fivethirtyeight--2020-11-18--How Georgia Turned Blue

How Georgia Turned Blue

In 2008 , Barack Obama won about 47 percent of the vote in Georgia , a huge improvement for the Democrats from four years earlier , when John Kerry received just 41 percent in the state .
And with the Atlanta metro area booming in population , it seemed like a state that hadn ’ t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992 was about to turn blue — or at least purple .
But it didn ’ t .
Instead , Georgia was stuck in swing-state-in-waiting status .
Obama dipped to 45 percent in 2012 — and Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The party ’ s candidates for U.S. Senate and governor in 2014 won 45 percent of the Georgia vote , as did Hillary Clinton in 2016 .
That is , until 2018 , when Stacey Abrams broke through the 46 percent ceiling and hit 48.8 percent in her gubernatorial campaign .
And this year , of course , Joe Biden won the state with 49.5 percent of the vote .
Meanwhile , U.S. Senate candidate Jon Ossoff got 48.0 percent , and is now headed to a runoff election .
Georgia ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seat is also headed to a runoff , with the combined total for the Democratic candidates at 48.4 percent .
So how did Georgia go from light red to blue — or at the very least , purple ?
The answer is pretty simple : The Atlanta area turned really blue in the Trump era .
Definitions differ about the exact parameters of the Atlanta metropolitan area , but 10 counties are part of a governing collaborative called the Atlanta Regional Commission .
Almost 4.7 million people live in those 10 counties , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s population .
Until very recently , the Atlanta area wasn ’ t a liberal bastion .
There was a Democratic bloc that long controlled the government within the city limits of Atlanta and a Republican bloc that once dominated the suburbs and whose rise was chronicled in historian Kevin Kruse ’ s 2005 book “ White Flight : Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism.
” In 2012 , Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney each won five of the 10 counties in the Atlanta Regional Commission .
But in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 10 counties .
In 2018 , Abrams won those eight counties by larger margins than Clinton , and Biden then improved on Abrams ’ s margins in most of them .
For example , Romney carried Gwinnett — an Atlanta-area suburban county that is the second-largest county in the state — by 9 percentage points in 2012 .
But then Clinton won there by 6 points in 2016 , Abrams won by 14 points in 2018 , and this year , Ossoff won by 16 and Biden won by 18 .
Likewise , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suburban county , Romney won by 12 points in 2012 , but then Clinton carried it by 2 , Abrams by 10 , Ossoff by 11 and Biden by 14 .
( We ’ ll come back to Biden doing slightly better than Ossoff and what that might mean for the runoffs . )
Those are big gains in big counties .
And there are other indications that suburban Atlanta is trending blue .
Parts of Cobb County are in the district of Rep. Lucy McBath , who in 2018 flipped a U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for decades .
( She won reelection this year , too . )
Meanwhile , Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux flipped a U.S. House seat that includes parts of Gwinnett County , one of only a handful of seats that Democrats won control of this year .
Republican sheriff candidates in Cobb and Gwinnett counties were both defeated in this November ’ s election .
And Gwinnett ’ s five-person county commission is now made up of five Democrats , as its sole Republican member declined to run for reelection and a Democrat won her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suburbs in the coded way the political media often invokes them as a synonym for “ areas slightly outside of the city limits of major cities where lots of middle-class white people live.
” Gwinnett County is 35 percent non-Hispanic white , 30 percent Black , 22 percent Hispanic and 13 percent Asian .
Cobb County is 51 percent non-Hispanic white , 29 percent Black , 13 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian .
Democrats have also made gains in the more urban DeKalb and Fulton counties , which both include parts of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pretty Democratic leaning .
In Fulton , which is about 45 percent Black and Georgia ’ s most populous county , Obama won in 2012 by 30 points , Clinton by 41 , Abrams by 46 , Ossoff by 42 and Biden by 46 .
In DeKalb , which is 55 percent Black and the state ’ s fourth-largest county , Obama won by 57 points , Clinton by 63 , Abrams by 68 , Ossoff by 64 and Biden by 67 .
There is a third shift happening , too : Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservative-leaning , exurban parts of Atlanta .
In Cherokee County , Georgia ’ s seventh-largest county and one that is nearly 80 percent white , Obama lost by 58 points , Clinton by 49 , Abrams by 46 and Biden by 39 .
“ Exurbs are where a big chunk of the GOP base is .
And you can ’ t win Georgia [ as a Republican ] without running up the margins there , ” Atlanta Journal-Constitution political reporter Greg Bluestein told me .
We should emphasize , though , that there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be in describing these shifts .
Trump did better than in 2016 in some heavily Black Atlanta precincts ( while still losing them overwhelmingly ) , according to a New York Times analysis .
So it could be the case that many of Biden ’ s gains are among non-Black Atlanta-area voters , although it ’ s important to emphasize that many Black people in the Atlanta area live in racially mixed areas .
County and precinct analyses have some limitations , and more detailed research will help us nail down exact shifts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the story is clear : Biden won Georgia because he did really well in the Atlanta area , far better than Obama eight years ago and significantly better than Clinton , too .
Biden won about 65 percent of the two-party share of the votes in these 10 Atlanta-area counties , up from Clinton ’ s 59 percent in 2018 .
He also gained in the other 149 Georgia counties in Georgia , but it was smaller : Clinton received about 34 percent of the vote outside the Atlanta area , while Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ complicated question then is not how Georgia went from light red to blue , but why Democrats gained so much ground in the Atlanta area .
Here are four theories , ranked in order of importance in my view : That the Democrats flipped Cobb and Gwinnett counties with Trump on the ballot , gained ground in 2018 and then improved on their 2018 performance in 2020 suggests that anti-Trump sentiment is a pretty big factor here .
Abrams , Biden , Clinton and Ossoff are four very different political figures , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidates who ran in the cycle before , suggesting these gains aren ’ t really about the individual Democratic candidates .
Additionally , all four did better in the Atlanta area than Obama — and it ’ s hard to argue any of those four ( let alone all four ) are better politicians than Obama .
In fact , the anti-Trump theory hinges on two things : 1 ) Some people in the Atlanta area shifted from voting Republican to voting Democratic ; and 2 ) Some shifted from not voting at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But here ’ s why that might not be the whole story : Democrats didn ’ t just start making gains in the Atlanta area in 2016 … The Atlanta area is getting more liberal From the 2004 presidential election to the 2012 election , Democratic margins grew by double digits in nine of the 10 counties that make up the Atlanta metro area .
( Remember that Obama did much better than Kerry . )
So Atlanta was already getting more liberal before Trump was a major political figure .
What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of all , the share of people in the Atlanta area who are Asian , Black and/or Hispanic has increased dramatically in the last two decades , and those three groups tend to vote for Democratic candidates .
Take Gwinnett County .
It was 67 percent non-Hispanic white in 2000 ; it is now around 35 percent white .
Likewise , Cobb County was 72 percent white in 2000 , 62 percent in 2010 and is about 50 percent white now .
In part because of those changes in the Atlanta metro area @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Georgia that is white dropped from 68 percent in 2000 to 58 percent in 2018 , according to Pew Research Center .
That drop is the biggest decline in the percentage of white voters in all but eight other states .
“ Demographic change is likely a big part of the story , combined with higher participation from some of the faster-growing groups , ” said Tom Bonier , who runs a Democratic-leaning political data firm called TargetSmart .
Secondly , the Atlanta metro area is one of the fastest growing in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a pretty strong job market that is drawing people from other states .
So it ’ s likely that many of the 2016 and 2020 Atlanta-area Democratic voters either weren ’ t living in the area in 2012 or weren ’ t of voting age then ( e.g.
, the children of people who have moved to Atlanta in the past two decades ) .
In other words , these aren ’ t people shifting to the Democratic Party because of Trump — these are Democrats who just happened to show up in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Trump ’ s rise .
They probably would not have backed Republican presidential nominee Sen.Ted Cruz either .
“ Existing white voters [ in Georgia ] are being replaced by younger whites and out-of-state transplants who are more progressive , ” said Bernard Frega , a political scientist at Atlanta ’ s Emory University who studies voter turnout .
It ’ s hard to precisely quantify these voting shifts caused by demographic and population trends and really hard to determine if they would have happened in a world without Trump .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saying for years that the party could turn the state blue by courting recent transplants and the growing population of people of color … Abrams won 1.9 million votes in 2018 , almost double the 1.1 million votes of Georgia ’ s 2014 Democratic gubernatorial nominee .
Biden won almost 2.5 million votes , compared to Clinton ’ s 1.9 million .
There are probably lots of reasons for the increased number of Democratic voters — particularly anti-Trump sentiment and Georgia ’ s changing demographics .
Plus , Republican voter turnout in Georgia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Trump era has just boosted turnout among all groups .
All that said , it ’ s worth isolating the role of Abrams , because she has executed a specific , turnout-based strategy in Georgia for nearly a decade and has pushed for the Democratic Party to join her in implementing it .
In 2014 , Abrams , then a member of the Georgia House of Representatives , co-created a group called the New Georgia Project that focused on getting people of color in the state who haven ’ t previously participated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In 2017 and 2018 , Abrams ran for governor and diverted from the normal Southern Democrat strategy of centering a campaign on winning as many white swing voters as possible .
Abrams did try to win white swing voters , but also invested heavily in boosting turnout among voters of all races in the Atlanta area and among Black people in particular in the state ’ s more rural areas .
After her narrow defeat in the governor ’ s race , Abrams implored her party to invest in Georgia for the 2020 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Abrams ’ s top political adviser , Lauren Groh-Wargo , publicly released a 16-page memo dubbed “ The Abrams Playbook ” that laid out why Georgia was a prime pickup opportunity if Democrats concentrated on boosting turnout among people of color in the Atlanta area .
And by the end of the 2020 campaign , with polls suggesting Georgia was close , Democrats went all in on the state , as Abrams had been calling for .
The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA , which had been focused only on Arizona , Florida @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Wisconsin , expanded its operations to Georgia .
On the day before the election , Biden ’ s campaign sent one of its most important surrogates to the Atlanta area : Obama .
It is really hard to know how much Abrams ’ s efforts mattered .
Perhaps anti-Trump sentiment and more liberal people moving to the Atlanta were by far the most important factors in boosting Democratic turnout in Georgia .
But it ’ s hard to dismiss Abrams ’ s role — after all , Democrats won Georgia , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out .
Joe Biden may have had a unique appeal Biden did a bit better than both Ossoff and Abrams in the Atlanta area .
So it ’ s possible that Georgia shifted from very purple ( 2018 ) to just barely blue ( at least at the presidential level in 2020 ) because the former vice president is kind an ideal candidate for Georgia — popular with Black voters but also more of a draw for some moderate white voters than the 33-year-old Ossoff or a Black woman like Abrams .
On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between the 2020 presidential race and other recent contests could have been distaste for Trump .
Maybe Pete Buttigieg , Sen. Amy Klobuchar , Sen. Kamala Harris or any other person running against Trump would have also carried the state if he or she were the Democratic nominee .
What does this very blue Atlanta mean for future Georgia elections — not only for the Jan. 5 runoffs for the U.S. Senate seats , but also Abrams ’ s likely 2022 gubernatorial campaign and subsequent presidential elections ?
It ’ s hard to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lean in the Atlanta area that made Georgia really competitive for Democrats happened when Trump was the defining figure in American politics .
So it ’ s possible that , without Trump in the White House , Democrats will once again be stuck earning 46 to 48 percent of the vote in Georgia .
Take the U.S. Senate runoff elections .
Are there some voters there who didn ’ t back Trump but were comfortable with a more traditional Republican like Sen. David Perdue .
Does that hold true in the runoff ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state ’ s Senate special election .
The Democrats narrowly lost the popular vote there , so are there some Georgia voters who are willing to support Republicans like Rep. Doug Collins and Sen. Kelly Loeffler ( the leading Republicans in that race ) but not Trump ?
Remember , the Democrats are losing badly in most areas of Georgia outside of Atlanta — and the state is only competitive if the Atlanta area stays as blue as it has been during the Trump era .
If some Atlanta-area voters no longer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the GOP , do they go back to the GOP in the Senate runoffs and in subsequent elections ?
We don ’ t know the answer to this question now and may not for a few election cycles .
For now , it ’ s not clear if Georgia is a swing state , a state that swung once or something in between .

