Numbers and self-discipline

  

"Let me give you a couple of numbers. In 2008 the Republicans turned out a total of 20,799,209 in 45 Primaries. In 2016 (and I only have numbers for 40 of the 45 Primaries), the Republicans have 27,204,900. Before the night is over the Republicans will have more than 30 million votes.

The Democrats, by contrast, had 36,919,660 votes for their candidates in the 2008 battle that featured Obama and Clinton. The 2016 numbers fell off a cliff. Through 40 contests the Democrats only have 23,799,193. The Democrats will be lucky to reach 30 million when the night is over.

So, do you think a move with the Republicans increasing voter turnout by almost 12 million and the Democrats shrinking by about 7 million is meaningless?"  Larry Johnson

-------------

IMO there are two ways to look at the US political situation as of 8 June, 2016:

1.  The numbers cited above by Larry Johnson are pretty clear and the pattern persists.  IMO the growth in Republican primary voters is largely the result of an electorate in rebellion against the establishment parties.  basically, these numbers are the result of shrinkage in the US employment rate and the resulting loss of income for both blue collar working class people and recent university graduates who are heavily burdened with loan debt and unable to find employment commensurate with their newly acquired skills.  The former group heavily supports Trump and is largely indifferent to the memetic attacks on Trump that are now non-stop in the Borgist media.  This group is likely to continue to support Trump.  The unhappy college kids have largely supported Sanders but now have been frustrated in their hopes.  Where will this group go?  Who knows?  This over all situation would seem to favor Trump.

2.  OTOH there is Trump himself, a man seemingly devoted to the task pf shooting himself in the foot every day.  Will he learn to discipline himself?  That might happen but I would not bet on it.

If Trump does not clean up his act and quickly he will become a massive liability that threatens GOP control of the US Senate and its present dominant position in state governments.

If that happens the GOP establishment will have no choice but to find some way to dump him so that it can try to save its larger interests.  I have heard a rules change at the convention discussed today, a change that might ensure a second ballot with a lot of freed delegates.  pl 

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/79137/watch-tonights-primary-turnout/

Comments

[Bobo]

What happened last night in Yuma with the CBP Officer and is it true he was alone?

[Tyler]

WP,

From the same fish wrap that told us a gorillion times how Trump isn't going to be the nominee.

Yes, *this* time the experts are right. My sides are still dying.

[optimax]

Bobo

The official story.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/2016-06-10-000000/assault-yuma-sector-border-patrol-agent-results

[Tyler]

EA,

You gotta be kidding me. Like the media was ever going to report anything substantive about HRC's violation of national security beyond "uh yeah there's some report out let's turn to our former clinton staffer to tell us how little we should care about them".

Trump's "slide" is margin of error level stuff after Hillary had the AP carry her water by harassing super delegates (bet Priebus wishes he thought of that one) to declare for her on the eve of the California electorate, consolidating her party behind her by fiat because she couldn't put to bed a tired old socialist from Vermont 99% of America had never heard of before.

Trump's "Mexican judge" issue, aka the anchor baby who's the member of the pro Hispanic legal group giving away free scholarships to illegal aliens, only exposed the hypocrisy of the judicial system. Your affirmative action judge probably screwed up the case anyway. I know you're trembling to lick the boots of a new king to serve, but just settle down, okay?

How many zillions did Jeb have? Cruz? Kasich? How'd that do for them? Is that why we are toasting them as our nominee? Noooooo. Sorry Ed. I get that you're in the bag for Hillary (incontinent, likely slightly deranged from her stroke, and can't make it through a speech without coughing), but let's talk about twitter and her 1994 era burn that was quickly picked up by the media that is doing their best to carry her water (and the army of bots retweeting for her).

Your "slump" is 3 points. Inside the margin of error. Three. Points. After consolidating her party behind her and the cucked GOPe rolling over like trained dogs piddling themselves over racism and demanding belly pats. This is going to be her high water mark from here on out and you're excited about it?

November is gonna be rough for you bro. I know as a good liberal you don't have any guns in your house, but maybe stay away from ropes, knives, alcohol, and pain pills.

[Tyler]

Bobo,

It was a border patrol agent (Not CBPO, there is a difference), and yeah he was alone when he was attacked. Shot his attacker after being hit in the head and body with his baton and radio. Killed the alien.

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/06/10/sources-border-patrol-agent-attacked-illegal-alien-alien-shot-dead/

[Tyler]

Whew son. One group of Americans do NOT like seeing their gimmedats taken away and given to other brown people.

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/10/trump-challenges-hillary-clinton-stop-support-refugee-program-give-money-inner-city-kids/

Trump driving a wedge between blacks and Hillary and it ain't even October. Lordy.

[Tyler]

Ed,

As fun as you are to milk for laughs, here's a pretty definitive article that shows why 12% of Hispanics in America doesn't mean all 12% of them are going to vote.

http://www.unz.com/isteve/the-sailer-gap-in-action-nyt-says-in-2016-what-i-said-in-2001-there-are-more-white-voters-than-people-think/

I think there's going to be a lot more white people voting than before. I know "more badwhites" gives you the vapors, but just don't do anything silly come November. I want you around when Trump makes America Great Again.

