Summary: Identity Politics

Election 2016           Forecast / Identity Politics:  Summary

‘Identity Politics’ appears to have taken firm root in America.  I do not like the idea or condone it.  Frankly, I think the laser like focus on demographics in America actually weakens the democracy and accentuates other problems.  However, for analysis purposes, we cannot ignore the significance of demographics on voting behavior given the focus on it by political parties.  Please excuse all racist, sexist, ageist, education-levelist, and incomeist remarks.  Or, if you are anti-politically correct, please excuse me excusing myself.  Actually, I almost did not write this section because such a focus on demographics is kind of disturbing, but identity politics has become too ingrained into politics to ignore it.

Before getting into the analysis, let’s start with some general conclusions so they don’t get lost in a longer post.  The expected higher turnout should benefit Trump more than Clinton.  Additionally, shifts in the demographic composition of the turnout should help Trump more than Clinton.  The greatest wild card appears to be to what extent will women come out and vote for Clinton and would this be enough to overtake the marginal breaking up of Obama’s ‘Coalition’ (described later) from 2008 and 2012.

An overly summarized version of the conclusions from other posts is presented in the following table.

Table 1:  Major Demographic Groups and Expected Inclination to Vote Democrat and Expected Relative Turnout  

Source:  Cornell University, Rutgers University, Advocate, Census Bureau

Note: The third column shows responses that include ‘Increase’, ‘Flat’, ‘Decrease’ and ‘?’.  The first answer of the third column tells the expected change in 2016 of the demographic group’s inclination to vote Democrat – or will the actual results in 2016 for this demographic group be higher or lower than the figure in the second column.  The second answer of the third column tells the expected change in 2016 of the relative turnout of that demographic group as it relates to the populace in general.  So, an ‘Increase’ means that the turnout for this demographic group should increase at a more rapid pace than for the populace in general in 2016.  The fourth column provides a basic summary of the expected outcome from the perspective of the Democrats.

As you can see from the table, the demographic groups that disproportionately support Democrats are forecast to decrease their inclination to support Democrats this year.  Additionally, their relative turnout on average is not expected to increase, save that of women which appears to be the biggest wildcard in the table – as we will see in other posts forecasting female turnout is difficult.

To better understand the significance of why analyzing these demographic groups is so important we need to take a step back and look at the two previous presidential elections.  Obama won big in 2008, and was reelected in a difficult environment in 2012.  One of the reasons was that blocks or groups of people tended to vote for him at rates much higher than they did for Democratic candidates in the past.  These groups were identified by their demographic make-up.  Generally, this ‘Coalition’ included women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, young voters, and LGBT members.  This was not an actual coalition in the traditional sense where some agreement is made, but the figures seemed so lopsided in favor of Democrats that you would have assumed it was.  Not only did these demographic groups vote for Obama at higher rates but their turnout increased as well.  This Coalition has turned into a very valuable asset for the Democrats, that is if they can maintain it.

The more educated or those who have completed postgraduate degrees, though traditionally not placed in this Coalition, also voted at higher rates for the Democrats and specifically Obama.  So, what is left of society?  Where would Republicans draw if the Democrats have this Coalition?  What is the stereotype of the anti-Coalition?  Straight white men, over the age of 30, who are not that well educated.

These are terrible stereo-types.  But the media has picked up on them and have reinforced these tendencies as well.  The Parties, traditionally, do not really try to undo these stereotypes with the exception of Trump’s recent actions that appear to be offering an olive branch to many of the groups in the Coalition. 

Such extreme successes in 2008 and 2012 for this Coalition combined with olive branches from Trump could signal a reversal.  This is not to say that you will see it invert completely.  However, the successes were so exaggerated in some respects in favor of Obama that it is questionable if any candidate, Clinton or otherwise, will be able to replicate this same Coalition to the same degree.   This is not to say that demographics within the Coalition will not tend to favor Clinton, simply that they will likely not do so to the same extent they did for Obama.  And, if they support Clinton but not to the same degree it will have a negative impact on her performance which could make a real difference in a tight race.

We will look at some of the data and some of the basic concepts behind these statements in other posts.  But, understand before we do that we are not just talking about a few marginal voters here.  If the strength of the Coalition changes to any significant degree, it could throw off many or even most of the current polls.  Polls, as explained elsewhere, take data in and then re-weight it in a non-transparent manner.  One of the ways they manipulate the data is to use demographic tendencies of previous elections to determine their final output.  In other words, most polls are essentially assuming this Coalition will reform simply because it is what occurred in the most recent two elections.  If the Coalition changes to a significant extent in terms of voter turnout or percent vote received by Democrats, the polls results will be thrown off.

As mentioned many times, polls should be focusing on forecasting turnout as this will likely be a real game-changer for this race.  By simply assuming things will more or less repeat the same pattern, political analysts are falling into one of the most basic errors that beginning financial analysts commit – that this quarter or year will be the same as the previous one.  If revenue is growing at 30% a year for the last two years, most analysts will simply mark in 30% for a forecast.  This might work …… until it doesn’t and then there is a catastrophe as people made decisions based on these forecasts and all the analysts cry in unison that there was no way they could have seen that coming.  Well, an experienced analyst would have at least identified the possibility by looking at the underlying currents and not just what is obviously visible on the surface.

Looking at the data, we can see how some groups voted exaggeratedly for Obama in the last two elections.

Table 2:  Percent Voting for Obama in 2008 and 2012

Source:  Cornell University, Rutgers University, Advocate, Census Bureau

Some of these figures were historical highs, or at least the highest in the sample.  Many appear to have gone to such an extreme when electing Obama that increasing them or even replicating them seems implausible for Clinton.  As we will see in other posts, there simply is not the same level of excitement and enthusiasm for Clinton that Obama inspired.  Without this, getting Obama’s Coalition to turn out in such large numbers and vote at such high rates for the Democratic candidate is almost impossible.  In short, Identity Politics will continue to be an asset for Democrats in 2016, just not to the same extent it was in the most recent past — analysts need to update their projections to reflect such.