May 18, 2016

A question about the Election (Trump Alert)

Hello DU,

I wanted to ask all of you if you've seen articles or have any knowledge on the following topic:

Leaving aside the Hill vs Bern debate for now, i'd like to talk general election numbers and Trump's odds against any democrat.
The most common wisdom is that Trump can't win because of Dems. but has anyone seen any figures on how many Trump supporters are new voters?
I ask this because looking at the 2012 election, the turnout wa 54.9 %.
Now let's get to a series of questions that popped up in my mind:
1) Would people who voted for Romney also vote for Trump?
2) How many new voters can he turn out?
3) How many that voted for Obama would vote for a Democrat again?
4) How many new voters can the Dems turn out?

Looking at the Demographics of the US:
pulled from Wikipedia

308745538 (100%) Total
223553265 (72.41%) White alone (Non-Hispanic White 196,817,552 63.7 %)
38929319 (12.61%) Black alone
28116441 (9.11%) Mixed and/or Some Other Race
14674252 (4.75%) Asian alone
2932248 (0.95%) Either American Indian or Alaska Native
540013 (0.17%) Either Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

Here's a look at the Dems from 2012 election:

RACE
White
72 % Tot
39 % (D)
59 % (R)
African-American
13 % Tot
93 % (D)
6 % (R)
Hispanic
10 % Tot
71 % (D)
27 % (R)
Asian
3 % Tot
73 % (D)
26 % (R)
Other
2 % Tot
58 % (D)
38 % (R)
http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2012/

In general I would say that Whites are slightly over represented at the 2012 election (which should be no surprise since they're the only ethnicity with 2 parties that represent them)

but this is what scares the pants off me.
The white male vote... It is wide spread acknowledged that this Dem cannot win an election, let's do some math:
Assuming the exact same turnout for the other ethnicities as in 2012, what % of the White male population do you have to get to win an election ? (I know it's not realistic that anyone gets 100% of a dem to turnout and MUCH LESS get all of their votes, but it would be unrealistic to assume that Trump would only get the WMV (White Male Vote))

U.S. WMV = 63.7 % / 2 = 31.85 %
(I forgot to count the WMV Obama got so i'll subtract those) 39% * 45% (percentage of males who voted for Obama, I know it's not precise since it's of all groups, but I'm assuming it's close enough in each Dem... I can't see why the gender ratio should be much different between demographics) * 51% (Obama's vote share) * 54.9% (Turnout) = 4.91%

That means the WMV left that didn't vote for Obama = 31.85 - 4.91 = 26.94 % (of total population)
I'll assume both with Trump getting the same non white votes and the white female vote as Romney and without him getting any non white votes nor women:
With non whites:
Democrats (Just what Obama got) = 51% * 54.9 % = 28% (So we can already see that Trump can't Win with just the WMV that didn't vote for Obama)
Republican non white vote and female = (1 - 52 % * 59% (The WMV that Romney got)) * 47% (Romney vote) * 54.9% = 17.9 % of total population.

What % of the WMV does it take to win then?

(28 - 17.9) / 26.944 = 37.5 % of the REMAINING WMV... This is what made me crap my pants, because I couldn't see much reason why Trump won't get the same non male white vote that Romney got... And in case he does lose some, there's definitely a LOT of leg stretching room to win with the WMV...

Any thoughts?

P.S. I want to add in how many extra WMV Trump needs to win compared to Romney:
WMV that didn't participate in 2012: 31.85 - 54.9% * 47% * 52 % * 59% (The WMV that Romney got)) - 4.91% (WMV Obama) = 19 % of tot population.
WMV that didn't vote that need to Turn out for Trump to win: 54.9 % * (51-47) % / 19 % = 11.6 % of the WMV that didn't vote in 2012.... just 1 out of 9 is necessary....

February 25, 2016

A few numbers on Black vs White crime:

Hi all,
considering the recent Clinton vs BLM that just came out, I have seen the most racist / bigoted claims and stats thrown around trying to defend the logic that "Blackness" is the problem.
So I had an hour to waste digging around for these stats and I wanted to compare homicides to poverty and extreme poverty levels (since this is usually the strongest motivator/indicator for crimes).
This is what I found:

Non-hispanic Caucasians make up 62% of the US.
Their poverty rate is 10 % which means 6.2% of the US population is Poor white folks.
African Americans make up 16 % of the US population and 28% of them are poor: that means 4.5 % of the US population is poor black folks.

