So, after my last post on the senate, I decided it would be good if I analyzed voter turnout in key battleground states to see if, in swing states, the democrats really stayed home and more people did not vote republican. This has been my thesis of why the democrats lost over the last week, and these are good things to analyze.
For the purpose of this analysis, I'm going to focus primarily on states instrumental to Trump's victory. Most of these states will have gone to Trump, although I will look at a few close ones for Clinton too.
Anyway, here we go. I'm going to be getting my 2016 data from here and my 2012 data from here.
Arizona
2012 Obama Totals: 1,025,232
2012 Romney Totals: 1,233,654
2016 Clinton Totals:
933,655
2016: Trump totals: 1,017,166
Net democratic loss/gain: -91,577
Net republican loss/gain: -216,488
Analysis: Overall, both candidates lost votes, but Trump did so on a much larger margin than Clinton did. This indicates suppressed turnout with the state becoming slightly more blue.
Colorado
2012 Obama Totals: 1,322,998
2012 Romney Totals: 1,185,050
2016 Clinton Totals: 1,208,095
2016: Trump totals: 1,136,354
Net democratic loss/gain: -114,903
Net republican loss/gain: -48,696
Analysis: Both candidates lost votes, but the democrats did so at a much higher pace than the republicans. This state was slightly more red.
Florida
2012 Obama Totals: 4,237,756
2012 Romney Totals: 4,163,447
2016 Clinton Totals: 4,485,745
2016: Trump totals: 4,605,515
Net democratic loss/gain: +247,989
Net republican loss/gain: +442,068
Analysis:All in all, we saw greater turnout here in general. More people came out on both sides, but considering how it was a close state and the difference favored Trump, it was enough to turn the tide slightly.
Iowa
2012 Obama Totals: 822,544
2012 Romney Totals: 730,617
2016 Clinton Totals: 650,790
2016: Trump totals: 798,923
Net democratic loss/gain: -171,754
Net republican loss/gain: +68,306
Analysis: All in all, it looks like the democrats had a bad time here. They lost almost 172,000 voters, and while Trump saw modest gains, parts of the state switching over from democrat to republican only explains part of the difference. Even if every gain in a Trump vote is a loss for the Clinton vote, there are still over 100,000 voters who just said screw it and stayed home or voted third party. If we wanted to include the Johnson vote, it increased from around 13,000 to 57,000. The Stein vote increased from 4,000 to 11,000. That being said, there is still around 50,000 or more people unaccounted for, and that's assuming every lost vote for Clinton went to those third parties.
Michigan
2012 Obama Totals: 2,564,569
2012 Romney Totals: 2,115,256
2016 Clinton Totals: 2,267,798
2016: Trump totals: 2,279,221
Net democratic loss/gain: -296,771
Net republican loss/gain: +163,965
Analysis: Like Iowa, while the GOP gained votes, the democrats lost an even greater number of them. Looking at third parties again, Johnson went from around 8,000 votes to 173,000. Stein went from 22,000 to 51,000. Dat Gary Johnson vote O_O. Wow. It's hard to know who would have voted for whom, especially among the Johnson vote (who takes away from both parties), but it seems clear that people outright rejected the democrats, and not all disaffect democrats went to Trump. They stayed home or voted third party.
Nevada
2012 Obama Totals: 531,373
2012 Romney Totals: 463,567
2016 Clinton Totals: 537,753
2016: Trump totals: 511,319
Net democratic loss/gain: +6,380
Net republican loss/gain: +47,752
Analysis: It seems like there was an overall increase in voter turnout, and while it largely favored Trump, Clinton still won.
New Hampshire
2012 Obama Totals: 369,561
2012 Romney Totals: 329,918
2016 Clinton Totals: 348,521
2016: Trump totals: 345,789
Net democratic loss/gain: -21,040
Net republican loss/gain: +15,871
Analysis: It seems clear that we had a somewhat significant swing to Trump. Democrats lost 21,000 vote whereas the republicans picked up 16,000. Johnson also picked up an extra 22,000 votes here compared to 2012, and Stein went from not being on the ballot to getting around 6,000. So it appears that Clinton lost some, Trump gained most of them, and others went third party.
North Carolina
2012 Obama Totals: 2,178,391
2012 Romney Totals: 2,270,395
2016 Clinton Totals: 2,162,074
2016: Trump totals: 2,339,603
Net democratic loss/gain: -16,317
Net republican loss/gain: +69,208
Analysis: It looks like overall voter turnout increased. Clinton lost votes but Trump gained more than Clinton lost, indicating more voters were motivated to support Trump here.
