I will keep doing, but not worth it! The 2016 Presidential Primary Voting Thread

Reps need to lose control of Congress like yesterday, not in the however many decades it'll take for their districts to naturally turn over demographically.

of course. requiring the replacement of the overtly partisan exercise that is currently gerrymandering with something ostensibly non-partisan would be a good start

eh my guess would be that if the Dems take the WH and Senate in '16, Ginsberg will retire - but that won't change the court's composition much, not like Scalia's replacement will.

Yeah I'm operating under the assumption that Scalia's replacement won't be confirmed until after the election. The rabid Teahadis have made it clear that they're sharpening the long knives for any GOPer who would even let an Obama-nominee out of committee. Indeed, p sure even having hearings will be regarded as RINO squish apostasy worthy of an insurgent primary challenge.

Methinx Senate Republicans are more scared the rabid right than of a groundswell of normal people asking them to be decent chaps and just give Obama's choice a chance.

The other open federal judiciary seats are at least as crucial as SCOTUS seats, imo. Retaking the Senate and getting 12 to 16 straight years of Dem POTUS would be a yuuuuuge bulwark against the 30% of Americans who are fucking insane, just for that.

The other open federal judiciary seats are at least as crucial as SCOTUS seats, imo.

very very OTM

Any vulnerable governorships?

NC Governor Pat McCrory. Burr might also be vulnerable in the Senate race here.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/02/north-carolinians-want-nonpartisan-redistricting.html#more

damn, if NC gets emPurpled the same way VA did (mainly via transplants from elsewhere) that would be sweet

do republicans vote more consistently than dems bc they have an authoritarian nature v dems special snowflake iconoclasm?

sunlight foundation takes a look at cruz's superpacs

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2016/02/23/the-super-pacs-behind-ted-cruzs-fundraising-juggernaut/

Courageous Conservatives

Total raised: $243,250 | Total spent: $301,557 | Cash on hand: $5,156

Courageous Conservatives was formed in September 2015. Its consultant, Rick Shaftan, is a controversial figure: He was fired by Rep. Steve Lonegan, R-N.J., after going on an explicit rant saying Democratic Sen. Cory Booker’s Twitter messages to a stripper were “like what a gay guy would say.” He criticized the ads being run by Keep the Promise groups as “boring,” and Courageous Conservatives made independent expenditures against Rubio before any other Cruz group or the Cruz campaign did so (which it's now doing without abandon). Just last week, the group was discovered to be running robocall ads in South Carolina that attack Donald Trump for not supporting the confederate flag. (Also, one time the group misspelled the word “country” in an anti-Rubio ad.)

do republicans vote more consistently than dems bc they have an authoritarian nature v dems special snowflake iconoclasm?

― Mordy, Tuesday, February 23, 2016 11:59 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they vote more consistently because they're richer and have more free time

pretty superficial analysis for obv reasons (like if only wealthy republicans voted there would be no republicans in office)

yup

https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/02/13/National-Politics/Graphics/2300-hearingobama02xx.jpg

? all that shows is that people are a bad judge of percentages of anything

dem voter base is highly skewed among americans making less than $50k

http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/2014-party-identification-detailed-tables/

? all that shows is that people are a bad judge of percentages of anything

^^^

no it shows that saying "republicans are richer and have more free time" is prob not that true?

how does it show that

it shows that only 2% of republicans make over $250k/yr

this data's a little old but shows the relationship among income quintile, voting frequency and voting preference pretty clearly

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2004/0104cervantes.html

250k is a p arbitrary number

xp

really not the best charts to try and determine the comparative wealth of republicans? like the only income group that's broken out is "over 250K a year" which isn't very helpful at all. maybe things like this get us a little closer:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XtTypb9D7ys/UFh8KZzM1sI/AAAAAAAADeo/BWE_kypsu4c/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-09-18+at+9.49.37+AM.png

the $250k breakpoint doesn't matter much, why are you stuck on that. thats 5x the median! that's not like the lowest floor where free time, greater personal autonomy and policy preference kick in

xps

okay, the data that you linked to here xp http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/2014-party-identification-detailed-tables/ shows % making over $75k/yr, again arbitrary number but maybe a little more meaningful than $250k

rep 29%
dem 29%
ind% 38%

over $75k

rep/lean-rep - 48%
dem/lean-dem - 45%

you can't say anything meaningful by comparing the number above/below some threshold(or even several thresholds).

the income distribution is far too skewed for this. the only thing that will do is the full distribution.

idk i just think the statement "republicans vote more regularly because they are richer" seems a little weak

yeah but the huge "independent" percentages running through that whole chart, where they're bigger than either party, makes it really hard to assess how people actually vote. like i believe that's how many many americans think of themselves, but it doesn't get us closer to resolving whether wealth has ~something~ to do with why republicans win elections. would be nice to see breakdowns from like, romney 2012 exit polls or something.

