fivethirtyeight--2020-09-04--Trump’s Law And Order Message Isn’t Resonating With Most Americans

Welcome to Pollapalooza , our weekly polling roundup .
As President Trump continues to push a “ law and order ” campaign message , we ’ ve been keeping an eye on the polls to see whether there ’ s any truth to the narrative that the recent unrest in Kenosha , Wisconsin , will help Trump politically .
So far , the answer is no .
Polls conducted this week and late last week suggest that public attitudes aren ’ t really breaking in Trump ’ s direction , even though the Republican National Convention focused a great deal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of chaos and anarchy .
It ’ s true that Americans are less inclined to view as peaceful those protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha compared with those who were protesting the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May .
This week ’ s survey from The Economist/YouGov found that 41 percent of Americans considered the protesters themselves “ mostly peaceful , ” while 40 percent said they were “ mostly violent.
” This marked a sizable departure from early July , when the pollster last asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent viewed the protesters as more peaceful , while only 31 percent viewed them as more violent .
And late last week , a Yahoo News/YouGov survey found that a majority of Americans — 54 percent — thought the protests had gone too far , compared with 31 percent who said that they hadn ’ t .
The most recent protests in Kenosha and elsewhere also don ’ t have quite the same level of support as the protests that followed Floyd ’ s death .
According to a new survey from Politico/Morning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supported the latest protests , while 32 percent opposed them .
Back in early June , 57 percent of registered voters backed the Floyd protests , while just 23 percent opposed them .
However , the new Politico/Morning Consult survey still found a plurality backing the ongoing protests connected to Kenosha , and other polling echoes this finding : A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll found that 57 percent felt peaceful demonstrations should continue despite the violence that has cropped up in some cities , whereas 36 percent felt the protests should cease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ followed .
Given the underlying support for these protests , a major challenge remains for the president : Many Americans doubt his ability to fix the problems and reduce tensions that have precipitated the demonstrations .
According to a YouGov survey on Wednesday , 56 percent of adults said that the violence happening at protests would get worse if Trump were reelected this November .
Fifteen percent thought the violence would stay at similar levels , while 18 percent thought it would improve ( 11 percent said they didn ’ t know ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ violence would get better if Joe Biden won , and just 23 percent thought it would worsen .
Somewhat similarly , 50 percent of likely voters told Quinnipiac University this week that they felt less safe with Trump as president , compared with 35 percent who said they felt safer .
These voters were more split on Biden , however : 42 percent said they ’ d feel safer with Biden in the White House , and 40 percent said they ’ d feel less safe .
Furthermore , other polling continued to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prospective handling of race relations , public safety and unifying the country .
In this week ’ s Quinnipiac poll , 58 percent of likely voters said Biden would handle the issue of racial inequality better , compared with 36 percent who said Trump would fare better .
A new CNN/SSRS poll found a similar breakdown — 56 percent of registered voters said Biden , and 38 percent said Trump .
According to Politico/Morning Consult ’ s new survey , 51 percent said Biden would do a better job handling race relations versus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent said that Biden would better handle public safety versus 39 percent who said Trump would .
Even on an issue that might fold in better with Trump ’ s law-and-order messaging , 51 percent of registered voters told CNN/SSRS that Biden would do a better job dealing with the criminal justice system , compared with 44 percent who said Trump would .
CNN/SSRS also found that 56 percent thought Biden stood a better chance of unifying the country and not dividing it , while just 36 percent thought Trump stood a better @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what other events will unfold between now and November , but we can say that the violence in the wake of Blake ’ s shooting has seemed to affect public sentiment .
That effect isn ’ t huge , however , and the public hasn ’ t used that violence to impugn the protests against police violence and systemic racism as a whole .
Moreover , more Americans support Biden ’ s approach to these issues than Trump ’ s .
• A new HuffPost/YouGov survey suggests that Trump now dominates the Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voted for Trump in 2016 , 49 percent considered themselves more Trump backers than GOP backers , while 19 percent said they were more supporters of the GOP than they were supporters of Trump .
Another 28 percent said they were supporters of both .
And if there were a conflict between Trump and congressional Republicans , 61 percent said they ’ d be more likely to support Trump , compared with just 13 percent who would be predisposed to back Republicans on Capitol Hill instead .
• Although votes this November will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of increased mail-in or absentee voting , a poll from Axios/Ipsos found that a plurality of Americans — 36 percent — expected the 2020 presidential winner to be announced on Election Night .
Another 24 percent believed the winner would be called one to two days after the election , 14 percent a week after , 13 percent a few weeks later and 12 percent at least a month or more after .
However , the findings didn ’ t show sizable differences in expectations between Democrats and Republicans .
• Based on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NBC News/Wall Street Journal found that voters who cast ballots for Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson or Green Party nominee Jill Stein in 2016 were more likely to back Biden than Trump this November .
Of these voters , 47 percent said they planned to support Biden , 20 percent said Trump and 33 percent were undecided or planned to vote for another candidate .
• According to polling from Franklin Templeton/Gallup , Americans overwhelmingly support another economic-support payment similar to those sent as part of the CARES Act earlier this year .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ send another one-time payment to all qualified adults , while only 17 percent disagreed ( 13 percent didn ’ t know ) .
Despite partisan wrangling in Congress over the issue , there was largely bipartisan agreement in the poll : 82 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans backed the one-time payment initiative .
• A new survey from Morning Consult found that 28 percent of Americans felt the Food and Drug Administration based its decisions concerning potential COVID-19 treatments and vaccines on political pressure , while 49 percent thought its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent didn ’ t know or had no opinion ) .
And half of respondents thought that Trump influenced FDA decisions “ a lot ” or “ somewhat.
” The agency has drawn criticism from health experts for misrepresenting the effectiveness of some COVID-19 treatments and for suggesting that some clinical trials could be skipped to fast-track a vaccine .
• An Ipsos survey of almost 20,000 adults in 27 countries on behalf of the World Economic Forum found that 74 percent would get a COVID-19 vaccine if it were available .
However @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have access to a vaccine before the end of the year .
Among U.S. respondents , 67 percent said they would get a vaccine if it were available , and 66 percent didn ’ t expect to have access to a vaccine by the end of 2020 .
• While Trump has tried to showcase a strong military as part of his political appeal , a new poll from the Military Times/Syracuse University found that his support was flagging among active-duty service members .
Half of those polled had an unfavorable view of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him favorably , a reversal from his standing in 2016 , when he was a candidate for president .
And in the election this year , 41 percent said they would support Biden , compared with 37 percent who backed Trump .
• YouGov asked Americans about domestic terrorism by right-wing or left-wing extremists and found that 62 percent were very or somewhat concerned about right-wing extremists , while 54 percent said the same of the left wing .
Unsurprisingly , 79 percent of Democrats had concerns about right-wing violence , and 84 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activity .
By 6 percentage points , independents were more worried about right-wing ( 59 percent ) than left-wing ( 53 percent ) extremists .
According to FiveThirtyEight ’ s presidential approval tracker , 43.4 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president , while 52.3 percent disapprove ( a net approval rating of -8.9 points ) .
At this time last week , 42.2 percent approved and 54.3 percent disapproved ( a net approval rating of -12.1 points ) .
One month ago , Trump had an approval @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rating of 54.8 percent , for a net approval rating of -13.6 points .
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot , Democrats currently lead by 7.4 percentage points ( 48.7 percent to 41.3 percent ) .
A week ago , Democrats led Republicans by 7.3 points ( 48.3 percent to 41.0 percent ) .
At this time last month , voters preferred Democrats by 7.8 points ( 48.3 percent to 40.5 percent ) .
Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight ’ s full presidential forecast ; you can also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve collected , including national polls , Florida polls , Michigan polls , Minnesota polls , North Carolina polls , Texas polls and … well … all the states , really .