In 2008, Barack Obama won about 47 percent of the vote in Georgia, a huge improvement for the Democrats from four years earlier, when John Kerry received just 41 percent in the state. And with the Atlanta metro area booming in population, it seemed like a state that hadn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992 was about to turn blue — or at least purple. But it didn’t. Instead, Georgia was stuck in swing-state-in-waiting status. Obama dipped to 45 percent in 2012 — and Democrats seemed capped at exactly that number. The party’s candidates for U.S. Senate and governor in 2014 won 45 percent of the Georgia vote, as did Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Georgia Senate runoffs are in full swing | FiveThirtyEight
That is, until 2018, when Stacey Abrams broke through the 46 percent ceiling and hit 48.8 percent in her gubernatorial campaign. And this year, of course, Joe Biden won the state with 49.5 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, U.S. Senate candidate Jon Ossoff got 48.0 percent, and is now headed to a runoff election. Georgia’s special election for its other U.S. Senate seat is also headed to a runoff, with the combined total for the Democratic candidates at 48.4 percent.
[Related: Republicans Won Almost Every Election Where Redistricting Was At Stake]
So how did Georgia go from light red to blue — or at the very least, purple?
The answer is pretty simple: The Atlanta area turned really blue in the Trump era. Definitions differ about the exact parameters of the Atlanta metropolitan area, but 10 counties are part of a governing collaborative called the Atlanta Regional Commission. Almost 4.7 million people live in those 10 counties, or around 45 percent of the state’s population.
Until very recently, the Atlanta area wasn’t a liberal bastion. There was a Democratic bloc that long controlled the government within the city limits of Atlanta and a Republican bloc that once dominated the suburbs and whose rise was chronicled in historian Kevin Kruse’s 2005 book “White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism.”
In 2012, Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney each won five of the 10 counties in the Atlanta Regional Commission. But in 2016, Clinton won eight of the 10 counties. In 2018, Abrams won those eight counties by larger margins than Clinton, and Biden then improved on Abrams’s margins in most of them. For example, Romney carried Gwinnett — an Atlanta-area suburban county that is the second-largest county in the state — by 9 percentage points in 2012. But then Clinton won there by 6 points in 2016, Abrams won by 14 points in 2018, and this year, Ossoff won by 16 and Biden won by 18. Likewise, in Cobb County, another large Atlanta-area suburban county, Romney won by 12 points in 2012, but then Clinton carried it by 2, Abrams by 10, Ossoff by 11 and Biden by 14. (We’ll come back to Biden doing slightly better than Ossoff and what that might mean for the runoffs.)
Those are big gains in big counties. And there are other indications that suburban Atlanta is trending blue. Parts of Cobb County are in the district of Rep. Lucy McBath, who in 2018 flipped a U.S. House seat that the GOP had held for decades. (She won reelection this year, too.) Meanwhile, Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux flipped a U.S. House seat that includes parts of Gwinnett County, one of only a handful of seats that Democrats won control of this year. Republican sheriff candidates in Cobb and Gwinnett counties were both defeated in this November’s election. And Gwinnett’s five-person county commission is now made up of five Democrats, after Democrats flipped three seats on the commission this year.
Cobb and Gwinnett are not suburbs in the coded way the political media often invokes them as a synonym for “areas slightly outside of the city limits of major cities where lots of middle-class white people live.” Gwinnett County is 35 percent non-Hispanic white, 30 percent Black, 22 percent Hispanic and 13 percent Asian. Cobb County is 51 percent non-Hispanic white, 29 percent Black, 13 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian.
Democrats have also made gains in the more urban DeKalb and Fulton counties, which both include parts of the city of Atlanta and were already pretty Democratic leaning. In Fulton, which is about 45 percent Black and Georgia’s most populous county, Obama won in 2012 by 30 points, Clinton by 41, Abrams by 46, Ossoff by 42 and Biden by 46. In DeKalb, which is 55 percent Black and the state’s fourth-largest county, Obama won by 57 points, Clinton by 63, Abrams by 68, Ossoff by 64 and Biden by 67.
There is a third shift happening, too: Democrats are losing by less in the more conservative-leaning, exurban parts of Atlanta. In Cherokee County, Georgia’s seventh-largest county and one that is nearly 80 percent white, Obama lost by 58 points, Clinton by 49, Abrams by 46 and Biden by 39.
“Exurbs are where a big chunk of the GOP base is. And you can’t win Georgia [as a Republican] without running up the margins there,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution political reporter Greg Bluestein told me.
We should emphasize, though, that there are limits in how precise we can be in describing these shifts. Trump did better than in 2016 in some heavily Black Atlanta precincts (while still losing them overwhelmingly), according to a New York Times analysis. So it could be the case that many of Biden’s gains are among non-Black Atlanta-area voters, although it’s important to emphasize that many Black people in the Atlanta area live in racially mixed areas. County and precinct analyses have some limitations, and more detailed research will help us nail down exact shifts among demographic groups.
But overall, the story is clear: Biden won Georgia because he did really well in the Atlanta area, far better than Obama eight years ago and significantly better than Clinton, too. Biden won about 65 percent of the two-party share of the votes in these 10 Atlanta-area counties, up from Clinton’s 59 percent. He also gained in the other 149 Georgia counties in Georgia, but it was smaller: Clinton received about 34 percent of the vote outside the Atlanta area, while Biden received about 37 percent.
The more complicated question then is not how Georgia went from light red to blue, but why Democrats gained so much ground in the Atlanta area. Here are four theories, ranked in order of importance in my view:
Anti-Trump sentiment
That the Democrats flipped Cobb and Gwinnett counties with Trump on the ballot, gained ground in 2018 and then improved on their 2018 performance in 2020 suggests that anti-Trump sentiment is a pretty big factor here. Abrams, Biden, Clinton and Ossoff are four very different political figures, but all made gains relative to the Democratic candidates who ran in the cycle before, suggesting these gains aren’t really about the individual Democratic candidates. Additionally, all four did better in the Atlanta area than Obama — and it’s hard to argue any of those four (let alone all four) are better politicians than Obama.
In fact, the anti-Trump theory hinges on two things: 1) Some people in the Atlanta area shifted from voting Republican to voting Democratic; and 2) Some shifted from not voting at all to voting (for Democrats).
But here’s why that might not be the whole story: Democrats didn’t just start making gains in the Atlanta area in 2016 …
The Atlanta area is getting more liberal
From the 2004 presidential election to the 2012 election, Democratic margins grew by double digits in nine of the 10 counties that make up the Atlanta metro area. (Remember that Obama did much better than Kerry.) So Atlanta was already getting more liberal before Trump was a major political figure.
What might help explain that shift? First of all, the share of people in the Atlanta area who are Asian, Black and/or Hispanic has increased dramatically in the last two decades, and those three groups tend to vote for Democratic candidates.
Take Gwinnett County. It was 67 percent non-Hispanic white in 2000; it is now around 35 percent white. Likewise, Cobb County was 72 percent white in 2000, 62 percent in 2010 and is about 50 percent white now. In part because of those changes in the Atlanta metro area, the share of the voting-eligible population in Georgia that is white dropped from 68 percent in 2000 to 58 percent in 2018, according to Pew Research Center. That drop is the biggest decline in the percentage of white voters in all but eight other states.
“Demographic change is likely a big part of the story, combined with higher participation from some of the faster-growing groups,” said Tom Bonier, who runs a Democratic-leaning political data firm called TargetSmart.
[Related: Americans Became More Divided By Class In 2020]
Secondly, the Atlanta metro area is one of the fastest growing in the country. It’s got a pretty strong job market that is drawing people from other states. So it’s likely that many of the 2016 and 2020 Atlanta-area Democratic voters either weren’t living in the area in 2012 or weren’t of voting age then (e.g., the children of people who have moved to Atlanta in the past two decades). In other words, these aren’t people shifting to the Democratic Party because of Trump — these are Democrats who just happened to show up in Atlanta’s electorate at the time of Trump’s rise. They probably would not have backed Republican presidential nominee Sen.Ted Cruz either.
“Existing white voters [in Georgia] are being replaced by younger whites and out-of-state transplants who are more progressive,” said Bernard Fraga, a political scientist at Atlanta’s Emory University who studies voter turnout.
It’s hard to precisely quantify these voting shifts caused by demographic and population trends and really hard to determine if they would have happened in a world without Trump. But at least one Georgia Democrat has been saying for years that the party could turn the state blue by courting recent transplants and the growing population of people of color …
What divided the electorate in 2020 | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Stacey Abrams had a playbook for turning Georgia blue
Abrams won 1.9 million votes in 2018, almost double the 1.1 million votes of Georgia’s 2014 Democratic gubernatorial nominee. Biden won almost 2.5 million votes, compared to Clinton’s 1.9 million. There are probably lots of reasons for the increased number of Democratic voters — particularly anti-Trump sentiment and Georgia’s changing demographics. Plus, Republican voter turnout in Georgia also surged this cycle, so maybe the Trump era has just boosted turnout among all groups. All that said, it’s worth isolating the role of Abrams, because she has executed a specific, turnout-based strategy in Georgia for nearly a decade and has pushed for the Democratic Party to join her in implementing it.
In 2014, Abrams, then a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, co-created a group called the New Georgia Project that focused on getting people of color in the state who haven’t previously participated in the electoral process to vote. In 2017 and 2018, Abrams ran for governor and diverted from the normal Southern Democrat strategy of centering a campaign on winning as many white swing voters as possible. Abrams did try to win white swing voters, but also invested heavily in boosting turnout among voters of all races in the Atlanta area and among Black people in particular in the state’s more rural areas.
After her narrow defeat in the governor’s race, Abrams implored her party to invest in Georgia for the 2020 presidential election. In September 2019, Abrams’s top political adviser, Lauren Groh-Wargo, publicly released a 16-page memo dubbed “The Abrams Playbook” that laid out why Georgia was a prime pickup opportunity if Democrats concentrated on boosting turnout among people of color in the Atlanta area.
And by the end of the 2020 campaign, with polls suggesting Georgia was close, Democrats went all in on the state, as Abrams had been calling for. The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA, which had been focused only on Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, expanded its operations to Georgia. On the day before the election, Biden’s campaign sent one of its most important surrogates to the Atlanta area: Obama.
It is really hard to know how much Abrams’s efforts mattered. Perhaps anti-Trump sentiment and more liberal people moving to the Atlanta were by far the most important factors in boosting Democratic turnout in Georgia. But it’s hard to dismiss Abrams’s role — after all, Democrats won Georgia, and pretty much exactly the way she laid out.
Joe Biden may have had a unique appeal
Biden did a bit better than both Ossoff and Abrams in the Atlanta area. So it’s possible that Georgia shifted from very purple (2018) to just barely blue (at least at the presidential level in 2020) because the former vice president is kind an ideal candidate for Georgia — popular with Black voters but also more of a draw for some moderate white voters than the 33-year-old Ossoff or a Black woman like Abrams.
On the other hand, the distinguishing factor between the 2020 presidential race and other recent contests could have been distaste for Trump. Maybe Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Kamala Harris or any other person running against Trump would have also carried the state if he or she were the Democratic nominee.
What does this very blue Atlanta mean for future Georgia elections — not only for the Jan. 5 runoffs for the U.S. Senate seats, but also Abrams’s likely 2022 gubernatorial campaign and subsequent presidential elections?
It’s hard to answer this question, because the Democratic lean in the Atlanta area that made Georgia really competitive for Democrats happened when Trump was the defining figure in American politics. So it’s possible that, without Trump in the White House, Democrats will once again be stuck earning 46 to 48 percent of the vote in Georgia. Take the U.S. Senate runoff elections.
Are there some voters there who didn’t back Trump but were comfortable with a more traditional Republican like Sen. David Perdue. Does that hold true in the runoff? It’s the same question in the state’s Senate special election. The Democrats narrowly lost the popular vote there, so are there some Georgia voters who are willing to support Republicans like Rep. Doug Collins and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (the leading Republicans in that race) but not Trump?
Remember, the Democrats are losing badly in most areas of Georgia outside of Atlanta — and the state is only competitive if the Atlanta area stays as blue as it has been during the Trump era. If some Atlanta-area voters no longer view Trump as the defining figure of the GOP, do they go back to the GOP in the Senate runoffs and in subsequent elections?
We don’t know the answer to this question now and may not for a few election cycles. For now, it’s not clear if Georgia is a swing state, a state that swung once or something in between.
CORRECTION (Nov. 19, 2020, 10:40 a.m.): A previous version of this article incorrectly described the 2020 election results for the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners, stating that only one Republican had been on the board and one seat had flipped. In fact, Democrats flipped three seats on the five-person board in 2020, leaving it with five Democrats and no Republicans.