there's no such thing as an "independent" when it comes to voting; that's party affiliation, check the "lean" numbers in the right columns. (pew numbers don't show voting freq either)

the more money you make, the more frequently you vote and the more likely you are to vote to the right

yeah tons of tea party dopes claim "independent"

i posted the "lean" numbers

idk i just think the statement "republicans vote more regularly because they are richer" seems a little weak

― marcos, Tuesday, February 23, 2016 1:01 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

better to say democrats vote less because they are the working poor, then

http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2012/

< 50,000 Obama 60, Romney 38
50-90,000 Obama 46, Romney 52
> 100,000 Obama 44, Romney 54

(not sure what happened to 90-100,000 but you get the idea. and yes, it would be better to see this broken down into more groups. you can get these broken down by some seemingly arbitrarily-chosen states here if you're curious: http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/exit-polls)

so, not ironclad proof that republicans vote more frequently because they are wealthier - though it would certainly seem to be common sense that wealthier people have more freedom/leeway to vote in terms of getting off work and not being targeted by voter suppression efforts, and also enjoy leisure time that may incline them to follow campaigns more closely and remain motivated to vote. no data on all those but is there really an argument that they don't make sense?

but anyway, certainly getting close to confirming what i also thought was pretty much the conventional wisdom, which is that richer people are more likely to vote republican. the chart by quintile, above, reminds us that this is not just about a very small fraction of billionaires - the top 40% are more likely to identify as republicans (though here again i suspect that "independent" is not getting us much useful information).

Republicans vote more because they're angrier.

No, I don't have a chart for that but don't think I need one.

Republicans would prolly say that Democrats vote _less_ because Democrats are lazier. Welfare, government cheese, obamaphones, don't you know.

I suspect for at least some Republicans, high voting turnout is in line with maudlin patriotism, knee-jerk "love of country," and jizzing in your pants when you think about the Constitution.

To me, the most interesting thing about the chart Doc Casino posted (showing 2000 - 2009) was, while Democrat affiliation bounced around, but stayed somewhat stable, independents climbed steadily and Republican affiliation dropped just as obviously across all quintiles. I'd conclude that the ongoing ideological purging of the Republican party has been very effective.

Related article about declining party affiliation in CA:
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-voter-registration-20160222-story.html

I forget who said this but someone said a quick way to tell a liberal from a conservative is to ask them whether they're "proud to be an American."

Conservatives will do so unhesitatingly.

Liberals be like, "Huh? Uh, well it's complicated, there are things about America that I'm proud of, and others that I'm not so proud of, etc..."

pride is a sin

is how I would answer

xxpost True but it's interesting all the bubbling up that things like gay marriage et al have done to that breakdown.

http://graphics.wsj.com/exit-polls-2014/

Midterm election results for 2014. Note that people making $100,000 or more - who are maybe 7-8% of the population - made up 27% of voters, and broke 57% for the Republicans. If either the richest Americans were less Republican, or if rich Americans (Democrats and the more numerous Republicans) were not so dramatically over-represented in the electorate, we would be looking at a very different Congress.

so, not ironclad proof that republicans vote more frequently because they are wealthier - though it would certainly seem to be common sense that wealthier people have more freedom/leeway to vote in terms of getting off work and not being targeted by voter suppression efforts, and also enjoy leisure time that may incline them to follow campaigns more closely and remain motivated to vote. no data on all those but is there really an argument that they don't make sense?

yup!

I still think anger explains it fine: Upscale Republicans are angry because they don't want the gubmint taking their money. Downscale Republicans are angry because they don't want the gubmint taking their guns. Limbaugh and Fox whip them up into a frenzy, they feel threatened, they vote.

Also, Republicans tend to be more motivated by a sense of duty, whereas Democrats tend to be more utilitarian. Doing the cost-benefit analysis on my single vote being a deciding vote vs. the annoyance of dragging my ass down to a polling place, standing in line etc might lead me to be less likely to vote.

ha remember this guy?

http://gawker.com/ted-cruz-stops-selling-merchandise-from-super-racist-st-1760841835

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/probdecisive2.pdf

One of the motivations for voting is that one vote can make a difference. In a
presidential election, the probability that your vote is decisive is equal to the probability
that your state is necessary for an electoral college win, times the probability the vote in
your state is tied in that event. We computed these probabilities a week before the 2008
presidential election, using state-by-state election forecasts based on the latest polls.
The states where a single vote was most likely to matter are New Mexico, Virginia,
New Hampshire, and Colorado, where your vote had an approximate 1 in 10 million
chance of determining the national election outcome. On average, a voter in America
had a 1 in 60 million chance of being decisive in the presidential election.

don't knock him, he's back up to 2% at predictwise

1 in 60 million is not too bad. People turn out in droves to play the lottery when the jackpot gets big for much smaller odds than that. Actually maybe the government should give everyone who votes a lottery ticket! Could be a relatively cheap way to boost turnout.