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the week
As President Trump continues to push a “law and order” campaign message, we’ve been keeping an eye on the polls to see whether there’s any truth to the narrative that the recent unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will help Trump politically. So far, the answer is no. Polls conducted this week and late last week suggest that public attitudes aren’t really breaking in Trump’s direction, even though the Republican National Convention focused a great deal on characterizing the Democrats as the party of chaos and anarchy.
It’s true that Americans are less inclined to view as peaceful those protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha compared with those who were protesting the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May. This week’s survey from The Economist/YouGov found that 41 percent of Americans considered the protesters themselves “mostly peaceful,” while 40 percent said they were “mostly violent.” This marked a sizable departure from early July, when the pollster last asked this question — back then, 54 percent viewed the protesters as more peaceful, while only 31 percent viewed them as more violent. And late last week, a Yahoo News/YouGov survey found that a majority of Americans — 54 percent — thought the protests had gone too far, compared with 31 percent who said that they hadn’t.
The most recent protests in Kenosha and elsewhere also don’t have quite the same level of support as the protests that followed Floyd’s death. According to a new survey from Politico/Morning Consult, 49 percent of registered voters supported the latest protests, while 32 percent opposed them. Back in early June, 57 percent of registered voters backed the Floyd protests, while just 23 percent opposed them. However, the new Politico/Morning Consult survey still found a plurality backing the ongoing protests connected to Kenosha, and other polling echoes this finding: A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll found that 57 percent felt peaceful demonstrations should continue despite the violence that has cropped up in some cities, whereas 36 percent felt the protests should cease because of the violence that has sometimes followed.
Given the underlying support for these protests, a major challenge remains for the president: Many Americans doubt his ability to fix the problems and reduce tensions that have precipitated the demonstrations. According to a YouGov survey on Wednesday, 56 percent of adults said that the violence happening at protests would get worse if Trump were reelected this November. Fifteen percent thought the violence would stay at similar levels, while 18 percent thought it would improve (11 percent said they didn’t know). Conversely, 43 percent thought protest violence would get better if Joe Biden won, and just 23 percent thought it would worsen. Somewhat similarly, 50 percent of likely voters told Quinnipiac University this week that they felt less safe with Trump as president, compared with 35 percent who said they felt safer. These voters were more split on Biden, however: 42 percent said they’d feel safer with Biden in the White House, and 40 percent said they’d feel less safe. Regarding Trump’s and Biden’s rhetoric on the protests, ABC News/Ipsos survey found that 55 percent of Americans thought Trump’s statements made things worse, while about half the country (49 percent) thought Biden’s statements didn’t have much effect either way.
Furthermore, other polling continued to show that voters preferred Biden’s prospective handling of race relations, public safety and unifying the country. In this week’s Quinnipiac poll, 58 percent of likely voters said Biden would handle the issue of racial inequality better, compared with 36 percent who said Trump would fare better. A new CNN/SSRS poll found a similar breakdown — 56 percent of registered voters said Biden, and 38 percent said Trump. According to Morning Consult’s new survey, 51 percent said Biden would do a better job handling race relations versus 32 percent who said Trump; 47 percent said that Biden would better handle public safety versus 39 percent who said Trump would. According to the ABC News/Ipsos poll, 56 percent and 55 percent of Americans thought Biden would do a better job keeping their families and the country safe, respectively, compared with 42 percent for Trump on both questions. Even on an issue that might fold in better with Trump’s law-and-order messaging, 51 percent of registered voters told CNN/SSRS that Biden would do a better job dealing with the criminal justice system, compared with 44 percent who said Trump would. CNN/SSRS also found that 56 percent thought Biden stood a better chance of unifying the country and not dividing it, while just 36 percent thought Trump stood a better chance. ABC News/Ipsos found an even larger split: 64 percent of Americans said Biden would do more to unite the country than divide it, while only 33 percent said the same of Trump.
We can’t know what other events will unfold between now and November, but we can say that the violence in the wake of Blake’s shooting has seemed to affect public sentiment. That effect isn’t huge, however, and the public hasn’t used that violence to impugn the protests against police violence and systemic racism as a whole. Moreover, more Americans support Biden’s approach to these issues than Trump’s.
Other bites
A new HuffPost/YouGov survey suggests that Trump now dominates the Republican Party he leads. Among Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016, 49 percent considered themselves more Trump backers than GOP backers, while 19 percent said they were more supporters of the GOP than they were supporters of Trump. Another 28 percent said they were supporters of both. And if there were a conflict between Trump and congressional Republicans, 61 percent said they’d be more likely to support Trump, compared with just 13 percent who would be predisposed to back Republicans on Capitol Hill instead.
Although votes this November will be counted more slowly than usual because of increased mail-in or absentee voting, a poll from Axios/Ipsos found that a plurality of Americans — 36 percent — expected the 2020 presidential winner to be announced on Election Night. Another 24 percent believed the winner would be called one to two days after the election, 14 percent a week after, 13 percent a few weeks later and 12 percent at least a month or more after. However, the findings didn’t show sizable differences in expectations between Democrats and Republicans.
Based on its polling so far this year, NBC News/Wall Street Journal found that voters who cast ballots for Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson or Green Party nominee Jill Stein in 2016 were more likely to back Biden than Trump this November. Of these voters, 47 percent said they planned to support Biden, 20 percent said Trump and 33 percent were undecided or planned to vote for another candidate.
According to polling from Franklin Templeton/Gallup, Americans overwhelmingly support another economic-support payment similar to those sent as part of the CARES Act earlier this year. Seventy percent said the federal government should send another one-time payment to all qualified adults, while only 17 percent disagreed (13 percent didn’t know). Despite partisan wrangling in Congress over the issue, there was largely bipartisan agreement in the poll: 82 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans backed the one-time payment initiative.
A new survey from Morning Consult found that 28 percent of Americans felt the Food and Drug Administration based its decisions concerning potential COVID-19 treatments and vaccines on political pressure, while 49 percent thought its choices were based on science (23 percent didn’t know or had no opinion). And half of respondents thought that Trump influenced FDA decisions “a lot” or “somewhat.” The agency has drawn criticism from health experts for misrepresenting the effectiveness of some COVID-19 treatments and for suggesting that some clinical trials could be skipped to fast-track a vaccine.
An Ipsos survey of almost 20,000 adults in 27 countries on behalf of the World Economic Forum found that 74 percent would get a COVID-19 vaccine if it were available. However, 59 percent did not expect to have access to a vaccine before the end of the year. Among U.S. respondents, 67 percent said they would get a vaccine if it were available, and 66 percent didn’t expect to have access to a vaccine by the end of 2020.
While Trump has tried to showcase a strong military as part of his political appeal, a new poll from the Military Times/Syracuse University found that his support was flagging among active-duty service members. Half of those polled had an unfavorable view of the president, while 38 percent viewed him favorably, a reversal from his standing in 2016, when he was a candidate for president. And in the election this year, 41 percent said they would support Biden, compared with 37 percent who backed Trump.
YouGov asked Americans about domestic terrorism by right-wing or left-wing extremists and found that 62 percent were very or somewhat concerned about right-wing extremists, while 54 percent said the same of the left wing. Unsurprisingly, 79 percent of Democrats had concerns about right-wing violence, and 84 percent of Republicans worried about violent left-wing activity. By 6 percentage points, independents were more worried about right-wing (59 percent) than left-wing (53 percent) extremists.
Trump approval
According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 43.4 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 52.3 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -8.9 points). At this time last week, 42.2 percent approved and 54.3 percent disapproved (a net approval rating of -12.1 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 41.2 percent and a disapproval rating of 54.8 percent, for a net approval rating of -13.6 points.
Generic ballot
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 7.4 percentage points (48.7 percent to 41.3 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 7.3 points (48.3 percent to 41.0 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 7.8 points (48.3 percent to 40.5 percent).
Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight’s full presidential forecast; you can also see all the 2020 polls we’ve collected, including national polls, Florida polls, Michigan polls, Minnesota polls, North Carolina polls, Texas polls and … well … all the states, really.
UPDATE (September 4, 2020, 9:52 a.m.): This article was updated to include an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Friday.


fivethirtyeight--2020-09-04--Trump Has An Electoral College Advantage Again This Cycle

In this episode of Model Talk , Nate Silver and Galen Druke discuss how our 2020 presidential forecast has changed @ @ @ @ @ listener questions .

Trump Has An Electoral College Advantage Again This Cycle
In this episode of Model Talk, Nate Silver and Galen Druke discuss how our 2020 presidential forecast has changed — and they answer some listener questions.


fivethirtyeight--2020-09-04--Politics Podcast: If Biden Wins The Popular Vote By 2-3 Points, He Isn’t Favored To Win The Electora

Politics Podcast: If Biden Wins The Popular Vote By 2-3 Points, He Isn’t Favored To Win The Electoral College

As he had in 2016 , it appears that President Trump has an advantage in the Electoral College , setting @ @ @ @ @ reelection while again losing the popular vote .
On this installment of Model Talk on @ @ @ @ @ Nate Silver and Galen Druke discuss how big Trump ’ s advantage in the Electoral @ @ @ @ @ questions from listeners .
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “ play @ @ @ @ @ player above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite @ @ @ @ @ are new to podcasts , learn how to listen .
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is @ @ @ @ @ Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes @ @ @ @ @ question or suggestion for “ good polling vs. bad polling ” ?
Get in touch @ @ @ @ @ or in the comments .

