What lost WI in 2016 and how can they be won?

[Drunken Irishman]

These three states are the three the Democrats need to focus in on or they're not going to win back the White House again in 2020.

I'm going to look at data from three presidential elections: 2004, 2012 and 2016.

Let's start with Wisconsin.

This is a state the Democrats barely won in 2004. When I say barely, I mean barely - they won it by less than a point.

What's interesting about Wisconsin when comparing 2004 to 2016 is that Wisconsin was actually less white in 2016 by about four-points than in 2004 and yet the Democrats did overall worse.

Why?

Well in 2004, 90% of the voting population was white. Bush won 52% and Kerry did pretty decently at 47%. In 2016, whites made up 86% of the electorate and Trump won 53%, so, only marginally better than Bush twelve-years prior. However, Clinton won only 42% - that's a swing of six-points. Despite whites making up less percentage of the voting public in 2016 compared to 2004, the margins were significantly more in Trump's favor. Only very marginally more whites voted for Trump - however, more whites (5%) voted for someone other than Trump and Hillary. In 2004, less than one-percent voted for another candidate outside Bush/Kerry.

2012, though, was far more similar to 2016. Again, the electorate was 86% white. Romney won 51% of that group and Obama won 48% - significantly better than Clinton four years later. It'd explain why he won this state by a comfortable margin.

In fact, the demographic breakdown of Wisconsin in 2012 and 2016 was almost identical in terms of race:

White: 86%
Black: 7%
Latino: 4%

The difference? Beyond more whites voting for Obama - again, 99% of whites voted for either Obama/Romney ... unlike in 2016, where a healthy 5% voted for someone else.

Minority turnout was at the same level in 2016 as it was in 2012. At least in Wisconsin.

So, who were these whites?

This is trickier. We don't have a breakdown in exit polling data to indicate what candidate they voted for. However, we can assume a few things based on political ideology/party identification.

In 2012, Democrats made up 37% of the electorate in Wisconsin. Republicans made up 32% and Independents 31%. Obama won the Democratic vote with 95% of the share and Romney won the GOP vote 95% of the share - so, an identical split. Obama won the independent vote very narrowly - 49% to 47%.

In 2016, Democrats made up 35% of the electorate in Wisconsin. Republicans 34% and Independents 30%. That is a small, but significant, difference - as the gap between Democratic/Republican went from +5 in 2012 to just +1 in 2016. We can assume, based on this number, fewer Democrats voted in 2016 than in 2012. Of that, Hillary won 91% of the Democratic vote, while Trump was able to grab 7% - a decent amount higher than Romney in 2012. Trump was also able to win 90% of the GOP vote, while Hillary won 6% - actually higher than Obama did in 2012.

What does this tell us? Both candidates did worse among their party than Obama/Romney in 2012. The difference is that fewer Democrats actually voted, which narrowed the margins significantly in 2016.

30% of the electorate in Wisconsin was comprised of independents, which is actually a net minus-one compared to 2012. In a switch, though, Trump actually won the independent vote with 50% - more than Obama did in 2012. Hillary only received 40% of this bloc, which was even less than Romney in 2012 by seven-points.

Of the Democrats who did vote third party, Stein and Johnson won 1% each. 3% of Republicans, however, voted for Gary Johnson, so, Trump was actually more impacted negatively by the third party vote in Wisconsin than Hillary.

So, examining these numbers a narrative is emerging: Hillary lost a chunk of the base that won Obama Wisconsin in 2012. Knowing that, the next question, which goes back to the initial question, who were these voters?

Well, while the percentage of black voters in Wisconsin did not change in 2016 - the total percentage of vote did. It wasn't significant, but Hillary did 2% worse than Obama did in 2012. Trump did the exact same as Romney (6%) in 2012. That means, two-percent of black voters voted third party in 2016 over Hillary Clinton. Not a significant total, but Hillary lost Wisconsin by just 22,748.

But what about ideology?

This is where we start getting better insight into things.

