No single issue explains why Donald Trump was elected. Some Trump voters approve of Barack Obama’s performance as president. And the country is starkly split by a rural-urban divide. This is HuffPollster for Thursday, November 17, 2016.
THE ELECTION WAS ABOUT RACISM AND SEXISM, NOT JUST THE ECONOMY - Brian Schaffner: “In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton last week, many are still struggling to understand what happened….[W]e are left with competing narratives, with some reports suggesting that economic insecurity was the decisive factor in this election, and others highlighting the role of racism or sexism in driving voters toward Trump. The truth, however, is that there is no single cause of Trump’s success among whites. All three factors played an important role….Dissatisfaction with one’s own economic situation leads to a sizable increase in the probability of supporting Trump, but so too does increasing levels of denial that racism exists in America. Sexism is also a powerful force, as those who are more in agreement that women seek to gain control over men were far more likely to support Trump…. Ultimately, the competing narratives about why Trump performed so well among whites are not competing at all; they are complementary. To truly understand Trump’s success means acknowledging that economic insecurity was part of the story, but so too were racism and sexism.” [Vox]
SOME TRUMP VOTERS LIKE OBAMA - Aaron Blake: “According to a new poll from The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, nearly 1 in 5 Trump voters say they approve of Obama’s job performance. That would mean about 8 percent (note: large margin of error) of Americans went to the polls on Election Day liking what Obama was producing as president but deciding to vote for the other party’s unpopular nominee anyway…. The numbers aren’t hugely surprising. Simply doing the math of a president whose approval rating is in the mid-50s and the other party’s nominee winning the election, there had to be pro-Obama voters who were on Trump’s side. The fact that there are so many people with this kind of dual loyalty, though, is striking — especially since both candidates used Obama’s policies as a touchstone… The Post-Schar School poll also shows that, among Trump voters who said they shared Trump’s views on only some, hardly any or no issues, 30 percent approved of Obama. And among Trump voters who weren’t ‘very’ optimistic about Trump’s policies — they were only ‘somewhat’ optimistic or were pessimistic — 25 percent approved of Obama.” [WashPost]
THE COUNTRY’S RURAL-URBAN DIVIDE IS AS LARGE AS EVER - Ronald Brownstein: “Of all the overlapping generational, racial, and educational divides that explained Trump’s stunning upset over Hillary Clinton last week, none proved more powerful than the distance between the Democrats’ continued dominance of the largest metropolitan areas, and the stampede toward the GOP almost everywhere else. Trump’s victory was an empire-strikes-back moment for all the places and voters that feel left behind in an increasingly diverse, post-industrial, and urbanized America.…. [O]verall, [Clinton] delivered a dominant performance in most urban centers and many affluent white-collar suburbs…. At latest tally, Clinton won the nation’s 100 largest counties by fully 12.6 million votes—an historic lead certain to widen with many more West Coast ballots yet to count…. But Clinton suffered far greater losses than Obama outside of this vibrant urban core. Tom Bonier, the chief executive of the Democratic targeting firm TargetSmart, says that with final results still pending in some states, Clinton has won only about 420 counties total—far fewer than any popular vote winner over the past century. In the roughly 3000 counties beyond the 100 largest, Trump trounced Clinton by about 11.5 million votes. [The Atlantic]
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THURSDAY’S ‘OUTLIERS’ - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:
-Tim Wallace separates America into two maps: Trump support vs. Clinton support. [NYT]
-Sean Trende argues that an “emerging Democratic majority” isn’t inevitable. [RCP]
-A Buzzfeed analysis shows that some fake news stories attracted more attention than real ones on Facebook. [Buzzfeed]
-French pollsters don’t anticipate a Trump or Brexit-style upset in their 2017 presidential election. [Bloomberg]