As he had in 2016, it appears that President Trump has an advantage in the Electoral College, setting him up to potentially win reelection while again losing the popular vote. On this installment of Model Talk on the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Nate Silver and Galen Druke discuss how big Trump’s advantage in the Electoral College might be and answer questions from listeners.
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.


fivethirtyeight--2020-09-04--How Trump And COVID-19 Have Reshaped The Modern Militia Movement

In the video , the host of a local independent news radio program surveys the late-night shadows of a Kenosha , Wisconsin , car lot .
You can just make out four men , long rifles in their hands , as they pace on top of the building .
“ We got militia on the roof here , and it ’ s pretty neat , ” he says .
On the ground , the videographer chats with other people he identifies as part of “ the militia ” — including an eager and excited-looking kid who tells the videographer his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go on to allegedly kill two people and injure a third later that night .
In the aftermath , the extent of his ties to militia activity — and militia activity itself — have been widely discussed : Are militias hate groups ?
Was Rittenhouse actually a part of a formal militia group ?
When people who identify as militia members show up in the middle of a protest … whose side are they on ?
For the purposes of this article , when we refer to the militia movement , we are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paramilitary activists and groups with strong anti-government leanings .
But beyond that , modern militias are hard to explain and categorize — what even counts as a militia is up for debate .
One thing is for sure : There is no one militia — not in Kenosha that night and not anywhere in the country .
Instead , experts say , “ the militia ” is really a multifaceted movement with fluid boundaries .
The key to understanding that movement ’ s role in the chaos of 2020 is knowing just how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what apparent militia members believe — much less how they ’ re connected to each other and the broader movement .
While established militias are kind of like a heavily armed scout troop — formal organizations with ranks and membership dues and training programs and regular meetings — some academics argue that many people who are falling into the militia movement ’ s orbit these days are more like loosely affiliated individuals .
“ Members ” is a strong word for this kind of community , with lots of people drifting along , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guns in tow , to protests — despite having no clear ties to any specific group .
Even the organized , club-like militias don ’ t ascribe to a single overarching ideology , which makes it especially difficult to figure out what motivates individuals like Rittenhouse , or even how to describe them .
“ It ’ s almost like people are choosing their own adventure , ” said Oren Segal , vice president of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League .
So a crowd like the one that showed up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ individuals , even strangers , with little connecting them except a shared interest in gun rights and a sense that they ’ re the only ones who can protect their community .
And in these trying times — amid a pandemic and protests against racial injustice , plus a president who is giving them more public support than they ’ ve ever had from the national political establishment — those individuals are taking a collective turn in a direction that , experts fear , is likely to result in more violence .
An @ @ @ @ @ @ @ individual with ties to the militia movement — is not , of course , unique to 2020 or even the Trump era .
Experts who study modern militias quibble over when the movement actually emerged , but most whom we spoke to date it to the late 1980s and early 1990s , when paramilitary groups and self-described “ sovereign citizens ” ( who believe they , and not the government , get to decide which laws they follow ) began to organize , partially in response to the deaths of political dissenters in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Idaho .
These groups didn ’ t bear much resemblance to the colonial-era militias mentioned in the U.S. Constitution , but they had a few things in common — specifically , anger at the federal government , and a strong belief in their individual right to own weapons and use those weapons to defend themselves against perceived government overreach or a threat to their community .
How the various members of the movement define that threat is where things get muddy .
For instance , some — but not all — militia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power movement , and see themselves as part of a struggle against the federal government that would eventually lead to a race war .
Other parts of the militia movement , conversely , have explicitly rejected the white supremacist label .
But that doesn ’ t mean that their members don ’ t hold racist views .
And the decentralized nature of the movement has made it easy for militia groups or leaders to disavow individual people who committed acts of violence , even when they were likely influenced by some part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media has made it even easier for someone with a passing interest to find out about militias online , and get involved — even tangentially — in whatever part of the movement fits their ideology and goals .
“ People are organizing more around concepts and less around groups , ” Segal told us .
Some people might be pro-police ; others might be anti-police .
Some might be libertarian , others might be trying to stoke a race war .
“ They identify with an ideology , maybe with a movement .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of Militia Group A , B or C , ” he said .
The rise of President Trump , and the tumultuous events of 2020 , have made it even more difficult to untangle what militias are doing and what their individual adherents believe .
From the beginning of his candidacy , Trump ’ s rhetoric — his attacks on the “ deep state ” or the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant insults that peppered his tweets and speeches — have resonated with and garnered public responses from people within the militia movement .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ war or warned about threats from the left , it brought extremist theories and conversations into the national conversation .
“ With Trump , the fringe entered the mainstream , ” said Lawrence Rosenthal , the chair and lead researcher of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies at the University of California , Berkeley .
The pandemic — and the racial injustice protests that have roiled cities throughout the summer — appear to have brought even more people into the militia movement ’ s orbit .
Suddenly , people were at home all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the future and spending a lot more time online .
Many in the militia movement chafed at state lockdown orders , and started appearing , heavily armed , at state capitols across the country to protest what they saw as an assault on their individual freedoms .
“ It ’ s the same central narrative about government tyranny : ‘ I have the right to get a haircut , you don ’ t have the right to tell us we have to shelter in place , ’ ” said Cynthia Miller-Idriss , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ runs the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab .
The same messages were echoing across internet forums and Facebook groups , including among more loosely organized corners of the militia movement , prompting people who weren ’ t part of formal militia groups to show up .
And they didn ’ t just appear at protests of government lockdowns — militia members also materialized at the protests of police brutality that sprang up in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis .
People in that city are still arguing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people were supporting protesters , supporting police , simply trying to incite violence , or some combination thereof .
Many of those people might never have met before in real life , but they sported signs of a shared identity , like Hawaiian shirts , the emblem of the apocalyptic “ Boogaloo ” movement , an amorphous online militia that has been described as a “ meme-based insurgency.
” “ Boogaloo ” identifiers aren ’ t held together by a coherent ideology — or even a shared sense of what it means to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ranks have swelled quickly since the pandemic began , according to research by the Network Contagion Research Institute and others .
And what these individuals do have in common is a tendency to be armed to the teeth in situations where tensions are already very high .
For obvious reasons , that increases the likelihood of a violent confrontation .
Fear and anxiety are predictors of people — particularly young people — turning towards extremism and violence , said Miller-Idriss .
In that context , the conditions of the pandemic are a perfect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We know from the research that unemployment itself does not lead to greater risk of engaging in extremist behaviors but economic precarity does , ” she said .
For the last six months , the entire country has lived on the edge of economic and social precarity .
What if our institutions crumble ?
What if we can ’ t get our normal lives back ?
Extremist ideologies can offer meaning , purpose and a narrative of control when everything feels out of it .
The president ’ s rhetoric has fed into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time he was elected , Trump was a hero to many in the militia movement .
“ Donald Trump has succeeded in being at once the head of government and the head of anti-government , ” Rosenthal said .
“ It ’ s a remarkable thing , actually.
” With Trump saying both implicitly and explicitly that militias or even just armed individuals are the only thing standing between America and the chaos of a leftist takeover of the country , the promise of control becomes even stronger .
It becomes a call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans , sitting at home without school or even work , may try to answer .
But if the head of the government isn ’ t the threat , who is ?
The answer , said Sam Jackson , a professor at the University of Albany and the author of a new book on one of the country ’ s most prominent modern militia groups , has turned out to be other Americans — specifically , left-leaning ones who oppose Trump .
That transition wasn ’ t as hard to make as it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many of the individuals loosely affiliated with the militia movement never really saw themselves as exactly “ anti-government ” to begin with .
Instead , it ’ s better to think of them as radical libertarians , who wanted drastically less government , or maybe different government .
“ So when their man is in office , it ’ s an easier pivot for them to say … not all government is bad , but we don ’ t need to target the White House anymore , ” he said .
But targeting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drastic change in the character of the American militia movement , said Robert Churchill , a history professor at the University of Hartford who extensively researched the militia movement of the 1990s .
The majority of militia members back then were radical libertarians , he said , agreeing with Jackson , but their opposition to the federal government broadly meant they weren ’ t a partisan force .
In fact , that definition of militias — small , armed groups of civilians fighting against the government — has characterized these kinds of movements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Until now .
Given the way things are changing , the people who study the militia movement and have spent years talking to its members think there ’ s a risk of American militias becoming more like the militias of other , often politically unstable , countries .
“ What matters is if the movement becomes essentially a more traditional Latin American pro-regime paramilitary , which seems to be what Trump is trying to create or wants , ” Churchill said .

