The Shift

Re-posting this here after seeing it on Twitter.
A map showing the red-shifts and blue-shifts across the USA in this election:

The red swings are pretty shocking. The thing is, most of those were already 60%+ Republican counties. Democrats thought the bottom had already fallen out there in 2012, but they still lurched heavily rightward.

Almost equally shocking are the strong blue shifts in some of the suburbs and cities. Especially in Texas. Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston shifted majorly left this election. Texas as a whole was 20 points more Republican than the country in 2012 and was only 10 points this year. Similar shifts in Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, and Phoenix.

It'll be interesting to see if the Democrats try and abandon the Midwest and Rust Belt to go after Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Texas.

Anagram said:

The red swings are pretty shocking. The thing is, most of those were already 60%+ Republican counties. Democrats thought the bottom had already fallen out there in 2012, but they still lurched heavily rightward.

Almost equally shocking are the strong blue shifts in some of the suburbs and cities. Especially in Texas. Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston shifted majorly left this election. Texas as a whole was 20 points more Republican than the country in 2012 and was only 10 points this year. Similar shifts in Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, and Phoenix.

It'll be interesting to see if the Democrats try and abandon the Midwest and Rust Belt to go after Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Texas.

Click to expand...

Californians retire and move to Texas so they don't have to pay crazy state income tax on their retirement income. When they move they bring their liberal social values with them while escaping the results of their liberal fiscal values.

Lutherf said:

Californians retire and move to Texas so they don't have to pay crazy state income tax on their retirement income. When they move they bring their liberal social values with them while escaping the results of their liberal fiscal values.

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Same thing with northeastern Yankee liberals are doing to the North Carolina mountains and of course... Florida.

Lutherf said:

Californians retire and move to Texas so they don't have to pay crazy state income tax on their retirement income. When they move they bring their liberal social values with them while escaping the results of their liberal fiscal values.

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I'm sure that's some of it, but that can't be all of it. There weren't similar leftward shifts in 2012 or 2008 and immigration rates to Texas haven't really changed since then. I'm sure the growing Hispanic population also produced some of it. But with the way the numbers that shifted, it looks like Democrats did pick off some usual Republican voters in suburbs around the country.

Anagram said:

I'm sure that's some of it, but that can't be all of it. There weren't similar leftward shifts in 2012 or 2008 and immigration rates to Texas haven't really changed since then. I'm sure the growing Hispanic population also produced some of it. But with the way the numbers that shifted, it looks like Democrats did pick off some usual Republican voters in suburbs around the country.

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In my county (Southern AZ) the Democrats are HIGHLY organized and incredibly active. They spend tons of time identifying people who don't vote and then solicit registrations and ballots from those people. In many cases the people they are engaging aren't entirely capable of handling their own affairs. For example, they target senior citizen "independent living" facilities where large numbers of the residents are in various stages of dementia. The solicit the homeless who suffer from various mental issues and they solicit the university kids who, while certainly capable of independent thought, are often highly impressionable. The tactics are nearly identical to the ones we used to see for cult recruiting in the 60's and 70's. They also aren't much different than the tactics scammers use to sell magazine subscriptions or scare people in to paying "IRS fines".

Lutherf said:

In my county (Southern AZ) the Democrats are HIGHLY organized and incredibly active. They spend tons of time identifying people who don't vote and then solicit registrations and ballots from those people. In many cases the people they are engaging aren't entirely capable of handling their own affairs. For example, they target senior citizen "independent living" facilities where large numbers of the residents are in various stages of dementia. The solicit the homeless who suffer from various mental issues and they solicit the university kids who, while certainly capable of independent thought, are often highly impressionable. The tactics are nearly identical to the ones we used to see for cult recruiting in the 60's and 70's. They also aren't much different than the tactics scammers use to sell magazine subscriptions or scare people in to paying "IRS fines".

Click to expand...

If they are doing that then they did it a ton better in cities and suburbs than they've ever done before and a hell of a lot worse everywhere else. I don't think that explains the blue vs red shifts either, especially since they didn't really change how they get their voters since past elections.

Anagram said:

If they are doing that then they did it a ton better in cities and suburbs than they've ever done before and a hell of a lot worse everywhere else. I don't think that explains the blue vs red shifts either, especially since they didn't really change how they get their voters since past elections.

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It's easier now since mail in ballots are becoming more popular. They only have to target certain precincts.