In 2016, liberals made up 25% of the electorate in Wisconsin. That was actually an increase of one-point from 2012 - so, more liberals voted. Clinton even did better among this demographic than Obama did, as she won 91%, while Obama won 'only' 90% in 2012. On the flip side, Trump actually did better himself, winning 10% of this ideology compared to 8% for Romney in 2012. That's actually a +1 difference for Trump when comparing the margins. Still, not significant.

What is significant? Those who identified as moderates.

In 2012, 40% of the electorate identified as moderates. In 2016, that was unchanged - 40% again identified as moderates. What changed? In 2012, Obama won moderate voters with 61% of the vote in Wisconsin (Romney 37%). Hillary, in 2012, won moderate voters 52 to 42 over Trump. So, Hillary did nine-points worse than Obama four years prior and Trump did five-points better than Romney. That's a swing of fourteen points and that, my friends, is the election.

So, what cost Hillary Wisconsin?

Based on exit polls, Hillary failed to win over moderate voters who shifted by fourteen-points to Trump. These were likely a bulk of the independent voters, but also some of those seven-percent Democrats who voted for Trump over Hillary (as opposed to the 4% who voted for Romney in 2012).

Wisconsin wasn't lost because of depressed minority turnout or even liberals staying home or voting third party. It was lost because moderate voters shifted toward Trump. That killed Hillary in 2016.

In the next few weeks, I'll examine Michigan and Pennsylvania, too, to see if the trend is similar. But for now, it's clear the path back to winning a state like Wisconsin is likely through a candidate who doesn't alienate moderate voters.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Interesting.

Next door in Minnesota Hillary won, but by only 1% - in a state that's reliably voted Democratic by safe margins for decades. Since the demographics are similar to Wisconsin's, I wonder whether the same analysis would apply.

[AJT]

2. The Republicans gerrymandered the state beyond recognition.

[OliverQ]

13. Gerrymandering doesn't effect the Presidential election.

[PBC_Democrat]

17. Except that gerrymandering has no effect on Presidential elections

IMHO, it's way to easy to blame vague bogeymen like gerrymandering, voter suppression, Russian interference, and disparaging Facebook ads.

BEFORE YOU GET OUT YOUR FLAMETHROWERS ....

I have no doubt that these things exist .... and they must be dealt with.

But we have to live in the world we have, not the one we wish we had. All while endeavoring to get to the world we wish we had.

We have the better platform on all most all issues, we're just not always the best at communicating it.

[Turin_C3PO]

3. Good analysis.

Although I wonder why moderates didn’t like Hillary Clinton, considering she was the moderate in the race. It always baffles me that ANY so-called moderates voted for or will vote for Trump. He’s a right wing demagogue. You’d think that would repel moderates.

In any case, I think it’s likely Biden has the best chance although I think Warren and O’Rourke would do well also.

As an aside, I was thinking, if the economy crashes, that states like Georgia, Iowa, and Arizona would be in play. What’s your opinion on that?

[Gothmog]

4. GOP suppressed the vote in Wisconsin with voter id

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

With a Democratic governor in charge, this will be less of a problem

[Drunken Irishman]

5. It's possible that played a minor role - but no...

As I pointed out, the black vote was the exact same in 2016 as it was in 2012.

[Gothmog]

7. Wisconsin's Voter-ID Law Suppressed 200,000 Votes in 2016 (Trump Won by 22,748)

I trust Ari Berman on this https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-suppressed-200000-votes-trump-won-by-23000/

A new study by Priorities USA, shared exclusively with The Nation, shows that strict voter-ID laws, in Wisconsin and other states, led to a significant reduction in voter turnout in 2016, with a disproportionate impact on African-American and Democratic-leaning voters. Wisconsin’s voter-ID law reduced turnout by 200,000 votes, according to the new analysis. Donald Trump won the state by only 22,748 votes.

The study compared turnout in states that adopted strict voter-ID laws between 2012 and 2016, like Wisconsin, to states that did not.

While states with no change to voter identification laws witnessed an average increased turnout of +1.3% from 2012 to 2016, Wisconsin’s turnout (where voter ID laws changed to strict) dropped by -3.3%. If turnout had instead increased by the national no-change average, we estimate that over 200,000 more voters would have voted in Wisconsin in 2016.