UPDATE (Oct. 8, 2020, 1:40 p.m.): On Thursday afternoon, federal charges were announced against six men who allegedly plotted with a militia group to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat. According to the FBI, the men held anti-government views and were planning to take Whitmer hostage and transport her to Wisconsin for a “trial.”
Whitmer has gotten a lot of flak during her time as governor from right-wing opponents of lockdown measures imposed earlier this year to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including armed militia members who protested outside the statehouse in May. In April, President Trump was openly enthusiastic about the protests, tweeting, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”
Last month, we wrote about how the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump’s presidency have transformed and invigorated the militia movement — in ways that some experts worry could lead to more violence like the thwarted plot against Whitmer.
In the video, the host of a local independent news radio program surveys the late-night shadows of a Kenosha, Wisconsin, car lot. You can just make out four men, long rifles in their hands, as they pace on top of the building. “We got militia on the roof here, and it’s pretty neat,” he says. On the ground, the videographer chats with other people he identifies as part of “the militia” — including an eager and excited-looking kid who tells the videographer his name is Kyle.
Kyle Rittenhouse would go on to allegedly kill two people and injure a third later that night. In the aftermath, the extent of his ties to militia activity — and militia activity itself — have been widely discussed: Are militias hate groups? Was Rittenhouse actually a part of a formal militia group? When people who identify as militia members show up in the middle of a protest … whose side are they on?
For the purposes of this article, when we refer to the militia movement, we are referring to an umbrella term that encompasses paramilitary activists and groups with strong anti-government leanings. But beyond that, modern militias are hard to explain and categorize — what even counts as a militia is up for debate. One thing is for sure: There is no one militia — not in Kenosha that night and not anywhere in the country. Instead, experts say, “the militia” is really a multifaceted movement with fluid boundaries. The key to understanding that movement’s role in the chaos of 2020 is knowing just how difficult it can be to pin down what apparent militia members believe — much less how they’re connected to each other and the broader movement.
While established militias are kind of like a heavily armed scout troop — formal organizations with ranks and membership dues and training programs and regular meetings — some academics argue that many people who are falling into the militia movement’s orbit these days are more like loosely affiliated individuals. “Members” is a strong word for this kind of community, with lots of people drifting along, sharing memes online or showing up, guns in tow, to protests — despite having no clear ties to any specific group. Even the organized, club-like militias don’t ascribe to a single overarching ideology, which makes it especially difficult to figure out what motivates individuals like Rittenhouse, or even how to describe them. “It’s almost like people are choosing their own adventure,” said Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League.
So a crowd like the one that showed up in Kenosha can be made up of individuals, even strangers, with little connecting them except a shared interest in gun rights and a sense that they’re the only ones who can protect their community. And in these trying times — amid a pandemic and protests against racial injustice, plus a president who is giving them more public support than they’ve ever had from the national political establishment — those individuals are taking a collective turn in a direction that, experts fear, is likely to result in more violence.
An armed militia — or even a lone individual with ties to the militia movement — is not, of course, unique to 2020 or even the Trump era. Experts who study modern militias quibble over when the movement actually emerged, but most whom we spoke to date it to the late 1980s and early 1990s, when paramilitary groups and self-described “sovereign citizens” (who believe they, and not the government, get to decide which laws they follow) began to organize, partially in response to the deaths of political dissenters in Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho. These groups didn’t bear much resemblance to the colonial-era militias mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but they had a few things in common — specifically, anger at the federal government, and a strong belief in their individual right to own weapons and use those weapons to defend themselves against perceived government overreach or a threat to their community.
How the various members of the movement define that threat is where things get muddy. For instance, some — but not all — militia members are also part of the white power movement, and see themselves as part of a struggle against the federal government that would eventually lead to a race war. Other parts of the militia movement, conversely, have explicitly rejected the white supremacist label. But that doesn’t mean that their members don’t hold racist views. And the decentralized nature of the movement has made it easy for militia groups or leaders to disavow individual people who committed acts of violence, even when they were likely influenced by some part of the movement’s ideology. Social media has made it even easier for someone with a passing interest to find out about militias online, and get involved — even tangentially — in whatever part of the movement fits their ideology and goals.
“People are organizing more around concepts and less around groups,” Segal told us. Some people might be pro-police; others might be anti-police. Some might be libertarian, others might be trying to stoke a race war. “They identify with an ideology, maybe with a movement. But not everyone is going to be part of Militia Group A, B or C,” he said.
The rise of President Trump, and the tumultuous events of 2020, have made it even more difficult to untangle what militias are doing and what their individual adherents believe. From the beginning of his candidacy, Trump’s rhetoric — his attacks on the “deep state” or the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant insults that peppered his tweets and speeches — have resonated with and garnered public responses from people within the militia movement. When Trump tweeted about an impending civil war or warned about threats from the left, it brought extremist theories and conversations into the national conversation. “With Trump, the fringe entered the mainstream,” said Lawrence Rosenthal, the chair and lead researcher of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
The pandemic — and the racial injustice protests that have roiled cities throughout the summer — appear to have brought even more people into the militia movement’s orbit. Suddenly, people were at home all day, feeling anxious and fearful about the future and spending a lot more time online. Many in the militia movement chafed at state lockdown orders, and started appearing, heavily armed, at state capitols across the country to protest what they saw as an assault on their individual freedoms. “It’s the same central narrative about government tyranny: ‘I have the right to get a haircut, you don’t have the right to tell us we have to shelter in place,’” said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a sociologist at American University, where she runs the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab.
The same messages were echoing across internet forums and Facebook groups, including among more loosely organized corners of the militia movement, prompting people who weren’t part of formal militia groups to show up. And they didn’t just appear at protests of government lockdowns — militia members also materialized at the protests of police brutality that sprang up in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. People in that city are still arguing, months later, over whether those people were supporting protesters, supporting police, simply trying to incite violence, or some combination thereof.
Many of those people might never have met before in real life, but they sported signs of a shared identity, like Hawaiian shirts, the emblem of the apocalyptic “Boogaloo” movement, an amorphous online militia that has been described as a “meme-based insurgency.” “Boogaloo” identifiers aren’t held together by a coherent ideology — or even a shared sense of what it means to don a Hawaiian shirt. But their ranks have swelled quickly since the pandemic began, according to research by the Network Contagion Research Institute and others. And what these individuals do have in common is a tendency to be armed to the teeth in situations where tensions are already very high. For obvious reasons, that increases the likelihood of a violent confrontation.
Fear and anxiety are predictors of people — particularly young people — turning towards extremism and violence, said Miller-Idriss. In that context, the conditions of the pandemic are a perfect culture for radicalism to grow. “We know from the research that unemployment itself does not lead to greater risk of engaging in extremist behaviors but economic precarity does,” she said. For the last six months, the entire country has lived on the edge of economic and social precarity. What if our institutions crumble? What if we can’t get our normal lives back? Extremist ideologies can offer meaning, purpose and a narrative of control when everything feels out of it.
The president’s rhetoric has fed into that, experts say. By the time he was elected, Trump was a hero to many in the militia movement. “Donald Trump has succeeded in being at once the head of government and the head of anti-government,” Rosenthal said. “It’s a remarkable thing, actually.”
With Trump saying both implicitly and explicitly that militias or even just armed individuals are the only thing standing between America and the chaos of a leftist takeover of the country, the promise of control becomes even stronger. It becomes a call to arms — one that more young Americans, sitting at home without school or even work, may try to answer.
But if the head of the government isn’t the threat, who is? The answer, said Sam Jackson, a professor at the University of Albany and the author of a new book on one of the country’s most prominent modern militia groups, has turned out to be other Americans — specifically, left-leaning ones who oppose Trump.
That transition wasn’t as hard to make as it might seem, Jackson said, because many of the individuals loosely affiliated with the militia movement never really saw themselves as exactly “anti-government” to begin with. Instead, it’s better to think of them as radical libertarians, who wanted drastically less government, or maybe different government. “So when their man is in office, it’s an easier pivot for them to say … not all government is bad, but we don’t need to target the White House anymore,” he said.
But targeting opponents of the White House means a drastic change in the character of the American militia movement, said Robert Churchill, a history professor at the University of Hartford who extensively researched the militia movement of the 1990s. The majority of militia members back then were radical libertarians, he said, agreeing with Jackson, but their opposition to the federal government broadly meant they weren’t a partisan force. In fact, that definition of militias — small, armed groups of civilians fighting against the government — has characterized these kinds of movements throughout American history, Churchill told us.
Until now. Given the way things are changing, the people who study the militia movement and have spent years talking to its members think there’s a risk of American militias becoming more like the militias of other, often politically unstable, countries. “What matters is if the movement becomes essentially a more traditional Latin American pro-regime paramilitary, which seems to be what Trump is trying to create or wants,” Churchill said.
How Trump could spark a full-blown election crisis | FiveThirtyEight


fivethirtyeight--2020-09-08--A Big Chunk of White Americans With Degrees And People Of Color Are Behind Trump

