Thread by @toddntucker

Trade was "extremely important" for 25% of voters, or 11th most important of 12 issues. Only Russia was lower.
Trade was extremely or very important for 61% of voters, at 10th place - below Kavanaugh and above climate change/Russia.
news.gallup.com/poll/244367/to…

This confirms my intuition. Trade can't be completely disregarded as an issue, but neither should it occupy pride of place. For a decent chunk of voters, it's something they feel passionately about. For a majority of voters, it's something they follow.

Politicians like Sherrod Brown - who do well in Midwestern swing states - emphasize their populist bonafides on the issue.
dispatch.com/news/20180612/…

Others - like Heidi Heitkamp - push in the opposite direction, and did not do as well the last cycle.
This is consistent with (though doesn't prove) trade being a vote-determining issue in the crucial 18 electoral-vote-state of Ohio, and not with ND's 3.
cnbc.com/2018/09/13/hei…

If voters care about trade, why do they care about trade? The academic research posits numerous explanations. @mjasonkuo and Megumi Naoi have a great literature review here:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Early political science research on the question used as it's starting point a specific Stolper-Samuelson derived materialist thesis: "low skill" workers in relatively capital-abundant countries suffer from trade, so should oppose it and punish elected officials that favor it.

The US is relatively capital abundant, unlike say Mexico. @joshbivens_DC estimates that US trade with developing countries has come at a $2,000 annual cost to the "non-college-degreed worker making the median hourly wage and working full time, full year."
epi.org/publication/ad…

But as Sungmin Rho and Michael Tomz put in, "scholars find surprisingly little evidence that the preferences of citizens fit the predictions of standard economic models [or] that voters actually define their interests in these rational, materialist ways”
cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Alternative explanations in the literature reviewed by @mjasonkuo and Naoi: leftists oppose trade b/c they like government intervention (mixed), cosmopolitans like trade because it's cultural exchange (consistent), and married people favor protection b/c they are less selfish...

An excellent new book by @A_Guisinger (which in part uses data I assembled) finds that women and people of color are consistently "protectionist," and that white men can be flipped towards "protectionism" based on self-interested and/or racist cues.
amazon.com/American-Opini…

Attitudes towards risk, religious fundamentalism, how informed one is, attitudes towards foreign policy, and group socialization can all play a role - each has been studied.

Much research tends towards the tentative, given how many different ways voters might interpret the notion of "trade." A piece by Diana Mutz from earlier this year makes a bold and thus exciting claim...
pnas.org/content/115/19…

Namely, "Support for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 election was widely attributed to citizens who were “left behind” economically...I find that change in financial wellbeing had little impact on candidate preference."...

"Instead, changing preferences were related to changes in the party’s positions on issues related to American global dominance and the rise of a majority–minority America: issues that threaten white Americans’ sense of dominant group status."

As befits a bold claim, it attracted pushback, especially from sociologists that specialize in class and race issues. For a video length discussion, see @robertwrighter and sociologist @Musa_alGharbi here:

.@SLMsociology argued that certain variables Mutz codes as "status threat" are arguably an indication of material interests, including support for trade, competition with China, immigration, isolationism, and attitudes about the national economy
osf.io/preprints/soca…

There continues to be back-and-forth on this issue, dealing with both quantitative and qualitative coding decisions. Andrew Gelman @StatModeling provides a useful guide here:
andrewgelman.com/2018/07/01/sta…

Recently, @_Jon_Green @SeanMcElwee added a further twist to the story, finding "racial attitudes strongly explain two-party vote choice among white voters" but that "local economic distress was strongly associated with non-voting among people of color"...
cambridge.org/core/journals/…

While academics continue to debate poll interpretation, politicians across the country are honing their message on trade, including in some "unlikely" districts...

In Arizona-2, @Ann_Kirkpatrick flipped a GOP seat to blue. Her website: "Ann knows the importance of international trade to our economy, but she opposes so-called “free trade” deals that outsource U.S. jobs and harm American workers." kirkpatrickforcongress.com/issues/

In Florida-26, @DebbieforFL did the same. Her website: "We don’t need more tax breaks for billionaires, or for corporations that ship jobs overseas. We need a tax system that helps small businesses and hard-working people get ahead."
debbiemucarselpowell.com/issues/#economy

In Iowa, @Axne4Congress did same. Her "top priority will be putting IA families to work...She’ll level the playing field by raising wages, addressing unfair trade deals that put our workers at risk, protecting our unions and promoting Main St over Wall St" cindyaxneforcongress.com/issues/

Ditto @HaleyLive in #MI11: "We need to support trade deals that prioritize the American worker and keep profits within our borders, while also holding China accountable. I [want] a negotiation of trade agreements to level the playing field of wages" haleystevensforcongress.com/priorities/wor…

Ditto @DelgadoforNY19: "I will oppose any trade agreements that are not beneficial to our region or to American workers" and "The farmers in our district have been forced to endure the detrimental impacts of bad trade policies and an unfair Farm Bill."
delgadoforcongress.com/blog/issue/job…

Of the 34 (and counting) R to D seats, I found only five that featured criticism of Trump's trade policies. Four of these did so while saying they would fight for better labor and environmental protections than Trump...

Here's @LucyWins2018, who flipped the seat once held by Newt Gingrich: "it would be a catastrophic mistake to further isolate... that being said, when we enter such agreements, [we] must insist on strong protections for the environment and our workers"
lucyforcongress.com/issue/jobs-the…

Here's @LUnderwood630 in #IL14: "It’s critically important that all trade deals put the interests of American workers first [but] Donald Trump wants to withdraw the US from global leadership"
drive.google.com/file/d/19sKj1p…

Here's @deanbphillips in #MN3: "Dean supports renegotiating sections of existing trade deals to make them more fair to American businesses, [but] opposes the current Administration’s dangerous and arbitrary tariffs"
phillipsforcongress.org/priorities/job…

And in what is by far the most detailed trade position I found of the flipped seats, @DrKimSchrier in #WA8 manages to criticize Trump's tariffs while also criticizing trade deals and backing labor. All the more notable given WA's export orientation
drkimschrier.com/issues/trade/

Only Joe Cunningham of SC-1 has an unfettered critique of Trump without channeling his own "populist" alternative: "These tariffs are dangerous and could be catastrophic for Lowcountry families. In Congress, I will vote to overturn these tariffs."
joecunninghamforcongress.com/myvalues

What to make of the fact that nearly a third of the flipped seats tried to outflank Trump on trade? The Gallup poll at the top of the thread indicates it's not a decisive factor for most Americans. My hypothesis: trade is a convenient issue for telegraphing who you stand with.

For Trump, it's about America versus the rest of the world.

For Democrats, it's about labor versus capital and corporations. (Also, concretely about campaigns' relations with unions.)

We may have a head-to-head matchup of these frames in 2020. END

https://twitter.com/toddntucker/status/1062016999184912391

FWIW, for me: trade is of geographically uneven but electorally critical importance for Dems. They must tap into what makes the issue resonant for some voters, while pivoting to big moves on labor/tax/antitrust/etc. Some goes through trade but much doesn't
rooseveltinstitute.org/trade-set-doct…