Bernie understands this, Hillary did not. Hillary's prescription for laid off factory workers was to retrain them for STEM careers, not protect them from cheap foreign labor. Bernie could have beat Trump in 2016, when Hillary could not, and will beat him in 2020, unless the Democratic party sabotages him again.
5
The Democrats are now the 9.9%, railing against the 1% to distract the rest from protesting their privilege and exploiting identity politics to secure their elite status.
6
The difference between 2012 and 2016 was the candidate. Don't underestimate how much more unpopular Hillary Clinton was than Obama in the key swing states. She was the wrong candidate at the wrong time.
Obama and Trump were both change candidates. Hillary was anything but, which is why she lost to both Bernie Sanders and Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin.
6
Very true and the reality is even worse than that...
Out of parents and in-laws - all Ann Richards(TX Dem Gov'r from time ago) voters, 3 are now Trump voters, another is also unlikely to vote Dem... They didn't vote W. and all voted 2nd term Obama... ALL voted Clinton in 2016... How's that for stats...? All venues mentioned are within 5-miles or even shorter... Bernie isn't Democrat he's a fake revolutionary... more like a functionary who's trying a leadership cap by sloganeering... Gen.Z-ers & millennials who are so enamored with him seem to be just groupies who like the pseudo revolutionary fervor. So, vote for him at your own risk of ruined economy... or just contributing to 4yrs of more T's... :))
7
Trump will most likely have the same basis of support as he did in 2016 and the same number of votes. The Democratic candidate can easily win Michigan if voters in Detroit go and vote.
And voter suppression has nothing to do with it unless you want re-define voter suppression as anything that causes voters not to vote Democratic, including apathy.
9
So the author is stating the obvious: Democratic voters are centered in urban areas while Republicans own suburban and rural areas. We know from the 2016 election data those urban areas accounts for 15% of the counties in America which translates into 40% of the States. Popular vote is irrelevant; one must win a majority of the States to win the Presidency.
As long as Democrats advance an agenda that benefits urban voters to the detriment of suburban and rural voters they will continue to loss elections. Democrats have abandoned the classical liberalism of JFK and rejected color-blind integration of MLK which is now claimed by Trump and the Republicans.
The current Democratic leadership is steering the Democratic party towards an epic and historic defeat. It's young bloods are dangerous radicals who will only destroy any chance of a much-needed comeback. Sadly it's best chance may be a complete split into two parties, one radical and one moderate, and rebuild the moderate party from scratch. Until that party can work with, and share the credit for success, with Donald Trump and the Republicans the Democrats are doomed to irrelevance...
9
@mike danger No such thing as a moderate. The struggle in the Democratic party is between corporatists, worried about their money & those who would like a modicum of economic justice - like enough affordable housing so working people don't have to live out on the street. Between the 1940s & 1980, there was a balance between those competing interests. Since the election of Regan, the Democratic party has become more & more aligned with corporatist values. Many Democrats who are not aligned with corporatism continued to vote Democratic, because of Democrat's belief in respect for all people & equal opportunity. What has happened since 1980 is that there's less opportunity to go around, which has fueled a lot of anger & led to the election of Trump, the 'screw you' president. Those who didn't vote for Trump because they loathed his racism & his hostility to women's rights, not to mention his hostility to America's allies. aren't looking for a 'centrist/corporatist to cope w/the anger, they're looking for a progressive.
7
So the author is stating the obvious: Democratic voters are centered in urban areas while Republicans own suburban and rural areas. We know from the 2016 election data those urban areas accounts for 15% of the counties in America which translates into 40% of the States. Popular vote is irrelevant; one must win a majority of the States to win the Presidency.
As long as Democrats advance an agenda that benefits urban voters to the detriment of suburban and rural voters they will continue to loss elections. Democrats have abandoned the classical liberalism of JFK and rejected color-blind integration of MLK which is now claimed by Trump and the Republicans.
The current Democratic leadership is steering the Democratic party towards an epic and historic defeat. It's young bloods are dangerous radicals who will only destroy any chance of a much-needed comeback. Sadly it's best chance may be a complete split into two parties, one radical and one moderate, and rebuild the moderate party from scratch. Until that party can work with, and share the credit for success, with Donald Trump and the Republicans the Democrats are doomed to irrelevance...
2
Unfortunately it all boils down with what your comfortable with. People that have never lived among people with color have different opinions than those who have. Unfortunately some people still equate America's success on if they can reverse the trends that they are seeing. This right wing fear of the browning of America meme will destroy the progress as a country. Hardly has anything to do with Trader Joes.
7
I guess the proposal is for Dems to buy more fly-fishing rods? That'll save us.
Seriously, how does this "investigation" advance us beyond understanding the rural/urban, white/mixed divide?
It's about _class_. A Dem party that has as its core principle increased power for the working class will win; otherwise lose. In both the short, and especially the long, term.
6
@Drew
I thought James Carville summarized it almost entirely in Paragraph 8: Stop talking about pronouns and start talking about corruption in big Pharma, and the like.
Maybe someday that will shift. Maybe in a generation the pronoun arguments will be a bigger influencer, but if I'm gambling, I'm betting that generations from now, the latter arguments (economic well being for the middle and working classes) will still win elections. Pronouns? Unlikely.
10
@David B. Can you give me an example of a Democratic presidential candidate talking about pronouns in campaign materials? I can't think of any off the top of my head.
2
Good grief, seriously! "Sadly" I live in an Urban setting with no Cracker Barrel/Tractor Supply/Hobby Lobby or Bass Pro. I don't know what Cracker Barrel sells but I an't buying and that goes for Bass Pro (fishing supplies?), same goes for tractors, no need around here and where do I find parking for one.
