Maybe Sanders's "race gap" is simpler than people are making it out to be

[Recursion]

Nate Silver threw this out as an offhand comment so I wanted to look into it. Using the General Social Survey, you can get crosstabs of party ID, race, and political ideology.

Among Democrats:
47% of whites identify as "liberal", 36% as "moderate", and 15% as "conservative"
31% of African Americans identify as "liberal", 45% as "moderate", and 23% as "conservative"

That is, about half of white Democrats call themselves "moderate" or "conservative" while more than two thirds of black Democrats do.

Basically, you can look at it as saying that the fact that African Americans overwhelmingly identify as "Democrats" means that the entire spectrum of black political thought is compressed into the Democratic party. This (combined with white southerners' having left the party) makes African Americans pretty much the most conservative voting bloc in the Democratic party.

Do we really need to search high and low for reasons that the most liberal candidate is having trouble appealing to the most conservative constituency?

[DanTex]

1. This is part of it, but it doesn't explain all or even most of the gap.

For example, the latest YouGov poll (the most recent one I found that has breakdowns) has this (Hillary ahead in all subgroups):


By race:
45-30 white
58-6 black

By ideology:
49-33 liberal
55-14 moderate
48-4 conservative

If the ideological difference between white and black Dems were the only factor at work, it would come out to about 50 - 21 among whites and 51-17 among blacks. This would be a race gap of 5 points, whereas the actual race gap is 37 points.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

7. Does your source provide

joint distributions as well as marginals? Which of the many numbered tables at that URL did you use? Did you assume independence to derive joint distributions from marginals?

Your results seem sensible, but details and assumptions would raise their credibility.

[DanTex]

11. No joint distributions. Just back of the envelope.

Yes, I assumed independence, and based the calculations on that (and also using different polls and totally ignoring margin of error etc.). So yeah, it falls short of scientific by a long shot.

[cali]

2. it is simple. the Clintons. (yes, both of them)

whether deservedly or not, have a huge reservoir of good will in the black community. Bernie was virtually unknown when he entered the race, and is still not well known by many black voters, and there has been a lot of bad press and a whisper campaign that paints him as, at best, indifferent to the concerns of the community and paints his supporters as elitist white supremacist.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

3. How credible is the GSS on

this particular issue? Are you using the right weights?

There must be more elaborate and repeated studies of this issue from sources such as Pew and Gallup. Definitions of 'liberal' etc. may vary greatly across survey instruments.

I would start at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ideologies_in_the_United_States if I were researching this issue.

[Recursion]

4. It's a very broad strokes argument

African American Democrats are more conservative on the whole than white Democrats; the data certainly support that.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

5. What's on the questionnaire?

[Recursion]

6. The people assign a 1 to 7 rating to themselves

1 is calibrated in the question as "very liberal", 4 is calibrated as "moderate", and 7 as "very conservative".

[ProgressiveEconomist]

8. Doesn't the phrase 'very liberal'

have possible connotations that people of color especially might want to avoid? Do some surveys use 'Progressive' instead to avoid those connotations from Bush the Doesn't memorable campaign, and from Archie-Bunker cultural figures?

Congressional Democrats have a Progressive Caucus, but no 'Liberal Caucus'.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. I typed Elder but autocmplete...

[Starry Messenger]

10. Do we know what items people rated themselves on?

This poll says otherwise: http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publics-response-to-capitalism-socialism/

Blacks and Latinos are more likely to have a more favorable view of socialism and have a less favorable view of capitalism than whites. And with your given that the majority of black (and latino) political thought is compressed into the Democratic party, I dispute that Blacks are the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. (Assuming we are talking about economics, which I'm not sure, since I clicked on your link and landed on a home page.) I'd want more data.

[MellowDem]

12. Your analysis is a bit off...

Your linked poll shows the reactions of total populations, not white and black Democrats. The same polling company you cited has done some breakdowns that show minorities in the Democratic Party are generally more religious and conservative than their white counterparts.

http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/the-political-typology-beyond-red-vs-blue/

Also, solid liberals are amongst the most politically engaged, and they're pretty white, while other Democratic groups with more minorities are less so.

Which means Clinton, who is very well known, gets a boost in name recognition by the fact that minorities may be less engaged and won't hear him, plus Sanders is very liberal, so it makes for a very tough road for Sanders to climb to win over even whites in the party outside of the sold liberals.

[Starry Messenger]

13. That didn't really address the point I was addressing in the OP, but thanks.

[MellowDem]

14. It did...

Since you used that poll as evidence minorities are not as conservative as whites in the Democratic Party, when the poll only showed whites are more conservative overall when it comes to feelings on socialism, which wasn't your point.

[Starry Messenger]

15. No, I wanted some clarification on a point from Recursion.

I'll wait for him to reply about it, thanks.