I didn't find stats on gun violence but I found homicides:
Killed by Whites: 2370
Killed by Blacks: 2698

Now for how many homicides they commit based on poverty levels:
Blacks:Whites 1.56:1
So based on poverty levels alone, African americans are 56% more likely to commit homicide compared to whites. Still worryingly large difference, but I suspect if you look at extreme poverty the difference becomes even smaller.....

Here are my sources:
http://blackdemographics.com/households/poverty/
http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States#Black_Americans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Americans

As for extreme poverty:
according to Stanford University:
Extreme poverty:
782000 Whites in extreme poverty
758000 Blacks in extreme poverty
Homicides based on extreme poverty:
Blacks:Whites 1.17:1 .. So if you look at people living in extreme poverty (which is the biggest factors that determine crime) in the US African Americans commit homicides at 17% higher rates than whites...

If you genuinely care about crime and violence you have to address the issue of poverty.

https://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/pdf/pathways/summer_2014/Pathways_Summer_2014_ShaeferEdin.pdf

I haven't looked up any other racist/bigoted claims about crime than this atm, but I just wanted to get the worst one out of the way.

February 24, 2016

This is why Clinton has so many old supporters:

I found this interview of HRC from 1992:

Contrast that with 2015:


What the younger generation sees is the 2015 HRC, what the older generation sees is the 1992 HRC.

February 23, 2016

The most interesting hit piece I have read so far:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-womack/dear-bernie-red-flags-frequent_b_9289954.html

This is what I have to say:

Beautifully woven fact and fiction. Alex Jones couldn't have written a better hit piece if he tried. Put just enough truth in, to make it appear convincing and logical... The snarkiness and condescension does undermine the credibility.
Starting an article with:
"Senator Sanders, I like you. I admire you. Most of the time, I wish that we had 99 more senators just like you.

And I would, wouldn't I? I'm on the younger end of the likely voter spectrum. I'm male. I'm white. I'm liberal as hell. I'm the kind of voter that you should have a lock on.

But " Is a red flag if ever I saw one... Praising a person before shitting on them does not make the act less disgusting smile emoticon

PS. I really find it fascinating how the first line of attacks by camp Hillary was that Sanders only appeals to young educated privilege people, now that he's winning the Blue collar and Latino vote, the attacks are that Sanders' supporters are "a mob of angry, misinformed people"...
You are venturing into very dangerous, not good territory for Clinton supporters to tread into, considering how it went in 2008 against Obama... I recall something about "Obama is loosing the working Americans, the hard Working American, white American vote"...

February 22, 2016

Fun fact about Democrats and voter turnout.

I was Bored and really curious about this voter turnout common knowledge... So I assembled a list of the Presidents since 1944 and looked at what % of the eligible voters did they win when they won the presidency... This is what I found From LOWEST to HIGHEST:

LOWEST - (D) Bill Clinton 1992 - 23.7 % of eligible votes.
(R) George W. Bush 2000 - 24.09 % of eligible votes.
(D) Bill Clinton 1996 - 24.1 % of eligible votes.
(D) Harry Truman 1948 - 25.3 % of eligible votes.
(R) Richard Nixon 1968 - 26.3 % of eligible votes.
(R) Ronald Reagan 1980 - 26.82 % of eligible votes.
(D) Jimmy Carter 1976 - 26.85 % of eligible votes.
(R) George H. W. Bush 1988 - 26.86 % of eligible votes.
(D) Barack Obama 2012 - 28.05 % of eligible votes.
(R) George W. Bush 2004 - 28.2 % of eligible votes.
(D) Franklin D. Roosevelt 1944 - 29.96 % of eligible votes.
(D) Barack Obama 2008 - 30.2 % of eligible votes.
(D) John F. Kennedy 1960 - 31.2 % of eligible votes.
(R) Ronald Reagan 1984 - 31.3 % of eligible votes.
(R) Richard Nixon 1972 - 33.4 % of eligible votes.
(R) Dwight D. Eisenhower 1952 - 34 % of eligible votes.
(R) Dwight D. Eisenhower 1956 - 34 % of eligible votes.
HIGHEST (D) Lyndon B. Johnson 1964 - 37.5 % of eligible votes.

Now this high voter turnout = Democrat seems completely backwards...
3 out of the Bottom 4 are Democrats and 4 out of the top 5 are Republicans.
Noteworthy is that Bill Clinton is the worst performing president since WW2 and by a mile, only Truman comes close.
George H. W. Bush is the only republican president that has not won re-election and not has his voter turnout increase in re-election since WW2... For the Dems it's hard to tell since there are so few cases of running for re-election, but Carter lost, Obama's popularity went down and only Clinton increased his popularity... From the Lowest turnout since WW2 to the third lowest turnout in since WW2....