I would not enter a Hobby Lobby if they gave me a $1000 gift certificate, aren't these guys who deny abortion rights for women? I'll add another one - Walmart. Never have shopped there and never will.
I don't pay $14 for 1/2 liter of any edible oil. I get a liter of Avocado oil for $8 and a high quality olive 2 liter Olive oil for $7-8.
Just say you want Democratic candidates to leave the comfort of overwhelming blue areas and venture into red territory and you have made a point. BTW this set of Democratic candidates except for Bloomberg all claim some attachment to rural or small towns. They keep going on and on about it. They also they sacrificed their arteries eating all that high fat foods in Iowa for several months. I bet that was what gave Bernie his clogged arteries...
4
@Gary Valan
Cracker Barrel is a Dixie-styled restaurant.
Bass Pro caters to fisherman, hunters, and campers.
Tractor Supply does not sell tractors but heavy work clothes.
4
Impressive, in a certain perverse way, to write an entire article about the Democrats' cultural deficit without mention of either immigration or race. On these issues, which seem to be the ones with real salience in the blue-collar areas turning red, just how does the author suggest the Democratic Party sell black and brown Americans down the river (again) to see if that will woo white "Real Americans" back?
10
“Most Americans have already chosen sides for the November election...” I will disagree if the Democratic candidate is Sanders. He stands to lose many more voters than he figures to win over. And as a Republican who shops at Whole Foods, I’m rather skeptical that a proud Democrat would deign to step into a Cracker Barrel, but I suppose it has happened.
5
@John D
NEWS FLASH, Mr Whole-Foods Republican:
Bernie probably isn't your candidate. He's working for the working class, wherever they live & shop.
5
@John D
This proud Democrat travels fifty miles every few years to a Cracker Barrel restaurant for a meal of ham, yams, and kale, a reminiscence of five years spent in north Florida.
3
My god yes. I live in a "super zip code" walking distance or public transit to most of these places. We're annoying. This bubble is annoying. My wife and I recently drove 15 miles out of our bubble to find real estate we could afford. It's very different out there -- to my outsider eye it looked like an ugly strip-mall hellhole. It may be uncomfortable for Dems to realize we are mostly the benefactors of the winner-take-all economy -- or at least culturally identify with the winners. Unfortunately Trump made the Dems wealthier by throwing gasoline on the stock market and now we're all twice as annoying. I have to go my instacart from Whole Foods is here.
6
@JM
"It may be uncomfortable for Dems to realize we are mostly the benefactors of the winner-take-all economy"
Spoken like a Bloomberg DINO. Hardly true of 99.9% of Dems, especially those Bernie is connecting with.
5
This is what all the upper middle class Democrats wringing their hands about Sanders don't get: Sanders appeals directly to the voters outside the 'Whole Foods Bubble." In fact, other than Sanders or Biden, no other Democratic candidate really does.
The Bernie Bro caricature that people like to throw around about Sanders supporters - bearded educated white dudes who live in Brooklyn, basically - couldn't be further from the truth. Sanders leads among downscale voters. He leads among nonwhite voters.
Moderate Dems insist on putting up candidates whose primary core of support come from the upper classes. Buttegieg, Sanders, Bloomberg (Bloomberg!!). You are not going to win national elections with such candidates in a country that - and upper class Democrats need to face this - is increasingly downwardly mobile. No one is buying your shtick - at least not at numbers large enough to win a national election.
12
@Vin you’re kidding yourself, Sanders will get hammered in rural America. But please dream on, we GOP voters would love to see Bernie carrying the banner of his temporarily adopted Party.
4
@John D You think "rural America" is going to turn out for Buttegieg or Warren or Bloomberg?
BTW, the myth that rural America chooses our presidents is just that, a myth. Rural America is a minority of the country - one that gets smaller every cycle. The states that are typically considered swing states tend to have more people living in urban and suburban settings than rural ones.
5
The author's air of benign non-partisan punditry is belied by how much he leans into and repeats lazy tired tropes about urban voters. Instead of the economic engines of America, cities are written off as "trendy" zip codes (tell that to less-wealthy areas of cities like Baltimore, Chicago, DC, New York). Apparently we're willing to waste all our money on avocados and yoga pants.
"Loggers in northern Wisconsin" are not the only voters who matter, and it's exhausting to read dozens of introspective thinkpieces on working-class white Americans as though they are the only people whose experiences matter electorally. You can draw an arbitrary map based on arbitrary characteristics and pretend to draw meaningful conclusions based on it.
Frame cities as pretentious "bubbles" while small towns are charming "down-home zones", accuse urban residents of "cultural arrogance" when we are Americans trying to make ends meet just like everyone else.
This article is dripping with the same arrogance for which it clutches its pearls, and traffics in every urban-rural stereotype I can imagine. "It's also easy to view the divide as purely urban versus rural." I wonder why?
14
@RW
This.
1
@RW
There really aren't many loggers in Northern Wisconsin anymore. Or the Pacific Northwest. Mostly due to technological change and globalization. Says this daughter of one.
7
"Down home" is like "heartland," a word that implies people who live in rural areas are more moral than city dwellers. It's why Republican politicians at all levels openly campaign on trashing cities (while screaming in outrage if anyone dares to question this hierarchy) and why forward progress in this country will forever be held hostage to the insanely undemocratic Senate and electoral college. No thanks.
11
Do these patterns hold by race? My sense is that they are only true for white voters. If true, then this article overlooks other potential ways for the Democrats to expand their electorate, beyond looking to down-home zones.