fivethirtyeight--2020-11-19--The Cabinet Appointments That Really Matter In The Incoming Biden Administration

Presidential transitions result in a lot of very inside-the-Beltway stories — an endless stream of leaks and counterleaks that are mainly about some of the world ’ s most ambitious people jockeying for jobs .
Oy .
But the transition itself is still an important story .
Who staffs the government matters , and it matters even more when the nation is in its ninth month of struggling to deal with a pandemic .
And sometimes the results of all that jockeying are crucial .
Imagine how history might have unfolded if President Barack Obama had not tapped Hillary Clinton @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if President Trump had chosen Mitt Romney , who he courted but ultimately rejected for the role of top diplomat and who four years later became the only GOP senator to support Trump ’ s removal from office ?
Some slots are already filled , with Biden naming a senior team of White House advisers that includes his longtime aide Ron Klain as chief of staff , his campaign manager , Jennifer O ’ Malley Dillon , as a deputy chief of staff , and Rep. Cedric Richmond , one of Biden ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as a senior adviser .
But there are a lot of jobs still to be filled ( around 4,000 ) .
So here ’ s FiveThirtyEight ’ s guide to the transition process : Many of the rumors about who will get what job won ’ t turn out to be true — and sometimes that misdirection is intentional .
The transition process is a perfect opportunity for : • Reporters to flatter sources by suggesting those sources should be considered for major jobs .
• Team Biden to float someone ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
• A person who wants to be considered for a key job to float his or her own name .
• Other constituencies in the Democratic Party to push their preferred choices .
Many of the stories about who will get various jobs in the administration are full of unnamed sources .
And those stories often say Biden is “ considering ” someone , but we have no idea how serious that consideration really is .
For example , Sen. Elizabeth Warren is fairly unlikely to be chosen as Biden ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the job , at least according to “ three Democratic officials who have spoken with her inner circle , ” per Politico .
But Warren probably knows why she ’ s unlikely to get the appointment : The party ’ s centrist wing doesn ’ t want her running the department and Republicans might block her during the confirmation process .
Instead , her public candidacy might really be an attempt to make sure Biden picks someone fairly liberal to run the department — or at least someone not too centrist .
Remember @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decision-maker in the administration — so don ’ t focus too much on who gets other senior jobs .
There is a certain logic to the idea that if Biden appoints a person whose views are similar to Warren to a key job , that person will implement lots of liberal policies in that job , and a less-liberal person would implement more moderate policies .
But that isn ’ t really how a presidential administration usually works .
On any really big policy matter ( like who to nominate for an open @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden is likely to make the final decision .
Cabinet secretaries or lower-level officials at agencies can make policy , but only if it ’ s in line with what the president already thinks or if it ’ s not a big issue he needs to weigh in on .
Additionally , top White House aides can stall agencies ’ moves if they disagree with them , again meaning the president is the one who makes the final call .
And , of course , if a Cabinet secretary , White House aide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president too often , he or she will be sent packing .
The Trump administration showed why we shouldn ’ t put too much stock in what team of advisers a president initially chooses .
In his 2016 campaign , Trump took stands that weren ’ t traditional for a Republican presidential candidate — he seemed wary of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan , he was skeptical of NATO , and he was eager to ease tensions between the U.S. and Russia .
But during his presidential transition , Trump put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ GOP views into key national security roles , most notably James Mattis as the defense secretary .
Trump , of course , ended up feuding with this early set of advisers and eventually replaced them with people who would hew to his vision .
But keep a careful eye on the appointees , particularly those in jobs below chief of staff and Cabinet secretaries .
Of course , even with the president making the final call , White House staffers and agencies ’ political appointees can make a big difference , particularly if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t going to appear on the homepage or front page of The New York Times every day .
The best example of this might be Trump domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller , who has masterminded a slew of changes that made it harder to immigrate to the United States .
Trump , of course , agrees with Miller ’ s broad goals , but it ’ s not clear that he would have implemented all of these policies if Miller were not in the administration .
On Team Biden , Richmond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the White House ’ s outreach arm to make himself the administration ’ s de facto point person on Black issues , which might be both a major portfolio but also not so high-profile that Biden would interject and make all the big decisions .
Appointments can signal a president ’ s inclinations .
Take another progressive Democrat whose name has been floated for a Cabinet position : Sen. Bernie Sanders as Biden ’ s secretary of labor .
If Biden were to choose Sanders , that could be a signal that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vermont senator freely implement Democratic socialist policies through that department .
But I don ’ t think that ’ s how we should think of such an appointment .
Rather , it would likely be a signal that Biden plans to take fairly liberal stances on labor issues anyway , so he ’ s comfortable having a left-wing figure like Sanders implement that agenda .
For example , in the 2008 transition process , Obama ’ s selection of Wall Street-friendly people like Tim Geithner ( as Treasury secretary ) and Larry Summers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) to key posts foreshadowed that the administration would not be as populist as some liberals wanted .
Appointments can also be more about placating various blocs within the party than policy .
An incoming president who has just won an election usually tries to reward the people and groups who helped him get there .
These constituency dynamics partly explain who ’ s being touted by the media as potential Biden appointees : former Ohio .
Gov John Kasich and former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman ( anti-Trump Republicans ) ; Warren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ undersecretary of defense Michèle Flournoy and former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen ( women ) ; Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra ( Latinos ) .
But an appointee who is picked mainly for political reasons may not have much sway in his or her role .
Let ’ s revisit the idea of Sanders becoming Biden ’ s Labor secretary .
It ’ s possible that Biden doesn ’ t want to implement liberal policies through the Labor department , but that he would nonetheless pick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and then basically ignore the senator ’ s ideas once he is in the job .
A good example of this dynamic in a previous administration was Trump picking South Carolina ’ s then-governor , Nikki Haley , as the ambassador to the United Nations at the start of his first term .
Haley had little foreign policy experience coming into the role — and it wasn ’ t clear that she exerted much influence on Trump ’ s agenda in her nearly two years in the administration .
But choosing Haley was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( she is Indian American ) , women and establishment Republicans ( at that point she was aligned with that wing of the GOP ) .
Expect Biden to choose people who aren ’ t considered really liberal or really centrist .
Biden has always tried to be in the center of the Democratic Party — so it ’ s likely his administration will reflect that approach .
Take his pick of Klain as his chief of staff .
Yes , Klain was a top adviser to more center-left Democrats like Biden , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ figures like Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also like him .
So expect Biden to make more picks like Klain and not many picks like Warren as treasury secretary .
Maybe former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel can get a fairly low-profile job like transportation secretary , but there is probably too much opposition from the party ’ s left for Biden to put him in a more prominent role .
Additionally , because Biden is likely to staff his administration with people who unify rather than divide the party , I doubt there will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intensely with each other the way high-ranking aides did in the early stages of the Trump administration .
The biggest unknown might be how Biden deals with the Senate .
It ’ s unlikely Biden will wait until the Jan. 5 runoffs in Georgia to name his picks for the Cabinet and other top posts in federal agencies that require Senate confirmation .
Waiting that long would mean that those picks probably wouldn ’ t be ready to start soon after Biden takes office on Jan. 20 .
So the incoming president has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ choose whomever he thinks is appropriate for a given job and dare Republicans to block that person , if the GOP has a majority after the Georgia races .
Second , he can try to choose nominees who he thinks Sen. Mitch McConnell will allow to come up for votes ( assuming McConnell remains majority leader ) and who can get the support of at least two Republican senators .
( The GOP will have at most 52 votes , so a 50-50 split would allow Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a third option , too : Biden can use federal laws and procedures to make the people he wants “ acting ” secretaries without Senate confirmation , as Trump has done .
How much Republicans would try to block Biden ’ s picks is a wild card ; in the Obama and Trump transitions , the president ’ s party controlled the Senate , so we haven ’ t seen an opposition-controlled Senate voting on a new president ’ s appointees recently .
It will be interesting to see if Biden avoids nominating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if those nominees are viewed as too liberal ( like perhaps Sanders and Warren ) or have frosty relationships with the GOP ( say , former National Security Adviser Susan Rice , who some Republicans dislike from her days in the Obama administration ) .
Also , with such tight margins in the Senate , Biden may be wary of nominating Senate members from states where a Republican governor could appoint their replacement ( Warren ) or where Democrats might have a hard time holding onto a seat in a special election ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Of course , it ’ s also possible that this presidential transition may not follow these general parameters .
With COVID-19 , a president who won ’ t concede or participate in the transition , a GOP that ’ s increasingly willing to break with democratic norms and values and control of the Senate still hanging in the balance because of the runoffs in Georgia , there are also a lot of unknowns .
But ultimately , I suspect Biden will run his transition in a fairly traditional manner .
After all , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been done in Washington and , as we saw during the campaign , part of the reason he ran in the first place is that he wants to restore some of that normalcy .

