Trump underperformed the national Republican House vote share in 2016 by 3 points. He may underperform Republican House candidates again this year. House Republicans also may gain share over Democrats vs. 2018. Trump-specific explanations should account for broader Rep success.
Republicans have won at least 18/27 of Cook House toss-ups (with Democrats leading in only 3) along with 4 lean Democratic races & 1 likely Democratic race: cookpolitical.com/analysis/house…
That sounds like even stronger poll overperformance than President or Senate.
Unclear whether House Democrats will blame Leadership for poor performance, whether anyone will challenge Pelosi, and how much value she’ll see in continuing.
Preliminary estimates confirm what seems clear from the direction of toss-up House races: House Republicans overperformed Trump, as they did in 2016. And the national House vote moved back toward Republicans:
Reporters & activists spent a primary year portraying Democrats as moving left & embracing ideological politics. But Biden has run a decidedly non-ideological campaign. If he & moderate Senate candidates win, unclear why they would learn a different lesson than they normally do
Relative Dem underperformance with minorities might lead to calls for a return to more identity-based appeals. But high turnout could reduce perceptions of turnout/persuasion trade-off for moderation. Some Dem primary fights will continue but could be harder in Rep backlash years
In governance, Dems may encounter similar internal difficulties as 2009 (even with many of same issues, eg health & climate). But the left traditionally concedes if the alternative is passing nothing. It’s unclear why that changes now. & Red state Dems may get cautious quickly
"The Limits of Party: Congress & Lawmaking in a Polarized Era" shows that much policymaking commentary is wrong. Despite more partisan processes, legislative outcomes have not changed: they are just as bipartisan & (un)productive as usual 1/n amazon.com/Limits-Party-C…
Although Congress passes fewer bills, they pass more pages of legislation.
Out of 265 majority party priority items since 1985, congressional majorities have failed on 47% of them, mostly succeed on 21% of them, & achieved partial success on the rest. amazon.com/Limits-Party-C…
No matter whether you consider all bills that pass Congress, only landmark legislation, or only majority party priorities, most of what passes generates support from minority party legislators & leaders. The path commentators expect, rolling over the opposition party, is rare.
Democrats are set to gain from increasing diversity & generational change over time. Even assuming some conservative trends with age, electorate population replacement should mean substantial Democratic gains, especially if young people retain their lean.
Even assuming that younger generations become more conservative with age, Democrats would gain several swing states based on increasing diversity & moderated generational replacement effects. This projection suggests strong effects in the Electoral College
On demographics, my questions are: 1) What if white voters become more Republican as a function of increasing racial diversity? 2) What if education is just a relative, not absolute effect (eg "some college" voters become more Rep as college degrees increase)? @rp_griffin
Expected to like "WEIRDest People in the World" more than I did: amazon.com/dp/0374173222/…
A splitter when it comes to contemporary life (most evidence is culturally & temporally specific) & a lumper on human history (mostly unidimensional development with a few big causes)
1/n
No ? biased social science samples are erroneously generalized globally & in human history, but that's not an easy problem to escape. Also clear cultural development is important, but that means there are often many long-term & proximal contextual & individual causes of behavior
Unlikely there is a generic effect of complex variables like education or religion; studies showing long-term associations with spread of churches are useful but not definitive. Individualism & nepotism are important global variations, but correlated with many other things
Corporate personnel experts led the adoption & expansion of affirmative action recruitment & evaluation, diversity training, work/life balance policies, & harassment grievance procedures, with law & movements following
Who codified Affirmative Action policies & procedures? Lockheed Martin
Companies with federal contracts were vaguely pushed to improve & they developed the recruiting, hiring, & supervisor assessment tools, diffusing them so they were accepted by law as key good faith efforts 2/n
The personnel profession found new uses for their union-era procedures as private unions declined, vastly increasing their workforce (& with more women). In turn, they became advocates & institutional homes for more equal opportunity programs & enlarging their focus to women 3/n
Republicans & Democrats represent different interest group sectors & economic classes. We have organized elite competition, not oligarchy. But that still provides multiple paths for unequal public class influence
Republican leaders' positions on policy are more closely associated with the opinions of the upper class (top 10%) on economic policy. Democratic leaders' positions more closely match those of the middle class #polisciresearch journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.108…
Rep & Dem positions are more strongly & consistently associated with interest group positions across policy areas than with public classes. Reps & business groups are aligned; Dems & advocacy groups are aligned; Dems are negatively aligned with business, Reps with advocacy groups