10
Fascinating. I shop at Whole Foods and Lululemon.
But I also shop Tractor Supply and enjoy an occasional stop for Cracker Barrel's pancakes (How do they get them so fluffy, yet crispy on the edges?) and I was annoyed the other day by an online survey that listed FIFTEEN choices for gender, plus "other".
I'm also a reliable, solid moderate democrat.
15
When you get correlations such as this, consider that maybe you're measuring the same thing. Higher income, higher education people want to live near each other, shop for better food etc., and vote more liberal. Is there something new here, just clickbait, or another stereotyping riff on the wine and cheese set vs. the beer and cheetos set? I'm tired of it, and this kind of reporting and studies.
9
The maps do not weight for population and are as bad as the one Trump used to show how popular he is in the USA. Minnesota is striking in that it shows Beltrami County with less than 20,000 voters as bigger than Minneaplois-St.Paul.
4
“If you want to win back loggers in northern Wisconsin, stop talking about pronouns and start talking more about corruption in Big Pharma.”
Which is odd that Carville spends most of his time bashing the two candidates who consistently do this. Bernie is Old Left, not New Left, and in many ways his class based approach to politics is exactly how Democrats used to appeal to the Rust Belt union halls as much as the ivory Tower. Bernie is a reliable liberal on the social issues, but he does not talk about it. Meanwhile its Bloomberg and Biden running on taking peoples guns away, and ironically running their records on that issue against Bernie who has been more moderate on guns and immigration in the past. Lee Drutman shows that few swing voters are like Bloomberg (socially liberal, fiscally conservative) but a whole lot more like Bernie on economic questions and Trump on cultural ones. If Bernie can peel some of them back-he wins.
7
Fascinating read. Main difference between this study and a peer-reviewed counterpart in academia, would be the demand from those following the issue to specifically control for urban vs. rural. It would have been interesting to see if that is more or less influential than these shopping outlets.
4
In 2016, Clinton won in the "upmarket" cities, while Sanders took the outlying areas - in many states.
Here in California, he seems to be leading in most every demographic this time. He is Tio Bernie to the large Hispanic population here, but also is doing well in my group (older, college educated, etc.) plus the young people in college or not.
He is leading nicely and polls show him beating trump.
Slicing and dicing by shopping habits sure misses the reality that I see.
6
In Iowa, Sanders did well in college towns and Des Moines. Buttigieg swept the state's rural areas. Now tell me who's going to draw in more of these disaffected voters.
8
@HKGuy
Answer: Probably DJT, followed by Bernie.
3
Please stop.
I don't doubt that this is accurate, but why do we need to know this? How is this different from stereotyping and encouraging us to stereotype each other? To what extent might this sort of article actually encourage the tribalism it seems, on one level, to worry about?
I suspect that this kind of political journalism may have an effect similar to the internet algorithms that feed us the political news we want and the echo chambers of our social media networks. If we are constantly told how people who look like us (or shop like us?!) feel on political issues, won't we be more likely to vote that way too? If we are repeatedly told how people who are different from us feel, won't we be less likely to vote that way?
It's impossible to follow politics these days without being constantly told how groups of people based on age, race, region, level of education, income, etc. are polling. Now we need to know how the people we shop with vote as well?
I'm certainly not advocating anything like "colorblindness" when it comes to policy, and I understand that it's important for policymakers to understand how different groups view issues so no one is left behind. But why do we need to be bombarded with it in the public? By so frequently putting labels onto groups of people, aren't we actually encouraging the hardening and widening of the political divisions that are part of our problem?
I fear this is irresponsible and exactly the opposite of what we need right now.
28
@Andrew Warne The article merely reported on amassed geographical data. You're the one who seems to be stereotyping based on who shops at Whole Foods and Apple Store.
4
James Carville comes from another era.
I think there are plenty of folks who care about pronouns AND corruption in Big Pharma. If anything, nonbinary and trans teens in exurban and rural areas have life harder than those who live in cities and inner suburbs.
We already knew that Bass Pro Shops are strategically located on the edges of metro areas, Cracker Barrels are on the Interstate highways and Apple Stores are in high-density upscale shopping districts. We already knew that cities are blue, small towns and rural areas are red and suburbs are purple. I'm not sure there's anything new here.
18
@Rita Rousseau
"We already knew that cities are blue, small towns and rural areas are red and suburbs are purple. I'm not sure there's anything new here."
Exactly. If anything's new, it's an attempt to replace rural/urban by down-home/yuppie, obscuring the fact that there are lots of rural poor, including non-white poor, whose class interest is defended and promoted by Bernie (and should be by all Dems and all Dem candidates).
There's no analysis here - just an attempt to cloak real, substantive class differences with misleading, superficial cultural categories.
7
Interesting article, although it might be that the stores came to these areas because of the income levels and population densities, which would mean the Democrats have to focus on winning enough areas that don't have these features to win the election. The focus on the stores' proximity may be too narrow.
9
@James F. Clarity IV
The Dems need to focus on the classes whose interests they claim to represent - in particular the working class.
Nothing less.
3
David, thank you for reporting these interesting correlations. No surprise that retailers know where most of their potential customers live, but I've never seen data that show how that dynamic compares with voting behavior. It makes sense to look at that as we try to understand how life in America is changing (even though, as some of your commenters seem to have missed, the data just indicate variable tendancies, not solid predictors).
In trying to understand the "vote margin" numbers about which you say "positive values indicate greater Democratic support," I'd like to know specifically what those numbers refer to in these two tables:
1) In the table "How These Categories Break Down Nationally," I understand the percents in the left column to be a percent of all voting citizens regardless of political party (so combining the three precinct types adds up to 100%). The next three columns are titled "vote margin," and each cell shows a number with a plus or minus sign. Is that number a percent, or an increment of some baseline, or what? And does it apply to all voters, or just democrats, or what?