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

Presidential transitions result in a lot of very inside-the-Beltway stories — an endless stream of leaks and counterleaks that are mainly about some of the world’s most ambitious people jockeying for jobs. Oy. But the transition itself is still an important story.
Who staffs the government matters, and it matters even more when the nation is in its ninth month of struggling to deal with a pandemic. And sometimes the results of all that jockeying are crucial. Imagine how history might have unfolded if President Barack Obama had not tapped Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state — or if President Trump had chosen Mitt Romney, who he courted but ultimately rejected for the role of top diplomat and who four years later became the only GOP senator to support Trump’s removal from office?
What divided the electorate in 2020 | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Some slots are already filled, with Biden naming a senior team of White House advisers that includes his longtime aide Ron Klain as chief of staff, his campaign manager, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, as a deputy chief of staff, and Rep. Cedric Richmond, one of Biden’s prominent Black supporters during the campaign, as a senior adviser.
[What Trump’s Refusal To Concede Says About American Democracy]
But there are a lot of jobs still to be filled (around 4,000). So here’s FiveThirtyEight’s guide to the transition process:
Many of the rumors about who will get what job won’t turn out to be true — and sometimes that misdirection is intentional. The transition process is a perfect opportunity for:
Reporters to flatter sources by suggesting those sources should be considered for major jobs. Team Biden to float someone’s name to flatter him or her. A person who wants to be considered for a key job to float his or her own name. Other constituencies in the Democratic Party to push their preferred choices.
Many of the stories about who will get various jobs in the administration are full of unnamed sources. And those stories often say Biden is “considering” someone, but we have no idea how serious that consideration really is.
For example, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is fairly unlikely to be chosen as Biden’s Treasury secretary, even though she wants the job, at least according to “three Democratic officials who have spoken with her inner circle,” per Politico. But Warren probably knows why she’s unlikely to get the appointment: The party’s centrist wing doesn’t want her running the department and Republicans might block her during the confirmation process. Instead, her public candidacy might really be an attempt to make sure Biden picks someone fairly liberal to run the department — or at least someone not too centrist.
Remember, the president will be the ultimate decision-maker in the administration — so don’t focus too much on who gets other senior jobs. There is a certain logic to the idea that if Biden appoints a person whose views are similar to Warren to a key job, that person will implement lots of liberal policies in that job, and a less-liberal person would implement more moderate policies. But that isn’t really how a presidential administration usually works.
On any really big policy matter (like who to nominate for an open seat on the Supreme Court), Biden is likely to make the final decision. Cabinet secretaries or lower-level officials at agencies can make policy, but only if it’s in line with what the president already thinks or if it’s not a big issue he needs to weigh in on. Additionally, top White House aides can stall agencies’ moves if they disagree with them, again meaning the president is the one who makes the final call. And, of course, if a Cabinet secretary, White House aide or other political appointee disagrees with the president too often, he or she will be sent packing.
The Trump administration showed why we shouldn’t put too much stock in what team of advisers a president initially chooses. In his 2016 campaign, Trump took stands that weren’t traditional for a Republican presidential candidate — he seemed wary of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, he was skeptical of NATO, and he was eager to ease tensions between the U.S. and Russia. But during his presidential transition, Trump put a bunch of people with more establishment GOP views into key national security roles, most notably James Mattis as the defense secretary. Trump, of course, ended up feuding with this early set of advisers and eventually replaced them with people who would hew to his vision.
Polls were off for the 2020 election, but not by much | FiveThirtyEight
But keep a careful eye on the appointees, particularly those in jobs below chief of staff and Cabinet secretaries. Of course, even with the president making the final call, White House staffers and agencies’ political appointees can make a big difference, particularly if they are working on an issue that isn’t going to appear on the homepage or front page of The New York Times every day.
The best example of this might be Trump domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller, who has masterminded a slew of changes that made it harder to immigrate to the United States. Trump, of course, agrees with Miller’s broad goals, but it’s not clear that he would have implemented all of these policies if Miller were not in the administration.
On Team Biden, Richmond could use his role as the director of the White House’s outreach arm to make himself the administration’s de facto point person on Black issues, which might be both a major portfolio but also not so high-profile that Biden would interject and make all the big decisions.
Appointments can signal a president’s inclinations. Take another progressive Democrat whose name has been floated for a Cabinet position: Sen. Bernie Sanders as Biden’s secretary of labor. If Biden were to choose Sanders, that could be a signal that the former vice president will let the Vermont senator freely implement Democratic socialist policies through that department. But I don’t think that’s how we should think of such an appointment. Rather, it would likely be a signal that Biden plans to take fairly liberal stances on labor issues anyway, so he’s comfortable having a left-wing figure like Sanders implement that agenda.
For example, in the 2008 transition process, Obama’s selection of Wall Street-friendly people like Tim Geithner (as Treasury secretary) and Larry Summers (as top White House economic adviser) to key posts foreshadowed that the administration would not be as populist as some liberals wanted.
Appointments can also be more about placating various blocs within the party than policy. An incoming president who has just won an election usually tries to reward the people and groups who helped him get there. These constituency dynamics partly explain who’s being touted by the media as potential Biden appointees: former Ohio. Gov John Kasich and former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman (anti-Trump Republicans); Warren and Sanders (progressives); former undersecretary of defense Michèle Flournoy and former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen (women); Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (Latinos).
But an appointee who is picked mainly for political reasons may not have much sway in his or her role. Let’s revisit the idea of Sanders becoming Biden’s Labor secretary. It’s possible that Biden doesn’t want to implement liberal policies through the Labor department, but that he would nonetheless pick Sanders to placate progressives during the transition and then basically ignore the senator’s ideas once he is in the job.
A good example of this dynamic in a previous administration was Trump picking South Carolina’s then-governor, Nikki Haley, as the ambassador to the United Nations at the start of his first term. Haley had little foreign policy experience coming into the role — and it wasn’t clear that she exerted much influence on Trump’s agenda in her nearly two years in the administration. But choosing Haley was an important nod to voters of color (she is Indian American), women and establishment Republicans (at that point she was aligned with that wing of the GOP).
Expect Biden to choose people who aren’t considered really liberal or really centrist. Biden has always tried to be in the center of the Democratic Party — so it’s likely his administration will reflect that approach. Take his pick of Klain as his chief of staff. Yes, Klain was a top adviser to more center-left Democrats like Biden, Clinton and Obama, but more left-wing figures like Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also like him. So expect Biden to make more picks like Klain and not many picks like Warren as treasury secretary. Maybe former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel can get a fairly low-profile job like transportation secretary, but there is probably too much opposition from the party’s left for Biden to put him in a more prominent role.
Additionally, because Biden is likely to staff his administration with people who unify rather than divide the party, I doubt there will be factions of the Biden administration fighting intensely with each other the way high-ranking aides did in the early stages of the Trump administration.
The biggest unknown might be how Biden deals with the Senate. It’s unlikely Biden will wait until the Jan. 5 runoffs in Georgia to name his picks for the Cabinet and other top posts in federal agencies that require Senate confirmation. Waiting that long would mean that those picks probably wouldn’t be ready to start soon after Biden takes office on Jan. 20.
So the incoming president has three choices: First, he can choose whomever he thinks is appropriate for a given job and dare Republicans to block that person, if the GOP has a majority after the Georgia races. Second, he can try to choose nominees who he thinks Sen. Mitch McConnell will allow to come up for votes (assuming McConnell remains majority leader) and who can get the support of at least two Republican senators. (The GOP will have at most 52 votes, so a 50-50 split would allow Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tie-breaking vote.) But there is a third option, too: Biden can use federal laws and procedures to make the people he wants “acting” secretaries without Senate confirmation, as Trump has done.
[Related: How Georgia Turned Blue]
How much Republicans would try to block Biden’s picks is a wild card; in the Obama and Trump transitions, the president’s party controlled the Senate, so we haven’t seen an opposition-controlled Senate voting on a new president’s appointees recently. It will be interesting to see if Biden avoids nominating people to jobs that require Senate confirmation if those nominees are viewed as too liberal (like perhaps Sanders and Warren) or have frosty relationships with the GOP (say, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who some Republicans dislike from her days in the Obama administration). Also, with such tight margins in the Senate, Biden may be wary of nominating Senate members from states where a Republican governor could appoint their replacement (Warren) or where Democrats might have a hard time holding onto a seat in a special election (Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar).
Of course, it’s also possible that this presidential transition may not follow these general parameters. With COVID-19, a president who won’t concede or participate in the transition, a GOP that’s increasingly willing to break with democratic norms and values and control of the Senate still hanging in the balance because of the runoffs in Georgia, there are also a lot of unknowns.
But ultimately, I suspect Biden will run his transition in a fairly traditional manner. After all, Biden is deeply familiar with how things have been done in Washington and, as we saw during the campaign, part of the reason he ran in the first place is that he wants to restore some of that normalcy.


