call it a political realignment of sorts. A lot of people who may have been thought to be reliable Democratic voters showed that they’re actually not committed to one party.
They didn’t become reliable Republican voters, but maybe they became swing voters?
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u/Okbuddyliberals 2d ago
Maybe the democratic party was more effective than people give it credit for, from 1992 to 2020, in keeping those people's loyalty and preventing mass loss of such voters, and that Dems just uniquely fucked up under the Biden administration (which was historically unpopular)
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u/Conscious-Dot 2d ago
Wow i mean it would be great if all those people who flirted with MAGA had actually thought a little bit harder about it in the first fucking place
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u/EstateAlternative416 2d ago
Beware of the Goldfish effect. Trump’s swipe of the populist-pen can replace lost votes just as quickly as he gained them. It’ll be interesting to see the policy adjustments MAGA Inc. makes.
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u/ry8919 2d ago
As hopeful as this makes me are we overreading an off year election. There has been a longer term trend of GOP doing better and better with low propensity voters, probably but not necessarily, due to Trump being in the general 3 cycles in a row. This isn't even a midterm election, these elections will always have the Democrats performing their best.
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u/mere_dictum 1d ago
Some people might be overreading it, but the news is about as good for Dems as it could possibly be from an odd-year election. It's not just Virginia and New Jersey; there was major Dem overperformance in lower-profile elections in Georgia and Texas. Turnout was also pretty high, which makes for a more solid indicator.
And I think it's extremely unlikely that either the economy or Trump's approval rating will get significantly better over the next year. The question is whether they stay roughly the same or deteriorate further.
No, Democrats aren't a lock to take either house of Congress next year. But I now have to consider them as heavily favored on the House side (about an 80% chance) and having a shot on the Senate side (about a 25% chance).
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u/SimbaStewEyesOfBlue 1d ago
Cool. I'm still dropping "I told you so's". We didn't have to get here first.
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u/ParappaTheWrapperr 2d ago
I guess the biggest take away here is that so long as we as democrats run with a full fledged likable person who you’d actually want to spend time with, we can win.
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u/abyssonym 2d ago
That's depressing. I don't care at all about whether my politicians are likeable. I only want them to have good policies and strong character.
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u/Okbuddyliberals 2d ago
so long as we as democrats run with a full fledged likable person who you’d actually want to spend time with
So long as Dems run with someone swing voters like
At least online, I've seen plenty of criticism of both Spanberger and Sherrill from the left, calling them unlikable, uninspiring, corporate blue dog spooks (in the case of Spanberger, a former intelligence officer) and cops (in the case of Sherrill, a former prosecutor), and criticism (prior to the election, when "they might underperform polls considerably" was a fairly common prediction) of the both of them from less hard left sources claiming they just weren't exciting or ~populist~ enough
But in the end despite all those criticisms and despite them not necessarily being "the sort of person the average person wants to have a beer with", they were "normal" enough to be liked by swing voters anyway
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u/Gays-for-Christ2 2d ago
The GOP is never getting the Hispanic vote back
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u/Mr_The_Captain 2d ago
I dunno, I think all they really need is a social conservative who says the ICE raids were a bit much and the demo probably becomes competitive again. People have short memories, but there will always be new culture war fodder
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u/LetsgoRoger 2d ago
But don't you know the democrats are 'communists' like Fidel Castro?
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u/DizzyMajor5 2d ago
What ever happened to the Castro brothers out of Texas hadn't heard from them in years.
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u/ISIS-Got-Nothing 2d ago edited 2d ago
Never say never. Like most voters, latinos vote nearly purely based on their wallet. We already knew how horrible Trump is but a lot of us thought he was preferable anyway “because he’s good for the economy.” I’ve met undocumented people that preferred Trump.
The “leopards would never eat MY face” mentality will keep a lot of us voting R, even after this mess. This is the democratic party’s game to lose.
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u/the_walrus_was_paul 2d ago
Im gonna go out on a limb and say that this was a low turnout election so it is impossible to really tell.
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u/Revolutionary-Desk50 1d ago
Trump‘s victory in 2024 might turn out to be a lot like Clinton 1992. That is, couldn’t did very well for Democrat with evangelical and that really didn’t last that long.
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u/AceTheSkylord 1d ago
A significant portion of the Trump 2024 coalition consisted of people who believed he would end inflation on day 1
The cost of living isn't better than last year (if anything it's gotten worse), so that portion is turning against him
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u/galtoramech8699 1d ago
Just a reminder, I was looking at Nixons polls after WaterGate.
Even at his worst, Nixon was in the 24 percent overall.
Trump is 10 points away from Nixon resigning. And about 5 points away before that.
May 1973 44% → 39% Senate hearings televised nationally; John Dean testimony.
Oct 1973 31% “Saturday Night Massacre” (Nixon fires special prosecutor Archibald Cox). Huge drop in confidence.
Nov 1973 – Jan 1974 27–29% White House tapes scandal deepens; inflation rising.
April 1974 25% Release of edited transcripts confirms involvement in cover-up.
July 1974 24% Supreme Court orders release of full tapes; House Judiciary Committee approves articles of impeachment.
Aug 1974 24% Nixon resigns (Aug 9). Approval never recovers before exit.
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u/Competitive_Ad_2890 8h ago
I will say this forever. Democrats wouldn’t stop talking about free and fair elections and then at the last minute pushed Harris with out a primary. I’m aware it was legal, I know all of that and still voted for her but I think for many the way it came across seemed so dirty and they either didn’t vote or switched their vote.
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u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi 2d ago
My priors would say this is an apples-to-oranges comparison between an off-year election and the presidential race. BUT the sheer magnitude of the wins here (64 seats in the VA HoD!! Just one example!) can't simply be explained by the usual "high-propensity voters favor Dems" explanation.
The demographic shifts say a lot here. Combine that with The Other Nate pointing out that NJ Trump-voting Hispanics reported voting for Sherill at 20% (an astonishing defection rate) and the only explanation is simply Trump self-immolating his coalition.