2) I have the same question about those "vote margin" numbers in the table "The Electorate for 100 Popular American Businesses in 2016."
3) Also in the 100 Popular Businesses table, the far-right column for each business is labeled "percent of all voters within 10 miles." So does that mean that for, say, Shake Shack, 14% of all voters within 10 miles . . . voted democratic?
4
In Michigan, the "chain-sparse" and "down-home" areas are full of trucks bearing Confederate flags and various gun-taunt ("Want my gun, come take it" etc.) and Trump stickers. They are also predominantly manual labor, farming, and other limited-education jobs, and Fox News is nearly the exclusive mass media source of "news." Trump feeds their envy and hatred of the "libs" like no-one else ever has, even to their collective detriment. The envy and hatred is apparently sufficient.
22
@Hypatia
It looks like that here in Arizona also.
2
@Hypatia
"Limited education farmers"? Though lacking requisite advanced degrees, farmers around here are polymaths, from organic chemistry to economics. Some of the smartest people in the area. Their farms are million- and multi-millon dollar operations.
And they vote Republican. They probably always will, even though they are beneficiaries of many agriculture support programs, some of which date back to the ("socialist") New Deal.
Trump polls better here now than he did before his tariffs cost them markets for their crops. Go figure.
Democratic policies may align better with farm interests than Republican. But it's not about that. It's tribal, cultural. Hillary epitomized the urban Ivy League Democratic elite. She was like fingernails across a blackboard out here.
Of the current crop of Democratic hopefuls, Sanders might stand the best chance out here. It's his rumpled appearance, flyaway hair, unpolished speaking style.
6
@Hypatia
"Trump feeds their envy and hatred of the 'libs' like no-one else ever has, even to their collective detriment. The envy and hatred is apparently sufficient."
Aside from being reductive, condescending and cruel, these sort of takes are basically free ads for the Trump campaign. Imagine if progressives demanded the same level of empathy for everyone and not just their latest trophy identity.
3
Greetings from suburban Philly. I'm a Democrat who shops at Tractor Supply, Trader Joe's, Costco, and the hallowed Wawa. I'm outraged by the willful ignorance, misogyny and racism of what was the Republican party. Why isn't there an equivalent study of how Republicans can learn why waves of college-educated women abandoned the party - which requires a level of curiosity which seems unlikely.
19
Nice. Love the GIS stats. I'm convinced. Except you didn't give an actionable strategy after this onslaught of Very Convincing Data. What do you suggest? Stop shopping at WF? Field folksier candidates who'll get down with the people? Problem is, that dog won't hunt, the people see right through it and spit it out in disgust.
The implied message here is that Democrats can't start winning again until and unless they STOP being Democrats. Or at least Progressive Democrats. Maybe some old-fashioned, race-bating, Red Dogs would get more traction here, but they're pretty thin on the ground right now.
Meanwhile, we're about to nominate a moldy old commie and drive the folks even further away. Focus. It's good, let's go get some.
6
I am so sick and tired of being told I am a snob and I am out of touch and I should understand Trump voters. Do people really think everyone who lives in a blue city has a degree from MIT and drives a Prius? We have garbage collectors, waitresses, cops and firemen and teachers - and, yes, a lot of very educated people (education is most definitely NOT a dirty word in these parts). Unfortunately, the Trump voters that I know are very easy to understand - and what I understand is nothing to admire.
56
@Maureen I would love to know why with such deep education, liberal attitudes, et al here in Boston that the populous has yet to elect a female, or African-American, or Jewish mayor, yet decades ago both Dallas and Houston elected female, Jewish and African-American mayors. And recently, Houston elected a second female mayor who happens to be openly gay. Gotta love it...theoretical liberalism is all talk, but little action.
Education isn't a dirty word, but "hub of the universe" smugness went out with the last century. Check out how many folks who are NOT card holders of the educated elite have been forced out of Boston over the past decades.
6
Best article I've ever read on NYT. I'm Democrat and I'm tired of candidates talking about transgenders and immigrants every other sentence.
Best quote of the article:
“If you want to win back loggers in northern Wisconsin, stop talking about pronouns and start talking more about corruption in Big Pharma.”
61
@JWF Really? I can't remember the last time one of the candidates spoke on trans issues. I also can't recall the last time immigration was a big issue in the debates. They seem pretty focused on healthcare, income inequality, and college/education than those two issues.
Seems like it might be more your particular sensitivity than actual candidate focus.
And that's the real issue, isn't it? Democrats can talk about kitchen-table issues 98% of the time and are almost entirely ignored, but people get overly sensitive and laser focus in on the 2% of the time when they mention "identity politics".
17
@JWF
Loggers were builders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). And later,in FDR's time, they were Dems.
Progressive, working-class politics will be supported - including by loggers, over the long term and to some extent in the short term, by workers of all stripes.
(Logging _companies_ and their owners are a different story.)
3
@JWF, I live near so-called the top upmarket retailers and can count on one hand the times I've purchased at one (Whole Foods). I wonder about stereo-typing. Did you read about the laid off hipster in Greenville, NC whose pregnant wife has recently gone on Medicaid because it's presumable he lost their employer-provided health care? The party which he feels best represents their "Christian values" that tries to take away Medicaid is whom he will be voting for? I'm sorry, but how does the Democratic party go about fixing stupid? I grew up in a rural area (raised without brainwashing religion).