fivethirtyeight--2020-11-20--More Republicans Distrust This Year’s Election Results Than Democrats After 2016

President Trump ’ s refusal to accept the outcome of the election has sown distrust in the election , especially among Republicans .
According to a new Monmouth University poll , about three in four Republicans now doubt the fairness of the 2020 presidential election , even though there is no evidence that the electoral process was compromised in a way that could affect the outcome .
And as you can see in the chart below , distrust among Republicans has skyrocketed since Election Day .
Monmouth isn ’ t the only pollster to find very high levels of distrust @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poll this week found that 73 percent of Republicans had little or no confidence that the election was conducted fairly and a Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 67 percent of Republicans thought that the 2020 election was either “ probably ” or “ definitely ” not free and fair .
It ’ s important to stress that all three pollsters did find that a majority of Americans accepted the results — roughly 6 in 10 — but what is worrisome is that only about 4 in 10 said they were very confident that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This is troubling , because as my colleague Perry Bacon , Jr. wrote earlier this week on Trump ’ s refusal to concede , there are now very real questions about American democracy and whether it will remain intact .
This , of course , isn ’ t the first time Trump has tried to sow doubt in the democratic process .
Before and after the 2016 election , Trump falsely claimed that millions of undocumented immigrants were going to vote in the election , or that “ people that have died @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” even though there was never any evidence that these claims were true .
And , as was the case ahead of the 2016 election , Republicans once again were more likely than Democrats to believe these fraudulent claims as they went to the polls .
The key difference between now and 2016 , though , is that after the election , a majority of Republicans are still unwilling to accept the result .
That wasn ’ t true of Democrats in 2016 .
Lest we think that Republicans are the only ones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ electoral process colored by the outcome , polling shows that some Democrats did lose confidence in the election after Trump won in 2016 .
Nevertheless , a majority of Democrats ( as well as Republicans and independents ) believed that votes were counted accurately after the election was over .
So the finding in this latest round of polls , that roughly three in four Republicans don ’ t have faith in the electoral process , is a big departure from what public opinion polls found after the last election .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for American democracy — Biden ’ s claim to the presidency doesn ’ t seem to be in real jeopardy — but these first few post-election polls lay bare the consequences to sowing disinformation in America ’ s electoral process .
• The presidential election might be over , but polls for Georgia ’ s two U.S. Senate runoff elections — which are scheduled for Jan. 5 and will decide which party controls the chamber — have already started to trickle in .
Since Election Day , we have gotten two polls , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from InsiderAdvantage , that show the races could be close .
The polls , both from right-leaning pollsters , show that the special election between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Kelly Loeffler could be a toss-up , with the candidates virtually tied .
A third poll of just the special election runoff , which was sponsored by a Republican PAC , shows Loeffler slightly ahead .
In the other race , the Remington poll shows incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue leading his opponent , Jon Ossoff ; the InsiderAdvantage poll shows that race @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first of many more polls to come , so be sure to keep an eye on our database of polls between now and January for a more rounded look at the polling .
• 58 percent of Americans said they would get a COVID-19 vaccine if an FDA-approved vaccine was available right now , according to a Gallup poll conducted in late October .
Willingness to get vaccinated had dipped in September due , in part , to a sharp drop in support among Democrats , but now the share of Democrats willing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while the share of Republicans and independents willing to get vaccinated has stayed constant .
• A HarrisX poll released on Tuesday found that 77 percent of Americans thought that Congress should pass a coronavirus relief package as soon as possible , while 23 percent said one is not needed because the economy is bouncing back on its own .
This includes a majority of Republicans ( 64 percent ) and Democrats ( 89 percent ) .
• A SurveyMonkey poll conducted earlier this month found that 37 percent of Americans planned to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outside their household .
And according to a survey from The Ohio State University ’ s Wexner Medical Center , while a majority of Americans do plan to follow precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as they celebrate the holidays , not everyone seems keen on following the CDC ’ s guidelines : 38 percent said they will likely attend a gathering with more than 10 people .
Another third said they will not ask their guests to wear masks , and 27 percent said they ’ re unlikely to follow social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and after dinner .
• Romanians go to the polls on Dec. 6 to elect a new parliament .
And polls show that the Social Democratic Party , a populist left of center party that swept the country ’ s 2016 elections with 46 percent of the vote and won more seats than any other party , is slated to lose seats this year .
The party , which initially ruled as part of a coalition government but lost control after a no-confidence vote amid corruption scandals and protests , was replaced by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Liberal Party .
According to Politico ’ s average of polls , the National Liberal Party , which received only 20 percent of the vote in 2016 , leads with 32 percent of the vote , followed by the Social Democratic Party at 27 percent .
Several other parties trail in the polls with 15 percent of the vote or less .
According to FiveThirtyEight ’ s presidential approval tracker , 44.3 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president , while 52.4 percent disapprove ( a net @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At this time last week , 44.6 percent approved and 52.3 percent disapproved ( for a net approval rating of -7.7 points ) .
One month ago , Trump had an approval rating of 42.7 percent and a disapproval rating of 54.1 percent , for a net approval rating of -11.3 points .

