Biden won big with young voters
What if the Democrats can change their message? Greenberg: It’s hard to tell when you’re going to lose an election, but you know when you can’t
Greenberg: It’s a difficult question to answer the day after the election. I think that there will definitely be soul searching, and there will be, you know, an autopsy, just like there was for the Republicans in 2012. But I think when you are a party that represents a diverse coalition — racially and regionally, in terms of education level — the notion that you can sort of turn on a dime and say, “Well, I’m just going to talk about things that men care about, and hopefully I’ll win an election,” isn’t really how it works. And I’m not suggesting that Democrats have a wonderful message to men. I’m not even suggesting that all men are actually a good target for the Democratic Party. The Republican advantage in terms of message is its homogeneity, and the Democrats advantage around its diversity is both that it is broadly representative, but also much more challenging for this, what I think is a minority, homogenous set of voters, even though Trump obviously won the popular vote.
Kelly: Anna Greenberg, the Democrats have lost The White House. They have lost the Senate. We don’t know where the House is going. Are the Democrats ready to change their message and change who feels like they belong in the party?
Longwell: It’s not just the swing states. Illinois, New Jersey and other places all had swings to the right. I’m not sure if that means that the country is getting more conservative. I think it has more to do with the fact that people were really upset with the economy. There was a widespread situation. There was a lot of movement in the states where they were not advertising, like the swing states, and that’s what led the country to be frustrated with the Biden administration and the economy.
Summers: Sarah, I’ve got just a big picture question for you. We saw Trump win big Tuesday night. He made gains in nearly every demographic. You look at a map, it looks quite red. One can surmise that the whole country is swinging right. Is that the case?
Greenberg: “I don’t know.” Right. And incomes have risen, and the stock market is doing great, all those things. I agree with Sarah but believe that this was a failed administration. And if you look at Joe Biden’s job approval numbers and his favorability, [it was] obviously incredibly low, and stayed incredibly low even after we saw the switch in the ticket. His numbers did not get any better. And in many ways, this was a change election. And so I think the inflationary pressures and the sense that it came from the Biden administration was part of a vote for change.
Longwell: I actually think yes, that that is one of the biggest factors, and we heard it all the time in the groups. And in fact, I do think it’s sometimes tough for people in big cities to understand how price sensitive these voters are. When I focus groups on voters, I see that they just know how much milk costs and that is a reason Democrats don’t do well with young people. They know the cost of eggs. They are sensitive to the price of gas. After Communism, this has fallened incumbents across the globe. In a post-COVID environment, candidates are losing at a rapid rate because inflation is something that ends presidential elections.
“I think people were more confident, things were running smoother, could provide for our family. I was in 7-Eleven yesterday, eggs were $6.99 for a dozen eggs. I’ve never seen eggs like that in my life.
Kelly: I’m willing to let us sit here for a bit on the economy. I want you both to listen to what we heard from a voter in Michigan earlier this week. This is Michael Gee, he was talking about how he sees the difference between the economy now and the economy under President Trump:
Greenberg said something. I think that there is a change underway in the Hispanic electorate. Because as the population grows and more Hispanic voters are born in the us, they begin to seem like just about everyone else, right? And as the population grows in that segment in particular, you would expect, just like historically, Irish immigrants, Italian immigrants, Polish, to assimilate and be like everybody else. So in some ways, from a demography standpoint, it’s not that much of a surprise. Clinton did not perform well among Hispanic voters. And I think that Democrats need to think about this, in a way, as the new normal, and start thinking differently about how you reach out to Hispanic voters. Understanding differences in the population from state to state, from region to region, and even from country of origin is one way to do this.
It was a group that Vice President Harris had hoped would be part of her winning coalition this year. Instead, she underperformed, and President-elect Trump made gains.
An exit poll found that Latino voters preferred Trump over the incumbent president by 25 percentage points. Particularly interesting was Latino men. Do we have a sense of what is driving support for this group in particular, or do we not?
Sarah Longwell is a woman. Yeah. I also think that it was just, look — it was the economy. I do focus groups all the time, and I always start them by asking people, “How do you think things are going in the country?” For a long time, people have said that they don’t think things are going well. Inflation has been killing them. They are frustrated with immigration. The effect was just minimized. Women did break for Harris but it wasn’t quite enough to make up for the fact that Democrats were doing badly with men of all races, and the bottom was falling out with Hispanics. They needed white women to make up for the numbers, but they didn’t.
Sarah, I’d like you to take on the so called gender gap which didn’t really happen. Does that tell us female voters were not as fired up over reproductive rights, over the issue of abortion, as everybody thought they were?
Mary Louise Kelly would like to learn what issues drove those who turned out for Trump. Let’s start with women. The women were going to turn out in large numbers. The thinking was that would help Harris. It didn’t. What happened?
All Things Considered has two veteran political strategists, Democrat Anna Greenberg and Republican Sarah Longwell, talking about four big themes.
The Trump Voting Story: A Vibrant Perspective on a Candidates’ Life in the Early 1900’s, as Observed by Turning Point
Donald Trump was on his way to victory as Tuesday night progressed. The result was called early Wednesday morning.
NPR and other news outlets predicted a close race in the days leading up to the election, which could take days to call.
He said it was more, dare I say, a vibe than anything else. “For an entire campaign that was built on vibes, they certainly didn’t read the room.”
People want to live in the same country as their parents. I am not sure if that is an economic issue or a social issue. They want a nice life and it’s slipping away.
Turning Point’s advocacy organization, which doesn’t have a youth-only focus, was one of several outside groups that were tapped by the Trump campaign to run its on-the-ground organizing work.
Kirk, whose organization focuses on getting young people engaged in conservatives, said the goal was to lose by less. We were whispering to each other that there might be something bigger.
Unpacking the 202024 Young Vote Heres What We Know So Far: A Case Study of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania
Over the summer, he was the only major Republican who joined TikTok – where he grew a follower count that now stands at 14 million, higher than Harris, who has 5 million followers. Trump also did a number of extended interviews on some of the top podcasts in the country, many popular among young men.
Since 2008, winning Democratic candidates have received at least 60% support from young voters, but Harris did not meet that threshold, getting 54%, according to early exit polls.
In the past, voters under 30 have made a difference in elections for Democrats, where only small shifts of support can make or break an election.
It was a loss especially pronounced in the blue wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – where the vice president’s margins dropped significantly from President Biden’s commanding leads four years ago.
The state of Michigan had the largest change. Harris and Trump received equal shares – 49% to 49% – of youth support in the state, a sobering 24-point drop from 2020.
A month before Election Day, the final youth-focused poll from the University of Chicago pointed to a potential information gap. While nearly 80% of those under 40 said they “pretty much already know” what they need to about Trump, just 57% felt that way about Harris.
According to Della Volpe, there was a sense that younger people’s personal finances would be better under a Trump administration.
Source: Biden won big with young voters. This year, they swung toward Trump in a big way
The role of young men in policing: How the Democratic Party didn’t do what young men wanted to do in the 2020 presidential election
Harris made it a point to protect access to abortion. It’s an issue that has galvanized young voters to turn out for Democrats in recent elections.
According to early data from the Associated Press, the economy and jobs were the two things voters under the age of 30 cared most about in this election.
Della Volpe has been watching for a while and he believes it is part of a trend where more and more young men feel like they are out of touch with the modern Democratic Party.
They tell us in surveys that the Democratic Party doesn’t speak to them. They’re choosing not to be affiliated with it. He said it can’t be turned around in 30 days or 100 days. “To do this takes years of investment. Donald Trump made that investment. The Democrats may have been seeding the playing field.