2
“It’s cultural arrogance,” said the veteran Democratic strategist James Carville, who now teaches at Louisiana State University. “On taxing the rich, health care, Roe v. Wade,” he added, “we’re in the majority on all these issues. But in this country, culture trumps policy. The urbanists — voters think they’re too cool for school. And voters pick it up.”
His advice to today’s Democrats: “If you want to win back loggers in northern Wisconsin, stop talking about pronouns and start talking more about corruption in Big Pharma.”
— ok boomer
7
Democrats are the party of rich and nobles.
Among the presidential candidates two are billionaires and the other millionaires. Their ideology is globalization (jobs out, cheap foreign junk in, refugees in).
Why would the barely citizen deplorable poor (thank you so much Hillary ^^) vote blue?
6
@Not us. Me
Have you ever wondered why Donald Trump and congressional Republicans passed a tax bill that gives generous cuts to the ultra-wealthy and corporate elite while trying to get rid of Food Stamps and the Affordable Health Care Act?
You might want to ask yourself that.
7
Can we just put Carville out to pasture? He is utterly out of touch with reality. I though I might actually get something meaningful out of this but right away the Carville is wheeled out to make his "Ragun Cajun" old Neoliberal pronouncements. I got news for you, I live near awhole foods but barely shop there. It has really gone down the tubes since big brother took it over. Maybe NYTimes could get Andrew Zimmer to write an op ed about voting and food as a companion to his new and quite excellent series? I'm sick of cajun.
6
@Joseph
Yup. Carville, Rahm Immanuel, and the rest of the corporate Dems are jumping out of the woodwork now, hot and bothered by Bernie's support.
And Bernie IS talking about corruption and Big Pharma.
3
Its poorly spun statistics like this is why the Upshot will keep on getting it wrong. If anything if your trying to prove your point about the wealthy and the educated living in certain places using popular businesses you are probably better off using car dealerships. Also Urban Outfitter upscale, who knew?! Do rich republican like buying Cadillacs and do rich democrats like buying BMW, or is it do rich republicans like buying Porsche and rich democrats like buying Mercedes, ooh I dont know but lets make a chart. Until democrat pollsters, TV personalities and thought leaders learn the art of intuition and self introspection the predictions will continue to be faulty. What was it Hillary had a 97% chance of winning on the morning of the election said the Upshot?! lol
9
Sanders is not in the Whole Foods bubble.
Sanders gets 70% of the vote in rural Vermont, which means he gets Republican and independent votes.
Sanders understands rural voters that we need to win the electoral college. That is why he does not focus on gun control like most Democrats.
Sanders is the solution you've been looking for to the rural electoral college problem.
Stop ignoring all the evidence.
10
@McGloin
Sanders happens to get 70% of the rural vote in Vermont because he's their state Senator!
7
Decades of work travel to what are now red and blue enclaves have helped me understand the country somewhat. This is the best Upshot piece I’ve seen. It’s absolutely spot on, offering an open door to an array of useful insights and thinking about people, their inclinations, settlement patterns, the flywheel effect, and of course politics. As powerful as it is troubling. I remember when most of us shopped and dined and prayed and learned together. The last 45 years as flipped that commonality upside down.
9
The democrats I talk to keep moaning about the electoral college and how unfair it is. But there is not a snowball's chance that a constitutional amendment to alter the electoral college system is going to pass any time in the next 20 years. That leaves us with a substantial likelihood that the map will continue to be painted red even if the popular vote is 70-30 in favor of Democrats.
Bottom line, if Democrats can't figure out how to talk to ALL of us who live in red districts, Trump wins this November and we can look forward to President Kushner in '24 and '28.
9
@lilrabbit
About that snowball's chances in Hell -
Nelson Mandela said "It always seems impossible, until it's done."
2
At a certain level, most of the votes on the map are "signaling" votes. Meaning, for example, here in Chicago my vote has exactly 0% impact on the election outcome. Do many Chicago/Cook County Republican leaders understand that and simply not vote? Same situation in Austin, TX.
If your state has P(100) of going to one party, the rational voter wouldn't vote (since there is a cost of voting, whether it be time, bus fare, or even intellectual calories burned). Which means that those who vote in Chicago are mainly doing it for reasons other than effecting the outcome (it feels good personally, they get to post on FB that the voted, peer pressure).
Obviously, there is an equilibrium (if all voters felt this way, then the outcome wouldn't be P(100) and your vote would have an impact). But there are several million voters that need to decide to not vote before that would be an issue.
So, the map is only relevant in FL, VA, PA, OH, MI, and WI.
6
Y'all get into your pickup trucks, lock down your shotguns on the rack in the rear window, load up the coffee holder with the best Starbucks you can buy, and git on out into them rural areas and round up the vote
7
@Sasha Snarky.
3
@Sasha
Patently offensive.
6
Poor Democrats call Whole Foods, "Whole Paycheck." We don't have one. I live within 5 miles of both a TraderJoe's (close enough) AND a TractorSupply. I can't afford the TJ's, but they do a brisk business. Along with other poor Democrats, most Republicans, and most of the "Don't Votes" I know, I shop at Aldi's. It wouldn't matter if there WAS an upscale grocery store here.
I CAN'T AFFORD IT!!!!
Meanwhile, the Tractor Supply is busy putting the local farm coop, which has been in business for 50+ years *out* of business. THAT breaks my heart. However, they have a house brand of no-grain dog food which my older dog's sensitive tummy can tolerate. So once every few months, we're over there buying a big bag to be kept in the metal can in the garage.