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the week
President Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of the election has sown distrust in the election, especially among Republicans.
According to a new Monmouth University poll, about three in four Republicans now doubt the fairness of the 2020 presidential election, even though there is no evidence that the electoral process was compromised in a way that could affect the outcome. And as you can see in the chart below, distrust among Republicans has skyrocketed since Election Day.
Monmouth isn’t the only pollster to find very high levels of distrust among Republicans, either. A YouGov/Economist poll this week found that 73 percent of Republicans had little or no confidence that the election was conducted fairly and a Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 67 percent of Republicans thought that the 2020 election was either “probably” or “definitely” not free and fair.
What divided the electorate in 2020 | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
It’s important to stress that all three pollsters did find that a majority of Americans accepted the results — roughly 6 in 10 — but what is worrisome is that only about 4 in 10 said they were very confident that the election was conducted fairly and accurately.
This is troubling, because as my colleague Perry Bacon, Jr. wrote earlier this week on Trump’s refusal to concede, there are now very real questions about American democracy and whether it will remain intact.
[What Trump’s Refusal To Concede Says About American Democracy]
This, of course, isn’t the first time Trump has tried to sow doubt in the democratic process. Before and after the 2016 election, Trump falsely claimed that millions of undocumented immigrants were going to vote in the election, or that “people that have died 10 years ago are still voting,” even though there was never any evidence that these claims were true. And, as was the case ahead of the 2016 election, Republicans once again were more likely than Democrats to believe these fraudulent claims as they went to the polls.
The key difference between now and 2016, though, is that after the election, a majority of Republicans are still unwilling to accept the result. That wasn’t true of Democrats in 2016.
In 2016, both parties trusted the election results Share of voters who were confident that votes across the country would be or were counted accurately, before and after the 2016 election Pre-election (10/15/16) Post-Election (1/28/17) Population confident not confident confident not confident Diff. All 66% 30 67% 26 +1 Democrats 84 14 65 28 -19 Independents 53 37 61 28 +8 Republicans 56 41 73 22 +17 Source: Morning Consult
Lest we think that Republicans are the only ones susceptible to having their view of the electoral process colored by the outcome, polling shows that some Democrats did lose confidence in the election after Trump won in 2016. Nevertheless, a majority of Democrats (as well as Republicans and independents) believed that votes were counted accurately after the election was over. So the finding in this latest round of polls, that roughly three in four Republicans don’t have faith in the electoral process, is a big departure from what public opinion polls found after the last election.
[What Blue And Red ‘Shifts’ Looked Like In Every State]
It’s hard to know what this means for American democracy — Biden’s claim to the presidency doesn’t seem to be in real jeopardy — but these first few post-election polls lay bare the consequences to sowing disinformation in America’s electoral process.
Other polling bites
Trump approval
According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 44.3 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 52.4 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -8.1 points). At this time last week, 44.6 percent approved and 52.3 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -7.7 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 42.7 percent and a disapproval rating of 54.1 percent, for a net approval rating of -11.3 points.
Will Georgia stay blue? | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast


fivethirtyeight--2020-11-19--How Durable Is Georgia’s Blue Shift? We’ll Find Out In January.

In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , Galen Druke speaks with FiveThirtyEight senior writer Perry Bacon Jr. and @ @ @ @ @ Journal-Constitution to understand the trends that turned Georgia blue and just how durable they are @

In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Galen Druke speaks with FiveThirtyEight senior writer Perry Bacon Jr. and Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to understand the trends that turned Georgia blue and just how durable they are.
[Related: How Georgia Turned Blue]


fivethirtyeight--2020-11-19--Politics Podcast: Will Georgia Stay Blue?

If 2016 showed that Republicans could win in the upper Midwest , 2020 has shown that Democrats can win in @ @ @ @ @ Joe Biden claimed Arizona for Democrats for the first time since 1996 and Georgia for @ @ @ @ @ .
In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , we focus on the latter @ @ @ @ @ Galen Druke speaks with FiveThirtyEight ’ s Perry Bacon Jr. and Greg Bluestein of the @ @ @ @ @ trends that flipped Georgia blue and how durable they are .
You can listen to @ @ @ @ @ “ play ” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes @ @ @ @ @ your favorite podcast platform .
If you are new to podcasts , learn how to @ @ @ @ @ podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays .
Help new listeners discover the show by leaving @ @ @ @ @ on iTunes .
Have a comment , question or suggestion for “ good polling vs. @ @ @ @ @ in touch by email , on Twitter or in the comments .

If 2016 showed that Republicans could win in the upper Midwest, 2020 has shown that Democrats can win in the Sun Belt. President-elect Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Arizona since 1996 and the first to win Georgia since 1992. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, we focus on Georgia. Galen Druke speaks with FiveThirtyEight’s Perry Bacon Jr. and Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the trends that turned the state blue and whether they might last.
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--2020-11-23--What We Know About How White and Latino Americans Voted In 2020