The overarching story of recent American elections is that 1 ) voters of color , who have long been Democratic-leaning , are a growing share of the electorate ; 2 ) white voters with college degrees are increasingly shifting to the Democrats ; and 3 ) white voters without degrees are aligning more with the GOP .
But those trends , because they get so much focus , can warp our understanding of the electorate as it exists right now .
Demographics are not yet destiny in American elections — millions of people don ’ t align with the party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ predict .
Case in point : In 2016 , more than a third of President Trump ’ s support nationally came from non-Hispanic white Americans with college degrees ( 26 percent ) and Asian , Black and Hispanic voters ( 12 percent ) , according to Pew Research Center data .
On the flip side , about a quarter of Hillary Clinton ’ s supporters were non-Hispanic white Americans without degrees .
White Americans without degrees aren ’ t as likely to vote for Trump as in 2016 , according to polls — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national polls and key swing states like Pennsylvania .
But a big reason Trump could still win the Electoral College , despite the poor marks Americans give him for his handling of COVID-19 and his job performance overall , is that the Black , Hispanic and college-educated white voters who backed him in 2016 are largely still with him , particularly in key swing states .
In other words , while Trump is a radical departure from previous GOP candidates in terms of personal style and his frequent racist comments , voters haven @ @ @ @ @ @ @ amid his rise in U.S. politics — the Americans who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 overwhelmingly backed Trump in 2016 ( about 90 percent ) and those backed who Trump in 2016 are overwhelmingly behind him in 2020 ( about 94 percent ) .
That fact helps explain how Trump won in 2016 and why he might still come back in 2020 .
Here ’ s a more detailed look at those three groups : Polls suggest white people with college degrees nationally are likely to be more supportive of Biden than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggests that Clinton won whites with degrees by 17 percentage points , while Biden leads among them by 23 percentage points . )
But Biden ’ s advantage with white Americans with college degrees varies a lot by state , and that ’ s key .
In Democratic-leaning swing states such as Maine , New Hampshire and Minnesota , only about a third of white voters with college degrees are supporting Trump , according to recent polls .
That ’ s why he may not win any of those three states , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the more pro-Trump demographic groups — account for the majority of voters in all three .
This represents a continuation of what we ’ ve seen over the last four years — polls showed college-educated white voters in Maine and Minnesota , in particular , were significantly more Democratic-leaning than those in the rest of the country in 2016 and 2018 .
The good news for Trump is that white voters with degrees in the South remain more conservative-leaning than those in other regions of the country .
Polls suggest a majority of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prefer Trump over Biden — as do more than 40 percent in Florida and North Carolina .
Again , this isn ’ t too surprising : In 2018 , white liberals nationally and in their states were enamored with Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto O ’ Rourke .
But white college graduates overall preferred Abrams and O ’ Rourke ’ s GOP opponents — by double digits in both races .
White voters with degrees in Georgia and Texas remaining fairly pro-Trump is hugely important @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state , it would severely complicate his path to winning 270 electoral votes .
But he ’ s effectively tied in Georgia and Texas — even as white voters without degrees are a clear minority of the electorate in both states ( just 32 percent in Texas and 36 percent in Georgia ) .
Outside of the South , a clear majority of white college graduates prefer Biden to Trump in most battleground states .
In fact , it ’ s likely that white voters with degrees will vote Democratic at higher rates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said , at least a third of white college graduates are likely to back Trump in basically every swing state .
What ’ s keeping this bloc with Trump ?
Many of these voters are simply longtime Republicans who hold conservative views .
But particularly in Georgia and Texas , it ’ s worth thinking about religion and race .
Being white and also an evangelical Protestant is strongly correlated with voting Republican — much more so than being white and not having a college degree .
According to data provided to us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling initiative , Georgia ranks seventh among states in terms of the percentage of its white registered voters who are evangelical Protestants ( about a third ) , with North Carolina 10th and Texas 13th .
For comparison , Virginia is the state that backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 with the highest percentage of its white registered voters who are evangelical Protestants — it was 17th among the 50 states by this measure .
In its surveys , Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape asks respondents their views on issues like whether they prefer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same race and whether they agree or disagree with statements like , “ Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for Blacks to work their way out of the lower class.
” Robert Griffin , research director for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group , analyzed responses to these questions to create an overall “ score ” for voters on their racial attitudes .
Georgia ’ s white registered voters are more likely to express more negative sentiments about people of color than those in all but nine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely than white registered voters in other states to reject the view that slavery and discrimination are holding back Black people and more likely to be unsupportive of their relatives dating people outside of their race . )
Florida ( No .
11 ) , Texas ( No .
12 ) and North Carolina ( No .
13 ) rank similarly on these measures of racial attitudes .
Again , for comparison , the blue state where white registered voters hold the highest level of negative attitudes about minorities by this measure is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 50 states .
So while white voters with college degrees are often portrayed as a monolith , and a Democratic monolith at that … they ’ re not .
And that fact is crucial to Trump ’ s reelection chances .
Polls suggest between a quarter and a third of Hispanics nationally are backing Trump — fairly similar to 2016 .
And like in 2016 , a sizable bloc of Hispanics in Arizona , Florida and Texas — three important swing states that have fairly large Hispanic electorates — are likely to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last two decades have shown about 30 percent of Hispanics identity as Republican .
And despite his nasty rhetoric toward Mexico in particular , about as many Hispanics backed Trump as other recent Republican presidential nominees .
As we wrote in 2018 , there are plenty of explanations for that enduring pro-Trump Hispanic bloc : the anti-abortion views and Catholic and evangelical faiths of some Hispanic Americans ; the priorization of issues like jobs over immigration policy for many Hispanic voters , and the longtime courting of Hispanic voters by the GOP in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , again , the fact that the bottom hasn ’ t dropped out of Trump ’ s support among Hispanic voters is hugely significant to his continued competitiveness .
Polls suggest about 10 percent of black voters both nationally and in key swing states with large black electorates are supporting Trump .
That is similar to 2016 as well and again reflects broader partisan dynamics — surveys over the last three decades have shown about one of every 10 Black Americans identifies as a Republican .
If the race is really tight , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black support could be critical .
In an analysis of the 2016 election , Griffin , John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira argued that Clinton would have won Michigan and Pennsylvania if Black voters in those states had supported her at the levels they did Barack Obama .
( About 95 percent of black voters in those states backed Obama , and about 90 percent supported Clinton . )
I don ’ t want to belabor that point too much — the Clinton-Trump matchup in those two states was so close that basically any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would have won it for Clinton .
And it ’ s not surprising that black voters supported Obama , the first-ever Black president , at slightly higher levels than they did Clinton .
But again , the bottom hasn ’ t fallen out for Trump among Black voters — he is basically as popular as previous GOP candidates .
Last month ’ s Republican National Convention featured a lot of non-white speakers for a party whose voters are more than 80 percent white , and I think this analysis explains why .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by further growing the GOP ’ s advantage among white voters without degrees , who are likely to represent more than 40 percent of the electorate .
That might happen to some extent , particularly among white men .
But polls suggest that white women without degrees won ’ t be as GOP-leaning in 2020 as they were in 2016 , either because they like Biden more than Clinton , have grown tired of Trump or some combination of both .
So Trump probably needs the white college graduates and Black and Hispanic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and perhaps a few more , to back him again to win this election .
And they might .
Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight ’ s presidential forecast in full ; you can also see all the 2020 polls we ’ ve collected , including national polls , Colorado polls , Florida polls , Michigan polls , Minnesota polls , North Carolina polls and … well … all the states , really .