Sadly, the Earth Fare, a truly wonderful upscale organic and etc type grocery, expanded nationally too fast... they went completely out of business this year. I'm sad. They were wonderful. They redid a blighted shopping center near our house into something shiny and wonderful. Wish I could have afforded to shop there.
BTW, this is probably the stupidest study I've ever seen. Correlating shopping behavior with voting. SMH. People buy what they can afford. They vote their consciences. I know affluent Republicans with iPhones and tryhard Democrats with iPhones. I know Republican farmers shopping at Tractor Supply and Democratic hunting enthusiasts.
There are more PEOPLE, PERIOD in cities. SMH.
24
@Dejah I agree with you explicitly. Talk about elitist journalism.
4
@Dejah
"BTW, this is probably the stupidest study I've ever seen. Correlating shopping behavior with voting."
Well-known fact: you can predict trends in voting, based on socioeconomic factors. Gender, race/ethnicity, religion, income, occupation, and level of education all can be used to predict likely voting patterns.
These same socioeconomic factors can also be used to predict consumer trends. This is precisely why companies use demographic/socioeconomic data in marketing to people. Also, stores often select where to open locations based on demographics.
Since socioeconomic data can be used to reliably predict all of these, it naturally follows that shopping patterns and what stores are in a particular area will have some predictive value on voting trends in that area
8
@Dejah Bless you. As an Black American I can totally agree with she said. At the end of the day, people just want to be able to survive. It does not matter who's business they shop at(by the way, those same owners of said organizations have no reason to do the right beyond their profit margin).
5
Boy, we've come a long way since the days when, even amid summer riots, monthly plane hijackings and regular protests/riots against the war and "the system" in general, we typically managed to form a rough consensus among Americans.
But 40-50 years of disenchantment and a deep cynicism among our public culture, along with the perfection of the laws of mass manipulation by the media and counter media has done it's work.
So here, at long last, we've arrived at the shores of our brave new world where the electorate has been almost perfectly split 50/50 by the use of two opposite, competing mythologies who's perfect balance is less by public choice than by the use of designed wedge issues. These issues have been developed into ways to hold the other side as totally beyond the pale; making compromises with such people is akin to dealing with the devil.
While there are a couple of politicians who at least express a recognition of our problem of disunity, almost none have managed to express an ethos that attempts to include anyone who does not adhere to a strict belief set.
Also, we seem to far fewer citizens who consider themselves as fee thinking individuals and far more seeing themselves as only having importance for being a political operative for the side they have chosen.
16
@Bob - "fee thinking individuals" is my favorite late capitalism typo ever!
I'm definitely stealing that (but not really, since unintentional) for a chapter heading on the subject.
As to the durability of the wedge issues that keep this 50/50 dynamic in place: yes, we're really just fighting over 1-3% of voters in a handful of states. Other than those undecideds, we're pretty well entrenched in our respective views.
I keep wondering if some sort of seismic, commonly impactful event might realign our priorities and produce a new, necessary unity, but this seems unlikely. What could do it? A new plague, maybe Covid 19? World War? A nationwide drought? The cancellation of America's Got Talent?
I thought maybe the 2008 recession would bring us together, as the Great Depression and the outbreak of WW2 mostly did--but no, it just drove us much further apart.
We've been tested by the first massive economic (and therefore cultural) crash of the new century, and it actually reduced whatever strained empathy was operative in that first decade.
5
@Scottb
"we're really just fighting over 1-3% of voters in a handful of states"
Not really. We should be, and Bernie is, fighting for the global working class, its future, and the planet.
Elections are important - none more so than this one.
But if the Dem party has no aim or vision beyond "1-3% of voters in a handful of states" then it will not and cannot lead us where we need to go.
We need a party with solid working-class orientation and a long-term view.
1
It's a GOP talking point that democrats are only white, urban "elites" that are in insurmountable college debt yet are paying $15 for avocado toast. They fail to mention that Democrats received 91% of black votes, 66% of Hispanic votes, and the majority of votes of people making less than 50k/year for Clinton in 2016! The Democratic coalition is much more diverse than the GOP and happen to be in more urban areas that are more diverse.
42
This is why Bernie, who buys his suits from Kohls and does not talk down to anyone except those who exploit their fellow human beings for profit and refuse to pay their fair share of taxes, is winning votes and supporters in all categories except the wealthiest, most "elite" Americans -- the 5 percent who serve the 1 percent.
This cultural ridiculousness is pernicious and we try to teach our kids not to judge people on such shallow metrics. We (and I'm not excluding myself from this) desperately need to walk our talk about planet and community first.
33
If only there were a Democratic candidate who has spent the last several decades talking about the kitchen table issues and needs of the working class.
Oh wait...
51
@Dan Did you read the article? The point, backed up by the heavy stats, is that economic policy pales before cultural issues in importance to these majority voters. "Hey, got yer free stuff over here! Now let me tell you about how great Cuba is..." = not the messaging that will win them over.
7
@Dan
That would be Amy Klobuchar.
1
@George
"economic policy pales before cultural issues"
Patent nonsense. And not at all supported by the "heavy stats".
1
This is the most insightful "new look" at voting and culture patterns we've seen in decades. Congratulations, David Wasserman. Best lead-in to where to spend ad dollars, whether you are aiming more for turnout or for persuasion.
6
While it doesn't exactly take a genius to tell that to beat Trump, Democrats have to get out of their "Whole Foods Bubble" and all the work in this article proves it, the underside to this argument is that it also promotes the stereotypical divisions between urban and rural areas as well as inland and coastal states.
Of course on one hand living in NYC, we have no real experience with several of the stores mentioned here, like Cracker Barrel or Tractor Supply, but on the other hand it doesn't mean the entire population is better off just because there's a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods nearby.