This reduction in turnout particularly hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

The lost voters skewed more African-American and more Democrat. For example, Wisconsin’s 2016 electorate was 6.1% more Republican, and 5.7% less Democrat, than the group of ‘lost voters’. Furthermore, the WI electorate was 3.7% more White and 3.8% less African American than the group of ‘lost voters.’ This analysis suggests that the 200,000 lost voters would have both been more racially diverse and have voted more Democratic.

[Drunken Irishman]

10. Definitely had a role, as I said, but yeah it wasn't the reason Democrats lost.

The demographics were almost unchanged from 2012 to 2016. The most significant change was within moderate voters - as Trump did fourteen-points better than Romney in 2012.

That was the election. Those are the facts and I don't have to extrapolate unverified data to get there.

[Gothmog]

16. In Texas the voter id law killed us in 2014

I have been volunteering on voter protection issues for a long while. I help run the statewide voter protection campaign in Texas for Clinton and have been in a number of war rooms for voter protection. The GOP likes voter id because it is effective

In 2014, the Texas voter id law killed Democrats.

We sued and got the law basically gutted which helped Clinton get within 9% of Trump and Beto to get within 3% of Carnival Cruz. Voter id laws are very effective in suppressing the vote.

I have seen two or three studies that show that trump's margin of victory was due to voter id law.

I am all in favor of appealing to moderate voters

As a practical matter, the new Democrats governor can help lessen the effect of the Wisconsin law this cycle

[spanone]

6. We shouldn't downplay the role Russia played and will play.

[Gothmog]

8. Rigged: How Voter Suppression Threw Wisconsin to Trump

Again, you need to look at voter suppression https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppression-wisconsin-election-2016/

The impact of Wisconsin’s voter ID law received almost no attention. When it did, it was often dismissive. Two days after the election, Talking Points Memo ran a piece by University of California-Irvine law professor Rick Hasen under the headline “Democrats Blame ‘Voter Suppression’ for Clinton Loss at Their Peril.” Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said it was “a load of crap” to claim that the voter ID law had led to lower turnout. When Clinton, in an interview with New York magazine, said her loss was “aided and abetted by the suppression of the vote, particularly in Wisconsin,” the Washington Examiner responded, “Hillary Clinton Blames Voter Suppression for Losing a State She Didn’t Visit Once During the Election.” As the months went on, pundits on the right and left turned Clinton’s loss into a case study for her campaign’s incompetence and the Democratic Party’s broader abandonment of the white working class. Voter suppression efforts were practically ignored, when they weren’t mocked.....

Three years after Wisconsin passed its voter ID law in 2011, a federal judge blocked it, noting that 9 percent of all registered voters did not have the required forms of ID. Black voters were about 50 percent likelier than whites to lack these IDs because they were less likely to drive or to be able to afford the documents required to get a current ID, and more likely to have moved from out of state. There is, of course, no one thing that swung the election. Clinton’s failings, James Comey’s 11th-hour letter, Russian interference, fake news, sexism, racism, and a struggling economy in key swing states all contributed to Trump’s victory. We will never be able to assign exact proportions to all the factors at play. But a year later, interviews with voters, organizers, and election officials reveal that, in Wisconsin and beyond, voter suppression played a much larger role than is commonly understood......

In Wisconsin, the intent of those who pushed for the ID law was clear. On the night of Wisconsin’s 2016 primary, GOP Rep. Glenn Grothman, a backer of the law when he was in the state Senate, predicted that a Republican would carry the state in November, even though Wisconsin had gone for Barack Obama by 7 points in 2012. “I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up,” he told a local TV news reporter, “and now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well.”

The strategy worked. While we’ll never know precisely how many people were prevented from voting, it’s safe to say that thousands of Wisconsinites like Anthony were denied one of their most fundamental rights. And with Republicans now in control of both the executive and legislative branches in the federal government and a majority of states, that problem will likely get worse.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

9. Good question

So far- if 2018 is a judge, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are looking better for us in 2020, at least insofar as there is less chance of Republican electoral f**kery, at least emanating from the Governor's office.

