One thing we need to address going into 2020.
Why did Bonnie Smith, a baker in Ohio, who gets up at 1.45am every day, who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, voted for Barack Obama in 2012, why did she vote for Donald Trump in 2016?
Why did Bonnie Smith, a baker in Ohio, who gets up at 1.45am every day, who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, voted for Barack Obama in 2012, why did she vote for Donald Trump in 2016?
She was raised a Democrat. Her parents are Democrat. Her husband is Democrat, before the baker’s she worked for elected Democratic sheriffs in a county that had not voted a Republican into office for as long as she could remember in her 60+ years.
Her county voted Kerry, Gore, Clinton,Dukakis and Obama got a 55% majority vote. Twice.
Because she voted for Bernie and therefore refused to vote Hillary.
Ashtabula County went Republican for the first time in an entire generation. A 57% Trump to a 38% Hillary. That was a 31% point swing from one election to the next.
35 counties in Ohio swung 25 points from 2012-2016. 23 in Wisconsin, 32 in Iowa and 12 in Michigan all switched from Obama to Trump.
There are 173 of these sizeable counties. They make up 54% of US population. These were all but forgotten counties and they have the potential to realign the American political construct.
For Bonnie Smith, there were job losses, urban decay. She blamed Democrats for the decay as they had been in power for decades. Now one need only look at the recent U.K. elections. Small northern towns, no jobs, decay, had voted Labour for decades, voted Conservative.
Basically I’m just rummaging through the empirical evidence to better prepare for 2020. 🖖🙂
But let me tell you what happened in these counties. 2008. The financial crisis as a result of lending and the War on Terror. After the two term Republican administration, middle America was already in decay. Barack Obama had to fight to get the country back on track, and he did
good. The money people never lost anything, the regular workers paid for it. But the cities, East and West Coast recovered. But these small counties continued to decline. They didn’t recover. And they blamed Obama.
But...they are still in decay. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. These are swing voters. They expected results from Trump. They haven’t got them.