Perry Bacon Jr. (perry.bacon@fivethirtyeight.com)

The overarching story of recent American elections is that 1) voters of color, who have long been Democratic-leaning, are a growing share of the electorate; 2) white voters with college degrees are increasingly shifting to the Democrats; and 3) white voters without degrees are aligning more with the GOP. But those trends, because they get so much focus, can warp our understanding of the electorate as it exists right now. Demographics are not yet destiny in American elections — millions of people don’t align with the party their race and ethnicity or education would predict. Case in point: In 2016, more than a third of President Trump’s support nationally came from non-Hispanic white Americans with college degrees (26 percent) and Asian, Black and Hispanic voters (12 percent), according to Pew Research Center data. On the flip side, about a quarter of Hillary Clinton’s supporters were non-Hispanic white Americans without degrees.
White Americans without degrees aren’t as likely to vote for Trump as in 2016, according to polls — which partly explains why Biden leads in national polls and key swing states like Pennsylvania. But a big reason Trump could still win the Electoral College, despite the poor marks Americans give him for his handling of COVID-19 and his job performance overall, is that the Black, Hispanic and college-educated white voters who backed him in 2016 are largely still with him, particularly in key swing states.
In other words, while Trump is a radical departure from previous GOP candidates in terms of personal style and his frequent racist comments, voters haven’t radically changed their voting patterns amid his rise in U.S. politics — the Americans who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 overwhelmingly backed Trump in 2016 (about 90 percent) and those who backed Trump in 2016 are overwhelmingly behind him in 2020 (about 94 percent).
That fact helps explain how Trump won in 2016 and why he might still come back in 2020. Here’s a more detailed look at those three groups:
College-educated white voters
Polls suggest white people with college degrees nationally are likely to be more supportive of Biden than they were Clinton. (Pew data suggests that Clinton won whites with degrees by 17 percentage points, while Biden leads among them by 23 percentage points.)
But Biden’s advantage with white Americans with college degrees varies a lot by state, and that’s key. In Democratic-leaning swing states such as Maine, New Hampshire and Minnesota, only about a third of white voters with college degrees are supporting Trump, according to recent polls. That’s why he may not win any of those three states, even as whites without degrees — one of the more pro-Trump demographic groups — account for the majority of voters in all three. This represents a continuation of what we’ve seen over the last four years — polls showed college-educated white voters in Maine and Minnesota, in particular, were significantly more Democratic-leaning than those in the rest of the country in 2016 and 2018.
The good news for Trump is that white voters with degrees in the South remain more conservative-leaning than those in other regions of the country. Polls suggest a majority of white college graduates in Georgia and Texas prefer Trump over Biden — as do more than 40 percent in Florida and North Carolina. Again, this isn’t too surprising: In 2018, white liberals nationally and in their states were enamored with Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke. But white college graduates overall preferred Abrams and O’Rourke’s GOP opponents — by double digits in both races.
White voters with degrees in Georgia and Texas remaining fairly pro-Trump is hugely important. If he were to lose either state, it would severely complicate his path to winning 270 electoral votes. But he’s effectively tied in Georgia and Texas — even as white voters without degrees are a clear minority of the electorate in both states (just 32 percent in Texas and 36 percent in Georgia).
Outside of the South, a clear majority of white college graduates prefer Biden to Trump in most battleground states. In fact, it’s likely that white voters with degrees will vote Democratic at higher rates than in any recent reelection. That said, at least a third of white college graduates are likely to back Trump in basically every swing state.
What’s keeping this bloc with Trump? Many of these voters are simply longtime Republicans who hold conservative views. But particularly in Georgia and Texas, it’s worth thinking about religion and race. Being white and also an evangelical Protestant is strongly correlated with voting Republican — much more so than being white and not having a college degree. According to data provided to us from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape polling initiative, Georgia ranks seventh among states in terms of the percentage of its white registered voters who are evangelical Protestants (about a third), with North Carolina 10th and Texas 13th. For comparison, Virginia is the state that backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 with the highest percentage of its white registered voters who are evangelical Protestants — it was 17th among the 50 states by this measure.
In its surveys, Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape asks respondents their views on issues like whether they prefer their relatives to marry someone of the same race and whether they agree or disagree with statements like, “Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for Blacks to work their way out of the lower class.” Robert Griffin, research director for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, analyzed responses to these questions to create an overall “score” for voters on their racial attitudes. Georgia’s white registered voters are more likely to express more negative sentiments about people of color than those in all but nine states. (So they are more likely than white registered voters in other states to reject the view that slavery and discrimination are holding back Black people and more likely to be unsupportive of their relatives dating people outside of their race.)
Florida (No. 11), Texas (No. 12) and North Carolina (No. 13) rank similarly on these measures of racial attitudes. Again, for comparison, the blue state where white registered voters hold the highest level of negative attitudes about minorities by this measure is Delaware, which is 17th highest of the 50 states.
So while white voters with college degrees are often portrayed as a monolith, and a Democratic monolith at that … they’re not. And that fact is crucial to Trump’s reelection chances.
Hispanic voters
Polls suggest between a quarter and a third of Hispanics nationally are backing Trump — fairly similar to 2016. And like in 2016, a sizable bloc of Hispanics in Arizona, Florida and Texas — three important swing states that have fairly large Hispanic electorates — are likely to back the president.
Polls for the last two decades have shown about 30 percent of Hispanics identity as Republican. And despite his nasty rhetoric toward Mexico in particular, about as many Hispanics backed Trump as other recent Republican presidential nominees. As we wrote in 2018, there are plenty of explanations for that enduring pro-Trump Hispanic bloc: the anti-abortion views and Catholic and evangelical faiths of some Hispanic Americans ; the priorization of issues like jobs over immigration policy for many Hispanic voters, and the longtime courting of Hispanic voters by the GOP in Florida and Texas in particular.
But, again, the fact that the bottom hasn’t dropped out of Trump’s support among Hispanic voters is hugely significant to his continued competitiveness.
Black voters
Polls suggest about 10 percent of black voters both nationally and in key swing states with large black electorates are supporting Trump. That is similar to 2016 as well and again reflects broader partisan dynamics — surveys over the last three decades have shown about one of every 10 Black Americans identifies as a Republican.
If the race is really tight, Trump’s maintaining this sliver of Black support could be critical. In an analysis of the 2016 election, Griffin, John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira argued that Clinton would have won Michigan and Pennsylvania if Black voters in those states had supported her at the levels they did Barack Obama. (About 95 percent of black voters in those states backed Obama, and about 90 percent supported Clinton.)
I don’t want to belabor that point too much — the Clinton-Trump matchup in those two states was so close that basically any increase in support among any demographic group would have won it for Clinton. And it’s not surprising that black voters supported Obama, the first-ever Black president, at slightly higher levels than they did Clinton. But again, the bottom hasn’t fallen out for Trump among Black voters — he is basically as popular as previous GOP candidates.
Last month’s Republican National Convention featured a lot of non-white speakers for a party whose voters are more than 80 percent white, and I think this analysis explains why. In theory, Trump could win this election by further growing the GOP’s advantage among white voters without degrees, who are likely to represent more than 40 percent of the electorate. That might happen to some extent, particularly among white men. But polls suggest that white women without degrees won’t be as GOP-leaning in 2020 as they were in 2016, either because they like Biden more than Clinton, have grown tired of Trump or some combination of both. So Trump probably needs the white college graduates and Black and Hispanic voters who backed him in 2016, and perhaps a few more, to back him again to win this election. And they might.
Make sure to check out FiveThirtyEight’s presidential forecast in full; you can also see all the 2020 polls we’ve collected, including national polls, Colorado polls, Florida polls, Michigan polls, Minnesota polls, North Carolina polls and … well … all the states, really.


fivethirtyeight--2020-09-08--Politics Podcast: The 2020 Electoral Map Could Get Weird

As Republicans have improved their standing in the Midwest and Democrats have made headway in the Sun Belt , some @ @ @ @ @ are now in play .
In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , the @ @ @ @ @ are playing out and what it means for the 2020 electoral map .
They also @ @ @ @ @ Times poll of active-duty service members is a good or bad use of polling .
@ @ @ @ @ episode by clicking the “ play ” button in the audio player above or by @ @ @ @ @ the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform .
If you are new to podcasts @ @ @ @ @ .
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays .
Help new listeners discover @ @ @ @ @ a rating and review on iTunes .
Have a comment , question or suggestion for @ @ @ @ @ polling ” ?
Get in touch by email , on Twitter or in the comments @

As Republicans have improved their standing in the Midwest and Democrats have made headway in the Sun Belt, some states not usually considered competitive are now in play. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses how those trends are playing out and what it means for the 2020 electoral map. They also assess whether a recent Military Times poll of active-duty service members is a good or bad use of polling.
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.


fivethirtyeight--2020-09-09--The Latest On Republican Efforts To Make It Harder To Vote