[StevieM]

11. The fake email scandal explains her loss in every battleground state from Wisconsin to Florida.

And it explains why she didn't win by a wider margin in the states that she did win.

That whole election revolved around a ridiculous story about an email server.

[triron]

12. Russian vote manipulation. eos.

[W_HAMILTON]

14. How can you say it was not due to suppressed/depressed Democratic turnout?

For god's sake, Romney got more votes in Wisconsin in 2012 than Trump did in 2016.

[Bettie]

15. I'm from Wisconsin

I live in Iowa now, but I'm there a lot and know/am related to many people there.

My Republican relatives disliked Trump, but they HATED Hillary Clinton. They have now become absolute Trumpkins...because of his cruel and brutal policies against brown people and because their church leaders say "god" chose him.

My more liberal friends, generally Democratic voters, also hated Hillary Clinton. Some of these voted for Stein or stayed home.

25-30 years of a constant background drumbeat of "she's dishonest, she's a criminal, etc." even when none of it is true, does make a difference. There was an ingrained, trained response to distrust Hillary Clinton.

Even very liberal people I know, who voted for her, distrusted her or accepted the "they are both terrible, but vote for the Democrat".

Saying this made no difference is foolish and avoids the very real fact that marketing works and this was a long term campaign against a woman who obviously scared the pants off of some rich white dudes a long time ago. That vast right wing conspiracy is and was a thing.

[Cosmocat]

18. Agree until the last sentence

Hillary did not "alienate moderate voters."

That puts 1,000 times more fault on her than THEM.

The choice was

Hillary did not go around repeatedly saying bad things about anyone, she did not have policies that would have negatively impacted these people.

That choice is stark enough that short of her talking about taxing middle income workers two times over AND spending the entire campaign saying they were all worthless might make up the difference between the two.

Meanwhile, the guy they voted for mocked a disabled person, battled with vets, was caught on tape talking about sexually predatory behavior, said this voters were big enough suckers that he could shoot someone and they would still vote for him, lied literally every time he opened his mouth ... Never released his taxes, went bankrupt repeatedly, had Trump U, his businesses had long hired illegals while he demogued it ...

He said and did a 1,000,000 things that were more "offensive" to these people than anything Hillary Clinton said or did.

No, they made a VERY CLEAR choice to elect a relentlessly corrupt and malevolent lunatic over a sane, decent and highly competent candidate.

SO, yeah, getting a candidate that might appeal to them. But, it is clear distinction between appealing to these people and "alienating" them. Because they are making the choice for reasons that have nothing to do with their best interests or the actual quality of the candidate.

[customerserviceguy]

19. Wow, that was a lot of work

I look forward to your analysis of MI and PA.

If Hillary had visited Wisconsin or picked an African-American running mate, we might well have seen a different result.

[Orangepeel]

20. People sometimes call themselves moderate when they don't know what else to say

What kind of candidate doesn’t alienate “moderate” voters? Did these voters perceive Trump as more “moderate” than Clinton?

What positions does a moderate take? Is someone who supports both abortion rights and the death penalty moderate? What about someone who supports banning trans people from using the public restroom they want, but also supports collective bargaining?

The problem with trying to appeal to moderate voters is similar to the problem with trying to appeal to independent voters. The term doesn’t mean very much.

[Horizens]

21. 3 Elephants in the Room. You Ignored all 3.

1.) Sanders and the "bernie bots", exclusive of other factors, put WI, PA, MI and, possibly FLA, in the trump column.

2.) Comey, exclusive of other factors, put this states in the trump column.

3.) Russia, exclusive of other factors, put these states in the trump column.

[Poiuyt]

22. Remember though, Wisconsin just reelected one of the more liberal senators in Tammy Baldwin

I know this is cynical, but I think it all boils down to likability.

[Baltimike]

23. The RUSSIAN RIGGING AND TREASONOUS ACTS OF THE KGOPB is what happened

and the CONSERVATIVE PRESS propped them up the whole time.