If you've got a precinct that was close to 50/50 in prior years you just go in and target those neighborhoods and developments. All you need to do is pick up a few hundred additional votes and the precinct shifts to your team. A small team of activists can get that done in a matter of days if they've spent the past several months prospecting their targets. The cities and suburbs make it easy because that's where the nursing homes and shelters are.

Lutherf said:

It's easier now since mail in ballots are becoming more popular. They only have to target certain precincts.

If you've got a precinct that was close to 50/50 in prior years you just go in and target those neighborhoods and developments. All you need to do is pick up a few hundred additional votes and the precinct shifts to your team. A small team of activists can get that done in a matter of days if they've spent the past several months prospecting their targets. The cities and suburbs make it easy because that's where the nursing homes and shelters are.

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I don't know whether Democrats do that or not. But I really don't see anyway it could explain it with the volume of the shifts. These are tons of votes. It would have had to basically not happen in 2012 and then happen to millions of people in 2016. And it happened in places where Democrats had no reason to do it. Boise, Oklahoma City, Nashville, Louisville, Montgomery basically anywhere that cities are.

Lutherf said:

In my county (Southern AZ) the Democrats are HIGHLY organized and incredibly active. They spend tons of time identifying people who don't vote and then solicit registrations and ballots from those people. In many cases the people they are engaging aren't entirely capable of handling their own affairs. For example, they target senior citizen "independent living" facilities where large numbers of the residents are in various stages of dementia. The solicit the homeless who suffer from various mental issues and they solicit the university kids who, while certainly capable of independent thought, are often highly impressionable. The tactics are nearly identical to the ones we used to see for cult recruiting in the 60's and 70's. They also aren't much different than the tactics scammers use to sell magazine subscriptions or scare people in to paying "IRS fines".

Click to expand...

That was, well, a very diplomatic way to state the bolded! :lamo

sanman said:

Re-posting this here after seeing it on Twitter.
A map showing the red-shifts and blue-shifts across the USA in this election:

Click to expand...

I think like so many things this election, the perceived takeaway might be a bit exaggerated.

Trump inflamed the Mexican and suburban wife vote for Hillary, and HRC not only suppressed the Dem vote in general due to a lack of charisma, but she abandoned the Caucasian blue collar vote by clinging to trade deals and having to live with her corporatist establishment ways.

Yeah, changes did take place but the candidates greatly influenced them. For all the talk of Trump, he didnt do any better than Romney in 2012. The big change, was how badly HRC did in relation to Obama 2012! The poor HRC performance in general is responsible for a substantial amount of the current redshift we see, since many of Trump's flips were close races. Trump's win looks much more convincing when looking at only the electoral state map, than when we closely examine the individual vote totals and turnout in the individual states (or when we look at the popular vote).

The next cycle may have candidates moderating the map back a bit. Though I will admit: If Trump has a successful Presidency, especially in relation to the rust-belt voters, the Dems may have their work cut out for them with that demo.

Anagram said:

If they are doing that then they did it a ton better in cities and suburbs than they've ever done before and a hell of a lot worse everywhere else. I don't think that explains the blue vs red shifts either, especially since they didn't really change how they get their voters since past elections.

Click to expand...

Well, did the map show vote totals or vote percentages?

As an example, in Pima County Precinct #1 there were 927 votes cast for president. The difference between D and R was 10 votes with 444 for Clinton and 434 for Trump. If someone was able to come up with 10 more votes for Clinton that would show a 2.3% swing in her favor. If that happened in 10 precincts it would only be a 100 vote swing out of 300,000+ ballots cast in the county but the vote percentage in those precincts would be significant.

Anagram said:

The red swings are pretty shocking. The thing is, most of those were already 60%+ Republican counties. Democrats thought the bottom had already fallen out there in 2012, but they still lurched heavily rightward.

Almost equally shocking are the strong blue shifts in some of the suburbs and cities. Especially in Texas. Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston shifted majorly left this election. Texas as a whole was 20 points more Republican than the country in 2012 and was only 10 points this year. Similar shifts in Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, and Phoenix.

It'll be interesting to see if the Democrats try and abandon the Midwest and Rust Belt to go after Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Texas.

Click to expand...

IIRC a substantial number of jobs were created in these and other Southern States. People moved for the work. And they moved from heavy Dem areas. Not all were Dems but a substantial number were.
Add in ethnic minorities and you see the swing in votes