About a month ago , we laid out five ways that Republicans are making it harder to vote and more generally undermining the electoral process in 2020 .
We focused on Republicans for two reasons .
First , making it harder to vote is a more controversial and anti-democratic goal than making it easier to vote , as Democrats are aiming to do .
And second , President Trump is playing a central role in these voting wars .
Trump has publicly said that he is opposed to efforts in many states to make absentee voting and voting by mail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thing ) available to virtually anyone who wants to vote that way .
He has also suggested that higher overall voter turnout would make it harder for Republicans to win elections .
Over the last month , with the election approaching , Republican officials — from county-level election administrators to the president himself — have in some ways escalated their use of these tactics .
So here ’ s an update on those efforts to complicate the voting process and oppose moves that would make it easier .
These five categories , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are generally ordered from least alarming to most alarming .
( There is no formal system tracking every lawsuit concerning voting and the electoral process in all 50 states , so this article is based on our informal tracking , which means we might have missed a key development in a state or two . )
Here ’ s what ’ s happening : 1 .
Opposing changes to make it easier to vote amid COVID-19 • Opposing or limiting the use of ballot drop boxes .
Recent U.S .
Postal Service changes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a GOP megadonor , have slowed down mail delivery and likely increased the potential that some mail-in ballots will get to elections offices too late to be counted .
( In most states , mail-in ballots must be received by Election Day . )
In response , to make sure that people don ’ t have to vote in person and to ensure that their ballots are received in time , Democrats have been pushing states and localities to expand the number of secure boxes where people can drop off their ballots so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election officials .
Republicans , though , are also opposing these drop boxes .
In Ohio , the Republican secretary of state is blocking any county from having more than one ballot drop-off location — even though it would obviously make sense for counties with larger populations to have more than one .
In Iowa , the Republican secretary of state is allowing such boxes only at government-owned buildings ( as opposed to , say , outside grocery stores ) .
Missouri , another GOP-dominated state , is barring the use of any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make it easier to vote by mail .
The GOP-controlled board of commissioners in Gwinnett County , Georgia ( that ’ s suburban Atlanta ) , rejected a proposal to have applications for absentee ballots sent to all registered voters in the county .
In Arizona , the Trump campaign is opposing a push to count any ballot that is postmarked by Election Day ( as opposed to received by Election Day ) .
• Limiting the use of NBA arenas as voting centers .
After their brief strike in the days after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Wisconsin , NBA players successfully pushed the league to authorize using its arenas as voting centers .
But despite owners offering the space to local governments , election officials in Miami ( Florida ) and Memphis ( Tennessee ) have opted against using those arenas .
( Miami has a Republican mayor ; the elections procedures in Shelby County , which includes Memphis , are set by a board whose members are appointed by the state ’ s GOP-controlled legislature . )
• Opposing early processing of absentee ballots .
In Michigan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t pushing forward proposed legislation to allow elections officials to start processing mail-in ballots ( basically removing the outer envelope that they are contained in and verifying voters ’ signatures ) before Election Day .
Even under this proposed legislation , election officials would not start reading the ballots and counting votes until Nov 3 .
But starting the process of opening up the ballots before Election Day would help officials speed up the count .
2 .
Seeking to invalidate laws that make it easier to vote amid COVID-19 This is different @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerning ) because in these instances Republicans are seeking to overturn decisions already made to ease the voting process .
• Pushing to get existing drop boxes removed .
In Pennsylvania , Republicans are suing to prevent the use of drop boxes , as well as advancing legislation that would limit drop boxes to a few types of official sites , which would mean some existing boxes could no longer be used .
• Stopping local officials from making absentee voting easier .
Republicans in Texas Texas filed and won a lawsuit to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Houston area ) from sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters in the county .
In Iowa , the Trump campaign filed and won a lawsuit stopping officials in one of the state ’ s more urban and Democratic-leaning areas from sending voters absentee ballot applications that already had some information ( like the voter ’ s name and birthday ) already filled in .
In Montana , the Trump campaign and GOP officials have filed a lawsuit to block a policy implemented by the state ’ s governor , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all counties to set up comprehensive vote-by-mail programs .
3 .
Advancing new practices and provisions that make it harder to vote • Complicating the voting process for felons in Florida .
Not much has changed in the last month in this category .
But Republican officials in Florida are continuing litigation to keep in place a law they adopted in 2019 that requires convicted felons to pay all fees associated with their sentence before their voting rights are restored .
The law , in effect , limits a 2018 ballot initiative adopted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voting rights .
In continuing this litigation , Florida Republicans are likely to be successful in basically running out of the legal clock and keeping the 2018 provision from truly going into effect in the 2020 election cycle .
• Misleading statements about voter fraud .
Trump and Attorney General William Barr continue to argue that widespread mail-in voting will lead to a lot of voter fraud , often making outlandish and inaccurate claims to support their position .
There is no evidence that voting by mail leads to increased fraud , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where most people have voted by mail for years , there has been no evidence of widespread malfeasance .
5 .
Fundamental changes to the electoral process • Encouraging people to vote twice .
Trump has recently been encouraging people who vote by mail to also go to vote at the polls on Election Day .
If the election systems are working properly , he argues , they won ’ t be allowed to vote in person .
It is very unlikely that anyone ’ s vote will be counted twice , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mail to also show up in person will complicate election officials ’ jobs .
If some people actually do vote twice , that would , of course , undermine the entire voting process — and break the law .
• Downplaying potential Russian interference .
Published reports suggest that Russian operatives are using measures similar to those they employed in 2016 to both boost Trump and increase political division in America .
But the Trump administration has opted against clearly saying that Russia is engaged in such conduct or forthrightly condemning it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that both Russia and China are trying to interfere , with China favoring Democratic nominee Joe Biden and Russia favoring Trump .
But in reality , while the Chinese do favor Biden , according to published reports , there is no evidence that they are pursuing active measures to help him win , unlike Russia .
In addition , the Trump administration — apparently in retaliation for congressional Democrats publicly indicating that Russia is trying to tilt the election toward Trump — has opted to limit briefings to Congress on election security .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ now only submit written comments to Congress , instead of meeting in-person with leaders from both parties on the key intelligence committees .
There are plenty of Republican officials , even in some of the states listed above , taking steps to make it easier to vote .
Texas , for example , increased the number of days in which early voting is available .
So it ’ s not that all Republicans are trying to complicate the voting process .
Rather , most of the officials trying to complicate the voting process @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t the only people filing a lot of lawsuits and pushing a lot of changes to the voting system — it ’ s just that Democrats ’ extensive legal efforts are generally pushing to make it easier to vote .
So the most surprising aspect of the voting process is what we have laid out here : One party seems to be systemically making it harder to vote and taking other steps that undermine the integrity of the electoral process .
The big question is whether these tactics will work , either @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or counted , or by throwing the election results ( whatever they end up being ) into doubt .

About a month ago, we laid out five ways that Republicans are making it harder to vote and more generally undermining the electoral process in 2020. We focused on Republicans for two reasons. First, making it harder to vote is a more controversial and anti-democratic goal than making it easier to vote, as Democrats are aiming to do. And second, President Trump is playing a central role in these voting wars. Trump has publicly said that he is opposed to efforts in many states to make absentee voting and voting by mail (the two are functionally the same thing) available to virtually anyone who wants to vote that way. He has also suggested that higher overall voter turnout would make it harder for Republicans to win elections.
Over the last month, with the election approaching, Republican officials — from county-level election administrators to the president himself — have in some ways escalated their use of these tactics. So here’s an update on those efforts to complicate the voting process and oppose moves that would make it easier. These five categories, which we used in the last article, are generally ordered from least alarming to most alarming. (There is no formal system tracking every lawsuit concerning voting and the electoral process in all 50 states, so this article is based on our informal tracking, which means we might have missed a key development in a state or two.) Here’s what’s happening:
1. Opposing changes to make it easier to vote amid COVID-19
2. Seeking to invalidate laws that make it easier to vote amid COVID-19
This is different from the prior category (and more concerning) because in these instances Republicans are seeking to overturn decisions already made to ease the voting process.
3. Advancing new practices and provisions that make it harder to vote
Complicating the voting process for felons in Florida. Not much has changed in the last month in this category. But Republican officials in Florida are continuing litigation to keep in place a law they adopted in 2019 that requires convicted felons to pay all fees associated with their sentence before their voting rights are restored. The law, in effect, limits a 2018 ballot initiative adopted by Florida voters intended to restore felon voting rights. In continuing this litigation, Florida Republicans are likely to be successful in basically running out of the legal clock and keeping the 2018 provision from truly going into effect in the 2020 election cycle.
4. Anti-democratic rhetoric
Misleading statements about voter fraud. Trump and Attorney General William Barr continue to argue that widespread mail-in voting will lead to a lot of voter fraud, often making outlandish and inaccurate claims to support their position. There is no evidence that voting by mail leads to increased fraud, and in states like Washington and Oregon, where most people have voted by mail for years, there has been no evidence of widespread malfeasance.
5. Fundamental changes to the electoral process
There are plenty of Republican officials, even in some of the states listed above, taking steps to make it easier to vote. Texas, for example, increased the number of days in which early voting is available. So it’s not that all Republicans are trying to complicate the voting process. Rather, most of the officials trying to complicate the voting process are Republicans. Also, Republicans aren’t the only people filing a lot of lawsuits and pushing a lot of changes to the voting system — it’s just that Democrats’ extensive legal efforts are generally pushing to make it easier to vote.
So the most surprising aspect of the voting process is what we have laid out here: One party seems to be systemically making it harder to vote and taking other steps that undermine the integrity of the electoral process. The big question is whether these tactics will work, either by keeping anti-Trump ballots from being cast or counted, or by throwing the election results (whatever they end up being) into doubt.