The cultural and political divides in this country are much larger than is evidenced by where people shop.
As scary as FOX and other right-wing talk shows might be, I'd venture to guess that where people get their news from is a better indication of how they'll vote.
30
@N. Smith Your point about news in of critical import. When I moved away from the urban bubble 25 years ago I was already in the habit of getting my news from a variety of sources including NPR and the NYT. But neither are readily available out here in the boonies. The paper edition of the Times was incredibly expensive and generally three days old. To this day, no NPR station is audible in my small town.
It wasn't until late in the last decade that I was finally able move beyond dial up and get a "real" internet connection, and when I did, I also bought a television, and discovered that Fox News was pre-installed and available for free over the internet on every new TV sold at Walmart. Any other news source required a paid subscription. In red districts, how many people do you suppose want to actually pay for "liberal media" when they can get FOX for free?
If you want news from NPR or the New York Times you have to seek it out, and if you live outside the urban bubble, it probably doesn't even occur to you that there is any benefit in actually PAYING for a news source. Consequently, FOX news and talk radio aren't the dominant news sources out here by choice, rather they are the news sources that are freely available.
21
@lilrabbit
Add to that the scary fact that according to a Pew Research study approximately 62% of United States citizens get their news from social media sources like Facebook and Twitter, and it's easy to understand the bind this country currently finds itself in.
1
@lilrabbit
Sounds like the Soviet Union. Didn't stop people from trying to get _real_ news etc.
1
It always amazes me what people will do to make something out of statistics. This article is an exercise in futility.
My wife and I, being educated Republicans, shop at places that offer reliable products and are price competitive.
We have 5 college degrees between us, are retired and are not near(more than 15 miles) away from any store we frequent.
Democrats have more problems than any stated in the article.
6
I'm sure that the retailers, from both sides, love the free data that was provided with this study. Many people will incorrectly see causation and not what is really revealed: correlation. Why would Tractor Supply ever open in a store in Miami Beach? Or Lululemon open an outlet in Midland, TX?
Dems should listen to Carville. He may be abrasive but he understands voters.
15
@Chaz Carville's advice to Hilary Clinton worked out so well. Did not even show up in Wisconsin. Really?
6
@Chaz Carville is a political hack.
3
@Chaz
Good first paragraph. Nonsense second paragraph.
But yes, Dems should speak to corruption and Big Pharma. Bernie does just that.
1
The Democrats are the party of the establishment elites.
Proof? They had to do all this research to figure out something every working class person, who support Trump or Bernie, knows in their gut.
So call us White Supremacists or Communist or Deplorable or Socialist all you want.
Your intersectional, political correctness incantations have no power with us.
20
@Tim
And just who is the "us" you are referring to?
There happens to be a difference between those who support Trump and Bernie Sanders, at least that's what they keep saying -- Just like there's a difference between White Supremacists, Communists, Deplorables and Socialists.
For the sake of your own argument and some clarity, I suggest you get your story straight.
14
@Tim
Given the diversity of what you say folks are calling you, you are probably the most 'intersectional' person alive.
Relax into to it, Tim...you'll be okay.
7
@Tim - Using intersectionality to mock intersectionality is some next-level trolling. Respect.
However, I just came from the Trader Joe's that is .9 miles from my house (Whole Foods is 2.6). Every third car in the constantly packed parking lot is a Subaru with a Bernie sticker on it, including mine.
In 2016 Trump barely got 6% of the vote in my precinct. This is almost as delicious as those peanut butter-filled pretzel bites from TJ's.
5
The Upshot claims that "Democrats are more ascendant than ever near galleria malls."
In truth, Democrats are found in great numbers all across the country, and Republicans know it. That's why the GOP is so desperate to stop African-Americans, Hispanics, naturalized citizens and university students from voting.
That's why the "Roberts Five" of conservative Republican Supreme Court justices voted to gut the Voting Rights Act, creating an avalanche of voter suppression measures from Republican legislatures across the nation. That's why the Republican secretary of the state in Georgia erased a million and a half voters from the voter rolls- most minorities- before he ran for governor. That's why Florida Republicans desperately attempted to keep the Jim Crow voting restrictions in place preventing convicted felons from voting, and then attempted to create a "poll tax" preventing anyone from voting who had outstanding fines.
If all American citizens are permitted to vote, Democrats win in landslides. Indeed, even against rampant Republican voter suppression, Democrats won the presidential popular vote six of the past seven elections.
Democrats are the representatives of all Americans, and that's why Republicans are trying so hard to keep Americans from voting. The Upshot needs to tell that truth.
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@Sean
Thank you for saying this so well. I agree that we as Democrats represent All Americans and that is what scares the Republicans so badly. Yes we have different ideas about things within our party, but we believe in of the people, By the people and for the people . That does not change and for this election is the most important factor!
21
@Sean what you say is probably accurate but the problem last election was that many of those eligible to vote stayed at home.
In recent articles showing the number of people who didn't bother to vote compared to the narrow margin of victory for Trump in those states, clearly we had the numbers but not the will to go to the polls.
Voter turnout is crucial!
7
@Sean I do want to point out that although voter suppression is a huge issue draining voter turnout, most importantly is that regular folks are simply unaware--or should I say, "I don't care" attitude, towards politics. Yes GOP may fight as hard as they can to suppress vote, but undeniably that could have been easily mitigated if only Dems really mobilize instead of focusing comfortably on those who vote regularly----where reactionary and conservative voters dominate.
4
I am Oscar Mayer ... and I always say "HOT DOG!"
But these days, I can't get a "HOT DOG!" at Shake Shack nor Cracker Barrel.