Ohio
2012 Obama Totals: 2,827,621
2012 Romney Totals: 2,661,407
2016 Clinton Totals: 2,317,001
2016: Trump totals: 2,771,984
Net democratic loss/gain: -510,620
Net republican loss/gain: +110,577
Analysis: OUCH. The democrats got destroyed in Ohio. They lost 510,000 votes and Trump only picked up about 110,000 of them. Johnson went from 49,000 to 169,000, so that could explain 120,000 of them, and Stein went from 19,000 to 44,000, but even if every third party vote went Clinton here, so many more democrats just stayed home.
Pennsylvania
2012 Obama Totals: 2,990,274
2012 Romney Totals: 2,680,434
2016 Clinton Totals: 2,844,705
2016: Trump totals: 2,912,941
Net democratic loss/gain: -145,569
Net republican loss/gain: +232,507
Analysis: In the very important, integral state of Pennsylvania, it appears that Clinton lost votes, but Trump gained more. Some democrats probably went over to support Trump, some probably supported third parties, some stayed home. Trump really had a surge here in Pennsylvania though.
Wisconsin
2012 Obama Totals: 1,620,985
2012 Romney Totals: 1,407,966
2016 Clinton Totals: 1,382,210
2016: Trump totals: 1,409,467
Net democratic loss/gain: -238,775
Net republican loss/gain: +1,501
Analysis: In Wisconsin, a state that Clinton was supposed to win by 6.5 points and was barely considered a swing state at all, it looks like bad turnout for Clinton definitely contributed to her defeat. Trump performed roughly on par with Romney, but Clinton lost almost a quarter of a million votes. Johnson went from having 20,000 votes to 106,000, so that might explain some of that, and Stein went from around 8,000 to 31,000. Even if every single of these votes came from Clinton it still would not explain where Clinton's votes went. It looks like a lot of them stayed home.
Discussion
All in all, the data is messy and it seems different things happened in different states. It's hard to know how many people switched from Ds to Rs this election and how many people who would have voted for third parties actually came from the two party voters. I will say this though. It looks like in more traditional battlegrounds like Florida, New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada, and North Carolina, that generally speaking, we saw a general trend away from the democrats and toward the republicans. These are traditional battleground states. Every election comes down to these, and it looks like Clinton's margins shrank compared to Obama and Trump's margins increased. In some states we saw fewer votes for both candidates, in others we saw a general increase.
In the rust belt states, the states most integral to Clinton's loss, including Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, we saw a great exodus from the democratic party without a support for the republicans. In these states we saw a massive upsurge in third party voting, and also a lot of "lost" votes that includes people staying home. These are states that the democrats won under Obama. They may be swing, at this point, even I thought they were swing in name only. Nope, Clinton lost them, and Trump won because he was the last person standing.
Pennsylvania where I live is a really interesting case. Here we saw a decline in Clinton's vote, but a large surge in Trump's vote. As someone who lives here, I have my own theory on this. We are a state much like the rust belt in some ways, but also a lot like the Northeast. In the cities, people vote democrat, but in the rural areas, people vote republican. We've been hit hard by the recession here, and we've been witnessing the effects of neoliberalism for decades. Clinton offered us little, while Trump promised to bring our jobs back and fight the trade deals that gutted our state. So there was a lot of enthusiasm for Trump, but there was also a lack of enthusiasm for Clinton. And I definitely know people who voted for Obama but wouldn't vote for Clinton. They didn't like her, they didn't like her policies, and they thought Trump would bring the jobs back. That seems to be the common thread I'm hearing here.
That being said, I still believe if Sanders ran, he would have won. I do think he would have mustered the enthusiasm to win the states Obama won but Clinton did not. In the midwest and rust belt in particular, apathy seemed to kill Clinton. Here in Pennsylvania, enthusiasm for Trump seemed to carry it. In other states, we seem to see a narrowing of the margins. Since PA and the rust belt are the biggest factor in Clinton's loss, I do believe that if we ran Sanders we would have won. I really do. He also had a good message on trade and fixing the economy and would have given the democrats more appeal. He also would have likely taken votes from Trump. That's my theory, you're welcome to interpret the data in another way, but that's what I think.
No comments:
Post a Comment