fivethirtyeight--2020-09-09--Election Update: Polls Are Good For Biden Pretty Much Everywhere — Except Florida

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight ’ s Election Update for Wednesday , Sept. 9 .
And at this point , it ’ s no longer too early to look at the polls .
We ’ re moving away from the convention period of the race and into the thick of the election .
However , the overall race hasn ’ t changed all that much .
Joe Biden has a 74 in 100 chance of winning compared to Trump who has a 26 in 100 shot , according to our forecast , and as you can see in the chart below , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But even though the topline numbers haven ’ t changed all that much , that doesn ’ t mean there hasn ’ t been some movement at the state level .
It ’ s not super easy to find patterns where Biden is gaining or losing ground — still a lot of noise at this point — but it does seem as if , on the whole , there ’ s been mostly good news for Biden .
Except for Florida , which , as you can see in the chart below , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the most .
And at this point , though , it ’ s really only Florida that ’ s moved all that much .
In most other states which have been polled about as much as Florida — there ’ ve been 12 polls there since the start of the Democratic convention — they ’ ve seen far less of a change or barely any movement at all .
Four other states have at least 10 polls in the same timeframe — Pennsylvania ( 17 polls ) , Wisconsin ( 12 ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( 10 ) — yet their numbers have budged only a little .
What ’ s more , it ’ s mostly good news for Biden at this point .
It ’ s true that Biden is polling better in a state like Wisconsin than in his home state of Pennsylvania , which has caused some confusion given the states ’ demographic similarities , but it ’ s important that we not read too much into it at this point .
Case in point , despite losing ground in Pennsylvania , Biden got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News/Marist College , which found him with a 9-point lead among likely voters , whereas a poll from Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin was more middling , putting Biden ahead by just 4 points , and actually bring down his average just slightly there .
It ’ s a little surprising that these states haven ’ t necessarily moved more in tandem as the results in states with similar demographics are often correlated .
But it ’ s an important reminder that sometimes individual polls look like they ’ re pointing in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , many of the so-called movements even out in the end , and at this point , it ’ s still mostly good news for Biden aside from Florida .
As for what ’ s happening in Florida , we ’ re still a little unsure of what to make of it , as we ’ d expect the numbers in fellow Sun Belt states Arizona and Texas to have moved in similar ways — but they haven ’ t .
Some of this might have to do with Florida ’ s Hispanic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comprise more than 80 percent of the Hispanic population in Arizona and Texas , Cuban Americans form a plurality — 29 percent — of Florida Hispanics , and on the whole they are much more conservative .
Recent polling suggests this could be a critical difference , too .
For example , Democratic pollster GQR ’ s new Florida survey found Biden ahead 51 percent to 46 percent overall , but Trump led by 18 points among Cuban Americans while trailing by 17 points among non-Cuban Hispanics .
And a Miami Herald/Bendixen & @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home to two-thirds of the Florida ’ s Cuban population , found them breaking for Trump 68 percent to 30 percent .
It ’ s possible that in the wake of a GOP convention that painted Democrats as socialists and even featured a Cuban American speaker , Cuban Americans responded by becoming more supportive of the president .
It also helps that Florida has been trending slightly to the right in presidential elections for a while now .
But as with most questions involving polls , we need more to get a better @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , lasting change .
We ’ re still in Trump ’ s post-convention bounce period , too , so some of Trump ’ s gains could wear off in Florida and elsewhere in the coming weeks .
Moreover , the lack of movement in FiveThirtyEight ’ s forecast is one reason to not make too much hay of the change in Florida — at least , not yet .

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s Election Update for Wednesday, Sept. 9. And at this point, it’s no longer too early to look at the polls. We’re moving away from the convention period of the race and into the thick of the election. However, the overall race hasn’t changed all that much. Joe Biden has a 74 in 100 chance of winning compared to Trump who has a 26 in 100 shot, according to our forecast, and as you can see in the chart below, those odds have been pretty consistent.
But even though the topline numbers haven’t changed all that much, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some movement at the state level. It’s not super easy to find patterns where Biden is gaining or losing ground — still a lot of noise at this point — but it does seem as if, on the whole, there’s been mostly good news for Biden. Except for Florida, which, as you can see in the chart below, is where Trump has closed the gap the most.
Polling shifts in battleground states are pretty noisy Change in Joe Biden’s margin vs. Donald Trump’s margin in battleground states, according to FiveThirtyEight polling averages from Aug. 17 to Sept. 9, as of 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 9 Biden margin vs. Trump State Aug. 17 Sept. 9 Change Florida +5.3 +2.8 -2.6 Colorado +13.4 +11.4 -2.0 Ohio +0.5 -0.9 -1.4 Pennsylvania +6.4 +5.0 -1.4 New Hampshire +9.3 +8.2 -1.1 Georgia -0.9 -1.7 -0.8 Nevada +6.8 +6.4 -0.4 Michigan +7.6 +7.4 -0.2 Virginia +10.8 +10.8 -0.1 Wisconsin +6.8 +7.0 +0.1 North Carolina +1.3 +1.7 +0.4 Minnesota +5.6 +6.1 +0.5 Texas -2.0 -0.9 +1.1 Arizona +3.6 +5.1 +1.5 Aug. 17 was the first day of the Democratic National Convention. Each state included has at least a 1 percent chance of being the “tipping point” state in 2020. Source: POLLS
And at this point, though, it’s really only Florida that’s moved all that much. In most other states which have been polled about as much as Florida — there’ve been 12 polls there since the start of the Democratic convention — they’ve seen far less of a change or barely any movement at all. Four other states have at least 10 polls in the same timeframe — Pennsylvania (17 polls), Wisconsin (12), Michigan (10) and North Carolina (10) — yet their numbers have budged only a little. What’s more, it’s mostly good news for Biden at this point.
It’s true that Biden is polling better in a state like Wisconsin than in his home state of Pennsylvania, which has caused some confusion given the states’ demographic similarities, but it’s important that we not read too much into it at this point.
Case in point, despite losing ground in Pennsylvania, Biden got a great poll there today from NBC News/Marist College, which found him with a 9-point lead among likely voters, whereas a poll from Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin was more middling, putting Biden ahead by just 4 points, and actually bring down his average just slightly there.
It’s a little surprising that these states haven’t necessarily moved more in tandem as the results in states with similar demographics are often correlated. But it’s an important reminder that sometimes individual polls look like they’re pointing in opposite directions, but with enough data, many of the so-called movements even out in the end, and at this point, it’s still mostly good news for Biden aside from Florida.
As for what’s happening in Florida, we’re still a little unsure of what to make of it, as we’d expect the numbers in fellow Sun Belt states Arizona and Texas to have moved in similar ways — but they haven’t. Some of this might have to do with Florida’s Hispanic population, however. Whereas Mexican Americans comprise more than 80 percent of the Hispanic population in Arizona and Texas, Cuban Americans form a plurality — 29 percent — of Florida Hispanics, and on the whole they are much more conservative.
Recent polling suggests this could be a critical difference, too. For example, Democratic pollster GQR’s new Florida survey found Biden ahead 51 percent to 46 percent overall, but Trump led by 18 points among Cuban Americans while trailing by 17 points among non-Cuban Hispanics. And a Miami Herald/Bendixen & Amandi survey of just Miami-Dade County, home to two-thirds of the Florida’s Cuban population, found them breaking for Trump 68 percent to 30 percent. It’s possible that in the wake of a GOP convention that painted Democrats as socialists and even featured a Cuban American speaker, Cuban Americans responded by becoming more supportive of the president. It also helps that Florida has been trending slightly to the right in presidential elections for a while now.
But as with most questions involving polls, we need more to get a better read on just how much is real, lasting change. We’re still in Trump’s post-convention bounce period, too, so some of Trump’s gains could wear off in Florida and elsewhere in the coming weeks. Moreover, the lack of movement in FiveThirtyEight’s forecast is one reason to not make too much hay of the change in Florida — at least, not yet.


fivethirtyeight--2020-09-09--States That Are Not Normally Competitive Are Competitive In 2020

In this week ’ s FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , the crew discuss which states could be competitive in the 2020 @ @ @ @ @ you another segment of “ good use or bad use of polling ?
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States That Are Not Normally Competitive Are Competitive In 2020
In this week’s FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discuss which states could be competitive in the 2020 election. And we bring you another segment of “good use or bad use of polling?”