Why?
The reason why is that many people don't give a darn about politics - the blue red quagmire - and just hate Trump.
4
@Oscar Mayer You can totally get a hot dog at Shake Shack.
3
@Oscar Mayer well, there's wieners and losers all the time.
6
This is why they need Bernie Sanders. The Third Way is the wrong way.
12
"electability" a self deceiving idea.
2
@Enri meaning who can beat Trump? Are you saying it is all wishful thinking?...that no one can? As a Democrat I want us to be pragmatic about who can beat Trump. That is the priority. I sure don’t care about pronouns or intersectionality....I want whoever has a chance of beating the demagogue in the WH.
2
There are two fundamental strategies for winning elections. The first is to motivate more like-minded people to participate and ultimately vote (the "appeal to the base" model). The second is to attract a broader spectrum of voters.
Lately, we see more and more dedication to the partisan strategy, to the detriment of our government and our society. We have federal and state congresses and executives that are often more about continued tribal posturing than actual leadership. We have entrenched social divisions that not only can't find common ground but actively distrust and disenfranchise each other. And we have seemingly abandoned any sense of shared vision and desire to compromise. (Insert comments here about how impossible it is to compromise with THOSE people.)
What to do? A simple if perhaps unrealistic change would require candidates to achieve not just a majority (or worse, a plurality) of votes cast, but a majority of all registered or eligible voters. Would this encourage politicians to seek broader appeal? We desperately need to break the tribal polarization and find candidates and leaders that more deliberately represent all of us.
5
@Bob Krantz
Wrong approach altogether. The right approach is to promote politics (including policies) that advance the interests of the working class - the 99%, if you prefer.
It's not about guessing what people might think they want this year. It's about understanding what we - nearly all of us - need, what helps us and what hurts us.
Some of the answers, at least the general outlines, are clear, obvious. Some are less so.
But identifying the classes whose interests we back is the first step. It's the alpha & omega of clear, effective politics.
1
A tad paralysis thru analyst but nevertheless you hit on what the democrats have to do. If I can be allowed to summarize it, democrats should do what they did taking back the House in 2018, a monumental task giving the republicans use of fear and their big favorable re districting advantage.
It is not rocket science what the democrats have to do, just follow the 2018 model.
5
This is one of those analysis that has us and our neighbors wondering where the rest of the country is going. We live in a battleground state in a rural, down home, chain sparse community and county. On the other hand, the voting pattern is predominantly but not exclusively blue and known for split ticket voting on a regular basis. A complete anomaly according to the analysis. We are glad we live where we do where the candidate is more important than party affiliation. Alas, our county is bordered by red counties where party affiliation and the culture wars are as hardened as the glaciated rocks and voting by party affiliation is rampant regardless of the qualities or qualifications of the candidate.
16
So, basically, you're saying that in order to save the shining republic our Founders envisioned, we need more Whole Foods stores. Bezos will be thrilled. How many stores can he build by November? (Though frankly I'm more impressed with him since his recent big money commitment to fighting climate change.)
Still, anything that gets Orange Thanos out of the White House. I hope someone in the DNC is paying attention, but given the mess of the debates, reported on elsewhere in this paper, I wouldn't put any money on it.
8
@A Yank in the UK
This rather misses the point.
Marketers for certain retail operations have acted on siting decisions that are based on demographics which also include populations disposed to vote for Democratic candidates.
2
@5barris I think Yank is kidding.
8
@5barris it was satire.
2
Give me a break. The 0.1 percent who fund Trump and run all the astroturf campaigns on race, religion, misoginy and other cutulral issues nearly all live in the same world as those Democratic coastal elites. James Carville empowered them by undermining the credibility of Democrats as progressives who can actually improve peoples' lives as opposed to making them angrier and more isolated and therefore more manipulated. Like nearly all political contests, this is one between two elites. The key is to peel off the corporate, media, and professional enablers of this Republican travesty by not allowing them to enjoy the benefits of living among progressives while destroying the environment that allows progressivism to emerge. Shame and boycotts of those who fund, support, and enable this madness..
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@life_journey
Bloomberg funded the campaigns of Republican Senators that just helped Trump get away with High Crimes.
Shame on Bloomberg the Republican, who is trying to attack the Democratic Party from the inside, even as Trump attacks Our Republic from the Oval office.
6
@life_journey Exactly. On Twitter Wasserman wrote about the Democrats' "vote atrophy in culturally anti-elite parts of the country." And those "elites" don't include Trump? Betsy DeVos? Mnuchin? The Koch brothers whose billionaire network funds Trump and GOP candidates across the country?
That's not "the elite"? Come on!
4
And which of the Democratic candidates has the most support outside this bubble? Bernie.
46
@onkelhans
Not so fast. There have only been 3 (mostly white) states so far with a Primary or Caucus, and that hardly represents the majority of Democratic support for a candidate, no matter what the polls and pundits say.
10
I think in some communities yes; in others - no. I live in a predominantly white, middle - lower middle class 'down home' market. I do not see or hear much enthusiasm for Bernie here - more so Biden for older voters or younger voters liking Pete. We are a blue dot in Western NC but I think tend to lean more moderate. If Bernie gets the nomination it will be interesting to see if our town comes out to vote for him.
17
@onkelhans Exactly, while decrying "this cultural and class disconnect" The Upshot claims was the reason that Trump "won" in 2016, it overlooks the fact that working class Blacks and Hispanics voted overwhelmingly Democratic, while Whites at all income levels voted for Trump.
This isn't about class, it's about race. That's why the GOP so strenuously tries to keep minorities from voting.
9