As results rolled in from Florida on election night , one thing became clear almost immediately : Joe Biden was underperforming in Miami-Dade County , home to most of Florida ’ s Cuban community .
Later in the evening , a similar story emerged from a handful of heavily Mexican American counties along Texas ’ s southern border .
Biden ultimately won most of these counties in both Florida and Texas , but by much slimmer margins than Hillary Clinton had four years earlier .
However , he did end up bringing Arizona — another state with many Latino voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first time in a presidential election since 1996 .
At the same time — although the eventual results were not at all apparent on election night — Biden won three traditionally blue states that Clinton had lost in 2016 , Michigan , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin , in part by improving on her performance among white voters with a four-year college degree .
Of course , the story of why Biden won back the “ blue wall ” but didn ’ t win Florida or Texas is much more complex than his gains among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his misses with some Latino voters .
As we ’ ve written before , no one group “ swings ” an election .
Nevertheless , it ’ s worth unpacking how these two demographic groups voted in 2020 , as they underscore larger geographical and educational divides in our country .
For one thing , the political gap between rural and urban America appears to have been even more pronounced this year than it was in 2016 , which may explain some of Trump ’ s success among Latino voters .
Education was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ especially among white voters , with white voters with a college degree moving toward Biden while white voters without a college degree remained largely in Trump ’ s column .
This is just the beginning of our analysis of how Americans voted in 2020 — over the coming weeks and months , we ’ ll have more deep dives into various corners of the American electorate as more data becomes available .
In this story , we ’ re zooming in on county-level results in a handful of key swing states to help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parts of the country helped — and hurt — the two major candidates .
So let ’ s start with what we know about the voting patterns in heavily Latino counties in Arizona , Florida and Texas , and what that tells us about the country ’ s urban , suburban and rural divide .
What Latino voters tell us about America ’ s urban-rural divide In the lead-up to the election , there were plenty of signs that Biden ’ s support among Latino voters in key swing states might be weaker @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but some of the shifts wound up being very large .
In Florida ’ s Miami-Dade County , for instance , which is 68 percent Hispanic , Trump narrowed his deficit by 22 percentage points between 2016 and 2020 ; in Texas ’ s Starr County , which is 99 percent Hispanic , Trump improved by a stunning 55 percentage points .
However , as the chart below shows , Trump ’ s gains among Latino voters were hardly universal .
In fact , the places where Trump appears to have gained the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or among more conservative Latino voters like Cuban Americans .
In suburban and urban areas , the story was much more mixed .
( And , to be clear , Biden still won the overwhelming majority of Latino votes . )
One important factor to keep in mind here — which is partially why some of these shifts toward Trump seem so pronounced — is that Trump did really poorly with Latino voters in 2016 .
According to pre-election surveys , he won just 18 percent of Latino voters in 2016 but 27 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the territory of other recent Republican presidential nominees .
Additionally , part of what we ’ re seeing here isn ’ t necessarily something unique to Latino voters at all , but an extension of America ’ s growing urban-rural divide .
As Bernard Fraga , a political science professor at Emory University who studies racial and ethnic politics , told us , “ Biden was never expected to make gains in rural populations and he didn ’ t really try .
… So if Trump is the candidate that people in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s going to work with Latinos just like it works with other groups.
” One notable exception to this is Miami-Dade , which is a largely urban area .
But Sergio Garcia-Rios , a professor of political science at Cornell University who studies Latino identity , pointed out that Trump may have helped improve his standing among Latinos there by recognizing their diversity and focusing on a few groups where he had the potential to make inroads — like Cubans in South Florida .
The Trump campaign made outreach to Cuban voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s tough record on Cuba while also drumming up the ( inaccurate ) idea that Biden was a “ Trojan horse ” bringing socialism to the U.S.
It ’ s a message designed especially for voters who trace their roots to Cuba and other countries with histories of socialist dictatorships .
And that tack seemed to pay off , especially in Miami-Dade County , where more than half of the Hispanic population is of Cuban origin .
Trump still lost the county , but this time just by 7 points after losing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He made substantial gains across the whole county , but especially in areas heavily populated by Cuban Americans .
Notably , though , Trump didn ’ t make quite as dramatic inroads in Osceola County , Florida — part of the Orlando metro area — which is heavily Puerto Rican , though he still gained there , losing it by 14 points compared to 25 points in 2016 .
Dario Moreno , a politics professor at Florida International University , told us that Trump ’ s improved margin there may have been due @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wave of COVID-19 restrictions on businesses would hurt an area heavily dependent on tourism .
In fact , in an election where the focus was more on COVID-19 and the economy , it ’ s not that surprising that Trump returned to a similar level of support among Latinos as other recent Republican presidential candidates , according to Garcia-Rios , as concern about jobs and business lockdowns in particular may have nudged some conservative voters toward Trump .
“ We might … disagree about whether Trump ’ s economy has really helped minorities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that for their jobs , for their families , Trump is the answer , ” Garcia-Rios said , pointing to survey after survey that showed Latinos ’ top election issues were COVID-19 , health care , the economy and jobs .
Other issues like immigration and discrimination , where Trump has a long history of race-baiting and trying to clamp down on migration , were a lower priority this year .
“ We do a disservice when we paint the Latino vote with a broad brush , ” Garcia-Rios added .
There is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Democrats ’ Latino outreach was sufficient .
In the lead-up to the election , the campaign ’ s lack of a cohesive strategy for reaching Latino voters was heavily criticized , and it may have even contributed to some smaller losses among urban and suburban Latinos .
For instance , whereas Biden improved over Clinton in the whiter areas on the periphery of Harris County , Texas ( the home of Houston ) , Trump notably decreased his deficits in heavily Hispanic precincts toward the more central areas of the county , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Similarly , Trump did somewhat worse this time around in Maricopa County , which is home to the city of Phoenix and about 60 percent of Arizona ’ s votes , but he did perform slightly better in many Latino-heavy precincts , including the 7th Congressional District that is almost 60 percent Mexican American .
It ’ s worth reiterating that Biden still won far more votes in Latino sections of Houston and Phoenix than the president did .
But that success may have little to do with Biden ’ s campaign and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This , experts told us , underscores that Democrats really can ’ t take Latino voters for granted — and a lack of investment in Latino outreach and organizing could hurt them in the long term .
Lisa García Bedolla , a political scientist at the University of California , Berkeley , pointed out that Latino community organizers have been working for more than a decade in Arizona to mobilize Latino voters politically , which almost certainly benefited Biden and Democrats this year .
“ Demography isn ’ t destiny when it comes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The explanation for why Latinos voted the way they did this year is about history , it ’ s about geography and it ’ s about where coalition-building and community organizing has been happening for years — not just what a presidential candidate did or didn ’ t do this cycle.
” In the three “ blue wall ” states that Biden recaptured in 2020 , meanwhile , voters were deeply divided by education .
The education split has been especially significant among white voters , and this rift appears to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michigan , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin , especially in areas where many white voters have four-year college degrees .
As the chart below shows , the larger a county ’ s share of non-Hispanic white voters with a college degree , the worse Trump tended to perform compared to 2016 .
Conversely , even though pre-election polls suggested that Biden might be poised to make some gains among white voters without a college degree , that didn ’ t happen .
Trump held his ground and even made further inroads in predominantly white counties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not enough for him to win .
And across the most highly-educated counties in these states — which include some populous suburban areas — Biden improved substantially on Clinton ’ s margins .
In Wisconsin , for instance , Biden won by 0.6 points statewide after Clinton lost by a similarly slim margin in 2016 .
And part of that came down to Trump ’ s deterioration in the traditionally Republican Milwaukee suburbs .
Trump still won Waukesha County , by far the largest of the GOP-leaning Milwaukee suburban counties , by 21 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drop from his 2016 advantage there .
And that was in part because of how white voters with a four-year college degree broke ( around 40 percent of Waukesha ’ s population is white and college educated ) .
In other words , areas that were once pretty Republican , like Waukesha , still moved away from Trump because of how white voters with a college education trended .
The same was true in Michigan and Pennsylvania .
For instance , in Oakland County , a populous Detroit suburb with a hefty share @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s deficit increased from 8 points in 2016 to 14 points in 2020 .
Similarly , Trump lost Chester County , a suburb of Philadelphia , where nearly half of the population is made up of white voters with a college degree , by 9 points in 2016 and 17 points this year .
Ashley Jardina , a political science professor at Duke University who studies white identity politics and the education divide , said that white college-educated voters might be especially likely to have been alienated this year by Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them to abandon him in even greater numbers than in 2016 .
“ A lot of college-educated whites were not that turned off by Trump ’ s rhetoric about women or people of color , ” she said .
“ But we ’ re now in the middle of a pandemic and if you ’ re a college-educated person who cares about good government , Trump ’ s handling of the response might really matter to you.
” On the other hand , counties with larger shares of less educated white voters largely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these counties lie , not coincidentally , in rural areas , where Trump ’ s electoral strength largely held or improved regardless of its racial or ethnic makeup .
Take Clark County in central Wisconsin , where the vast majority of the population is white and doesn ’ t have a college degree .
Trump won the county by 32 points in 2016 , but expanded his edge to 37 points in 2020 .
The same pattern popped up in places similar to Clark , such as Clare County in central Michigan and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of what is happening , according to Arlie Hochschild , a sociologist at the University of California who has written extensively about conservative voters , is that many less educated white voters have come to see Trump as their champion .
“ They feel that Trump is making them great again — their social class and their identity as whites , ” she said .
“ Many of them feel that as white [ people ] , they ’ re discriminated against.
” She added that even if Biden might have personally appealed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been enough to overcome their suspicion that the Democratic Party as a whole was hostile to their worldview .
Importantly , Trump ’ s gains among white voters without a college degree were less substantial than his losses among educated white voters , and that appears to have cost him in these three states .
This was most stark in Wisconsin , where Trump ’ s margin improved in 39 of the state ’ s 72 counties , but fell in 31 and didn ’ t change in two .
The counties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bigger and more well-educated , while the ones where he gained were generally smaller and less well-educated .
In aggregate , these shifts added up to a narrow loss in Wisconsin for Trump in 2020 instead of the close win he achieved in 2016 .
And in general , that pattern illustrates a broader challenge for Republicans : White voters without a college degree are shrinking as a proportion of the broader population , while white voters with a college degree are growing as a share of the electorate .
But Biden ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a college degree may not represent a permanent realignment , according to Jardina .
“ I don ’ t think [ these voters ’ ] opposition to the Republican Party is crystallized , depending on what happens after Trump , ” she said .
More than anything , she added , the education gulf among white voters this year may illustrate the futility of Democrats ’ attempts to bring the white working class back into their coalition .
“ Democrats have focused on winning back white working-class voters and sort of taken whites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which strikes me as a strange , Pollyannaish strategy , ” she said .
“ [ White working-class voters ] are not their people now.
” As we said at the outset , this is just the beginning of our analysis of how Americans voted in 2020 but it ’ s worth underscoring what ’ s surprising about these initial findings .
Even though Trump ’ s overperformance among specific groups of Latino voters was one of the big stories coming out of election night , what we can see in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unexpected .
There were clear signs all along that Biden might be weaker than Clinton among Latinos voters , and the places where Trump appears to have gained support — in rural areas and among more conservative Latino voters like Cuban Americans — just speaks to the diversity of a group that should never have been regarded as politically homogenous to begin with .
On the other hand , the widening of the education gap — and the emergence of geography as another important political divide — might be bigger takeaways , given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election .
Biden ’ s gains among white voters without a college degree simply didn ’ t materialize , while Trump continued to make inroads with less-educated white voters — although it wasn ’ t enough to win him the election .
But importantly , both groups offer a first look into what might be one of the defining trends of the 2020 election : the widening political chasm between urban , suburban and rural America .

