Yet another parsing of the vote
If you listen to some liberals—I’m too discreet to name names, but you might know whom I have in mind—Trump’s election was the reflection of a resurgent hegemony of white patriarchy. These arguments are typically made without any supporting evidence, because there isn’t much of that. Here’s some complicating data drawn from exit polls (sources: 2016, 2020, 2024). First, the swing between 2020 and 2024. The only demographic groups in the graph below to shift significantly towards the Democrat between 2020 and 2024 were over-65s and those with incomes over $100,000. Over-65s,… Read More
Quit rates, unions, politics
I’m not sure what this means, but quit rates are higher in states that voted for Trump, and are higher in states with low unionization rates. We’ve been hearing for some time now that quit rates are the highest on record. That’s true if you look only at the Job Openings and Labor Market Turnover Series (JOLTS) numbers, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) started reporting in December 2000. It had an ancestor, which the BLS reported for manufacturing only, covering 1919 to 1981 (left portion of the graph below). Current… Read More
Biden by 20
Based on historical patterns going back to 1948, Biden should beat Trump by almost 20 points in the popular vote. Of course, if anyone could blow this, it would be Biden. Back in 1996, when I was still doing Left Business Observer, I came across a 1993 paper by Andrew Gelman and Gary King, “Why are American Presidential Election Campaign Polls so Variable when Votes are so Predictable?” It cited research showing that despite all the volatility in the opinion polls during the campaign, the results were fairly easy to foresee months… Read More
LBO News from Doug Henwood 