[MRW]

For now, the 2012 map basically applies.

How so? We weren’t forced to elect a new president in 2012.

[MRW]

and clever Hillary wants to put HIM in charge of reviving the economy that he is largely responsible for destroying in the first place?

No shit, sherlock. Incredibly worrisome.

[MRW]

Jack. Agree.

[LondonBob]

Trump still generated more votes and higher turnout after the other two candidates dropped out, in comparison to Romney in 2012. See NJ, OR, WV, NM, MT, SD etc. Elections are all about getting your voters to turnout, Trump has demonstrated he is a very strong candidate, which is always highly relevant and is pointer to the general. Arguments otherwise seem to stem from preset position than any rational analysis.

[rjj]

it is possible to agree but be saying entirely different things.

I don't mean unruly, youthfully exuberant, show-off-y contrarians - I mean high-minded, tumescent-with-gravitas types with head raised gazing loftily into the distance.

[Edward Amame]

Tyler

Baloney. Please cite where Barry C. Burden, professor of political science and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said anything about Donald Trump's not having a chance in the primaries.

[Edward Amame]

I saw the same study. Go ahead, think what you think, but Obama didn't do so well on a national level among whites because of his crappy showing with southern whites. So it wasn't necessarily the Hispanic vote that put him in office, though they certainly helped, it means Obama did better with northern whites than the overall numbers suggested at the time.

[Edward Amame]

Maybe you missed the 35 different FOIA requests for Hillary info from the press. And Clinton had the highest percentage of negative stories of all candidates of both parties during the primaries.

I'm in the bag for Hillary like you're in the bag for Trump so give that a rest. But best of luck to you and your candidate and the bigotry and tweets.

[Edward Amame]

Spoken for a guy who voted for Nader in 2000. How'd the rest work out for you?

[Castellio]

I congratulate you for voting for Nader in 2000. I wish more had.

[MRW]

@Old Microbiologist,

The flood of immigrants is just beginning and it is imperative to put controls in place now before the real deluge begins.

It has actually reversed in the last few years, and is the lowest since 2000.
Immigration in reverse
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-will-gop-rhetoric-on-immigration-catch-up-to-the-truth/2016/01/24/7811ec96-bbaa-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html

[MRW]

Another one:

Mexican immigration in reverse
November 20, 2015
https://www.us-immigration.com/us-immigration-news/us-immigration/mexican-immigration-in-reverse/

QUOTE
The immigration of Mexicans to the United States has fallen to a net negative for the first time in over 40 years, ending the biggest wave of immigration America has witnessed in the modern age, according to a new study by Pew Research Center.

Pew claims more Mexicans are now leaving the United States and returning to their home country than are arriving in the country, basing its claim on an analysis of government data from both Mexico and the US.
END QUOTE

[Tyler]

EA,

Yes I missed them because NO ONE REPORTS ON THEM. When the email stuff can't be ignored its mentioned in the driest, most mealymouthed way possible, and followed up by what Bruce Jenner is wearing or how someone says Trump called them a mean name back in 1991.

You have to be literally high to assume the media is anything but in the bag for Hillary and trying to stuff Clinton down our throats.

[kao_hsien_chih]

There are all sorts of complexities buried in the re-crunching of the numbers by NYT (and there are all sorts of technical caveats one should take into consideration with it--nb: this is what I do for living.) Some highlights to be pondered are:

1. While the number of white voters in the electorate are larger, it is not clear that they are necessarily "obvious" Trump voters. The numbers indicate that many more voted for Obama than has been extrapolated from the exit polls, after all.

2. The number of "missing" white voters that Trump may well be able to draw seem much larger among potential "Democratic" voters than "Republican" ones, which could complicate Trump's calculations. The article speculates that many of them probably turned out for Sanders, rather than Trump. Certainly, this fits with my takeaway from the exit polls that Sanders probably did more to energize the electorate than Trump did (although lack of access to the raw data limits how much I could get from these.)

For the general election purposes, the matchup between Clinton and Trump makes for interesting play for these Democratic leaning formerly missing voters (who may return to being missing in November). Polls like the recent PPP poll in PA (link: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_PA_60816.pdf) suggest some interesting patterns. What grabbed my attention was how different subsets of Sanders voters broke between HRC and Trump. Essentially, Sanders does better than Clinton against Trump because he does better among 18-30 and 30-45 demographics, but these differ sharply in their choice when deprived of Sanders: for the younger demographic, those who refuse Clinton choose the Green Jill Stein, while for the older (30-45 subset) about half break for Trump and the remainder are undecided. There is very little chance that the very young and the very liberal, the stereotypical Sanders voter, will turn Trump over Clinton, but the youngish (but not very young) working class whites were an important but overlooked component of the Sanders coalition and, unlike the former, they can very easily swing to Trump. There are just enough of them to swing the election in favor of Trump, if most of the regular Republicans line up behind him. Democrats should be weary of this, but the kind of campaign HRC seems to be oblivious of this demographic.