What We Know About How White and Latino Americans Voted In 2020 The urban-rural and education divides are stronger than they were in 2016.
As results rolled in from Florida on election night, one thing became clear almost immediately: Joe Biden was underperforming in Miami-Dade County, home to most of Florida’s Cuban community. Later in the evening, a similar story emerged from a handful of heavily Mexican American counties along Texas’s southern border.
Biden ultimately won most of these counties in both Florida and Texas, but by much slimmer margins than Hillary Clinton had four years earlier. However, he did end up bringing Arizona — another state with many Latino voters — into the Democratic column for the first time in a presidential election since 1996.
What divided the electorate in 2020 | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
At the same time — although the eventual results were not at all apparent on election night — Biden won three traditionally blue states that Clinton had lost in 2016, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, in part by improving on her performance among white voters with a four-year college degree.
Of course, the story of why Biden won back the “blue wall” but didn’t win Florida or Texas is much more complex than his gains among white voters with a college degree and his misses with some Latino voters. As we’ve written before, no one group “swings” an election. Nevertheless, it’s worth unpacking how these two demographic groups voted in 2020, as they underscore larger geographical and educational divides in our country.
[Related: What Blue And Red ‘Shifts’ Looked Like In Every State]
For one thing, the political gap between rural and urban America appears to have been even more pronounced this year than it was in 2016, which may explain some of Trump’s success among Latino voters. Education was once again a clear dividing line, especially among white voters, with white voters with a college degree moving toward Biden while white voters without a college degree remained largely in Trump’s column.
This is just the beginning of our analysis of how Americans voted in 2020 — over the coming weeks and months, we’ll have more deep dives into various corners of the American electorate as more data becomes available. In this story, we’re zooming in on county-level results in a handful of key swing states to help us understand how demographic divisions in pivotal parts of the country helped — and hurt — the two major candidates. So let’s start with what we know about the voting patterns in heavily Latino counties in Arizona, Florida and Texas, and what that tells us about the country’s urban, suburban and rural divide.
What Latino voters tell us about America’s urban-rural divide
In the lead-up to the election, there were plenty of signs that Biden’s support among Latino voters in key swing states might be weaker than Clinton’s in 2016, but some of the shifts wound up being very large. In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, for instance, which is 68 percent Hispanic, Trump narrowed his deficit by 22 percentage points between 2016 and 2020; in Texas’s Starr County, which is 99 percent Hispanic, Trump improved by a stunning 55 percentage points.
However, as the chart below shows, Trump’s gains among Latino voters were hardly universal. In fact, the places where Trump appears to have gained the most support were largely in rural areas or among more conservative Latino voters like Cuban Americans. In suburban and urban areas, the story was much more mixed. (And, to be clear, Biden still won the overwhelming majority of Latino votes.)
One important factor to keep in mind here — which is partially why some of these shifts toward Trump seem so pronounced — is that Trump did really poorly with Latino voters in 2016. According to pre-election surveys, he won just 18 percent of Latino voters in 2016 but 27 percent this year, putting him back in the territory of other recent Republican presidential nominees.
Additionally, part of what we’re seeing here isn’t necessarily something unique to Latino voters at all, but an extension of America’s growing urban-rural divide. As Bernard Fraga, a political science professor at Emory University who studies racial and ethnic politics, told us, “Biden was never expected to make gains in rural populations and he didn’t really try. … So if Trump is the candidate that people in rural America identify with more, that’s going to work with Latinos just like it works with other groups.”
One notable exception to this is Miami-Dade, which is a largely urban area. But Sergio Garcia-Rios, a professor of political science at Cornell University who studies Latino identity, pointed out that Trump may have helped improve his standing among Latinos there by recognizing their diversity and focusing on a few groups where he had the potential to make inroads — like Cubans in South Florida. The Trump campaign made outreach to Cuban voters a priority early on, emphasizing Trump’s tough record on Cuba while also drumming up the (inaccurate) idea that Biden was a “Trojan horse” bringing socialism to the U.S. It’s a message designed especially for voters who trace their roots to Cuba and other countries with histories of socialist dictatorships. And that tack seemed to pay off, especially in Miami-Dade County, where more than half of the Hispanic population is of Cuban origin. Trump still lost the county, but this time just by 7 points after losing it by 29 points in 2016. He made substantial gains across the whole county, but especially in areas heavily populated by Cuban Americans.
[Republicans Won Almost Every Election Where Redistricting Was At Stake]
Notably, though, Trump didn’t make quite as dramatic inroads in Osceola County, Florida — part of the Orlando metro area — which is heavily Puerto Rican, though he still gained there, losing it by 14 points compared to 25 points in 2016. Dario Moreno, a politics professor at Florida International University, told us that Trump’s improved margin there may have been due to economic anxiety and fear that another wave of COVID-19 restrictions on businesses would hurt an area heavily dependent on tourism.
In fact, in an election where the focus was more on COVID-19 and the economy, it’s not that surprising that Trump returned to a similar level of support among Latinos as other recent Republican presidential candidates, according to Garcia-Rios, as concern about jobs and business lockdowns in particular may have nudged some conservative voters toward Trump.
“We might … disagree about whether Trump’s economy has really helped minorities, but some of them do believe that for their jobs, for their families, Trump is the answer,” Garcia-Rios said, pointing to survey after survey that showed Latinos’ top election issues were COVID-19, health care, the economy and jobs. Other issues like immigration and discrimination, where Trump has a long history of race-baiting and trying to clamp down on migration, were a lower priority this year. “We do a disservice when we paint the Latino vote with a broad brush,” Garcia-Rios added.
There is also the question of whether Biden and the Democrats’ Latino outreach was sufficient. In the lead-up to the election, the campaign’s lack of a cohesive strategy for reaching Latino voters was heavily criticized, and it may have even contributed to some smaller losses among urban and suburban Latinos. For instance, whereas Biden improved over Clinton in the whiter areas on the periphery of Harris County, Texas (the home of Houston), Trump notably decreased his deficits in heavily Hispanic precincts toward the more central areas of the county, which has a large Mexican-American population. Similarly, Trump did somewhat worse this time around in Maricopa County, which is home to the city of Phoenix and about 60 percent of Arizona’s votes, but he did perform slightly better in many Latino-heavy precincts, including the 7th Congressional District that is almost 60 percent Mexican American.
Polls were off for the 2020 election, but not by much | FiveThirtyEight
It’s worth reiterating that Biden still won far more votes in Latino sections of Houston and Phoenix than the president did. But that success may have little to do with Biden’s campaign and more to do with local organizers. This, experts told us, underscores that Democrats really can’t take Latino voters for granted — and a lack of investment in Latino outreach and organizing could hurt them in the long term.
Lisa García Bedolla, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, pointed out that Latino community organizers have been working for more than a decade in Arizona to mobilize Latino voters politically, which almost certainly benefited Biden and Democrats this year. “Demography isn’t destiny when it comes to Latino voters,” she said. “The explanation for why Latinos voted the way they did this year is about history, it’s about geography and it’s about where coalition-building and community organizing has been happening for years — not just what a presidential candidate did or didn’t do this cycle.”
Education remained a dividing line, driving white voters further apart
In the three “blue wall” states that Biden recaptured in 2020, meanwhile, voters were deeply divided by education. The education split has been especially significant among white voters, and this rift appears to have widened as Trump lost ground in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, especially in areas where many white voters have four-year college degrees.
As the chart below shows, the larger a county’s share of non-Hispanic white voters with a college degree, the worse Trump tended to perform compared to 2016. Conversely, even though pre-election polls suggested that Biden might be poised to make some gains among white voters without a college degree, that didn’t happen. Trump held his ground and even made further inroads in predominantly white counties with lower levels of education — but not enough for him to win.
And across the most highly-educated counties in these states — which include some populous suburban areas — Biden improved substantially on Clinton’s margins. In Wisconsin, for instance, Biden won by 0.6 points statewide after Clinton lost by a similarly slim margin in 2016. And part of that came down to Trump’s deterioration in the traditionally Republican Milwaukee suburbs. Trump still won Waukesha County, by far the largest of the GOP-leaning Milwaukee suburban counties, by 21 points, but that marked a 6-point drop from his 2016 advantage there. And that was in part because of how white voters with a four-year college degree broke (around 40 percent of Waukesha’s population is white and college educated). In other words, areas that were once pretty Republican, like Waukesha, still moved away from Trump because of how white voters with a college education trended.
The same was true in Michigan and Pennsylvania. For instance, in Oakland County, a populous Detroit suburb with a hefty share of educated white voters, Trump’s deficit increased from 8 points in 2016 to 14 points in 2020. Similarly, Trump lost Chester County, a suburb of Philadelphia, where nearly half of the population is made up of white voters with a college degree, by 9 points in 2016 and 17 points this year.
Ashley Jardina, a political science professor at Duke University who studies white identity politics and the education divide, said that white college-educated voters might be especially likely to have been alienated this year by Trump’s handling of the pandemic — potentially leading them to abandon him in even greater numbers than in 2016. “A lot of college-educated whites were not that turned off by Trump’s rhetoric about women or people of color,” she said. “But we’re now in the middle of a pandemic and if you’re a college-educated person who cares about good government, Trump’s handling of the response might really matter to you.”
On the other hand, counties with larger shares of less educated white voters largely stuck with Trump. But most of these counties lie, not coincidentally, in rural areas, where Trump’s electoral strength largely held or improved regardless of its racial or ethnic makeup. Take Clark County in central Wisconsin, where the vast majority of the population is white and doesn’t have a college degree. Trump won the county by 32 points in 2016, but expanded his edge to 37 points in 2020. The same pattern popped up in places similar to Clark, such as Clare County in central Michigan and Mifflin County in central Pennsylvania.
Part of what is happening, according to Arlie Hochschild, a sociologist at the University of California who has written extensively about conservative voters, is that many less educated white voters have come to see Trump as their champion. “They feel that Trump is making them great again — their social class and their identity as whites,” she said. “Many of them feel that as white [people], they’re discriminated against.” She added that even if Biden might have personally appealed to those voters, it might not have been enough to overcome their suspicion that the Democratic Party as a whole was hostile to their worldview.
Importantly, Trump’s gains among white voters without a college degree were less substantial than his losses among educated white voters, and that appears to have cost him in these three states. This was most stark in Wisconsin, where Trump’s margin improved in 39 of the state’s 72 counties, but fell in 31 and didn’t change in two. The counties where he lost ground tended to be bigger and more well-educated, while the ones where he gained were generally smaller and less well-educated. In aggregate, these shifts added up to a narrow loss in Wisconsin for Trump in 2020 instead of the close win he achieved in 2016.
[Related: The Cabinet Appointments That Really Matter In The Incoming Biden Administration]
And in general, that pattern illustrates a broader challenge for Republicans: White voters without a college degree are shrinking as a proportion of the broader population, while white voters with a college degree are growing as a share of the electorate.
But Biden’s dramatic gains with white voters with a college degree may not represent a permanent realignment, according to Jardina. “I don’t think [these voters’] opposition to the Republican Party is crystallized, depending on what happens after Trump,” she said. More than anything, she added, the education gulf among white voters this year may illustrate the futility of Democrats’ attempts to bring the white working class back into their coalition. “Democrats have focused on winning back white working-class voters and sort of taken whites with a college degree as a given, which strikes me as a strange, Pollyannaish strategy,” she said. “[White working-class voters] are not their people now.”
As we said at the outset, this is just the beginning of our analysis of how Americans voted in 2020 but it’s worth underscoring what’s surprising about these initial findings.
Even though Trump’s overperformance among specific groups of Latino voters was one of the big stories coming out of election night, what we can see in the data isn’t actually all that unexpected. There were clear signs all along that Biden might be weaker than Clinton among Latinos voters, and the places where Trump appears to have gained support — in rural areas and among more conservative Latino voters like Cuban Americans — just speaks to the diversity of a group that should never have been regarded as politically homogenous to begin with.
On the other hand, the widening of the education gap — and the emergence of geography as another important political divide — might be bigger takeaways, given where the polling stood going into the election. Biden’s gains among white voters without a college degree simply didn’t materialize, while Trump continued to make inroads with less-educated white voters — although it wasn’t enough to win him the election. But importantly, both groups offer a first look into what might be one of the defining trends of the 2020 election: the widening political chasm between urban, suburban and rural America.
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