Tom Bonier Profile picture
19 Feb, 5 tweets, 2 min read
In the first few days after the election, some pointed to partial results in Philly as evidence that Black voters had swung to Trump. Now we have the individual vote history and can say that almost certainly didn't happen.
The early results showed a lower overall turnout and better Trump performance than the final certified results. In the end, Trump outperformed his '16 share by 2.5 pts. Biden ran 1.1 pts behind Clinton. So, was this gap narrowed due to Black voters going for Trump? Probably not.
Now that we have individual vote history we can see how the electorate in '20 differed from '16: 9k fewer Dems voted in Philly than did in '16, while GOP turnout increased by almost 4k. The Dem vote share dropped by 1.4 pts (more than Biden's 1.1 pt lag behind Clinton).
So why did Dem turnout plummet in Philly? Youth voters. Their vote share declined by an astounding 3.2 pts. Far fewer voters under the age of 30 voted there than did in '16. The pandemic had shuttered the universities that account for a huge share of the youth population there.
So what does this all mean? Once again, early election takes are often garbage, but also are quite sticky. Most Americans probably think that Biden underperformed Clinton in Philly because of an underperformance with Black voters. It's a narrative lacking evidence.

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More from @tbonier

6 Jan
Clay County, GA is a rural African-American county. It turned out at 91.2% of general election turnout, higher than any GOP county I have seen report so far. The rural Black vote came out.
Macon County, another rural African-American county, turned out at 92% of their general election turnout. I am yet to find an encouraging sign for the GOP.
Randolph County, GA, another rural African-American county, turned out at an astounding 96% of general election turnout. We saw this in the early vote - as Black voters accounted for 40% of the non-general election early voters. Just incredible.
Read 4 tweets
6 Jan
Ready to overreact to small sample sizes? Miller County, GA is one of the few reporting complete results. It is heavily GOP and the total vote is 74% of general election turnout (compare that to 85% reported by Fulton). A very small, but not good sign for the GOP.
Wayne County, GA (also heavily GOP) turned out at 79% of general election turnout. Again, if the reports of Fulton at 85% and DeKalb at >90% are accurate, the GOP cannot like these numbers.
Brantley County turned out at 86% of GE turnout. Better for the GOP than the other 100% reporting GOP counties, but still not the overwhelming margins the GOP will need. A long ways to go with this race still, these are just breadcrumbs.
Read 6 tweets
5 Jan
Where do things stand in Georgia as we head into Election Day? First the TLDR version - through historic levels of turnout for a runoff election, with African-American voters leading the way, Dems can win both seats. But it will take one more day of high Dem turnout. Thread:
First, turnout by party. Using modeled partisanship, Dems improved upon their general election early vote share by 2.8 pts. In terms of raw votes, the Dem margin in modeled party is approx. 206k votes better than the general election (when Perdue ran 88k votes ahead of Ossoff).
How have Dems built an advantage in the early vote? Historic turnout from African-American voters. They increased their share of the early vote by 2.9 pts relative to the general election. White college voters increase by 0.1 pts. Meanwhile, white non-college turnout has lagged.
Read 11 tweets
21 Dec 20
Georgia Senate Runoff Early Vote Update -
Black voters are turning out in huge numbers. While the overall turnout is at 81% of turnout at this point in the general election, Black turnout is at 86%. AAPI and Latino turnout had been lagging, but is now closing the gap.
Similarly, the youth vote had been lagging badly behind the general election benchmarks, but with the historic levels of early in person voting starting a week ago, the gap is almost entirely closed now (which is remarkable).
Quick update - we were comparing day 15 general election vote totals to day 16 runoff totals. Meaning the runoff early vote is actually a larger share of the general election turnout. Will update these stats shortly.
Read 4 tweets
17 Dec 20
Add another to the list! With Michigan vote history in hand, we can now say that voters under the age of 30 expanded their share of the electorate there, over 2016, by 2pts. That's about 180k more younger voters casting a ballot than did in '16.
And another one. Young voters expanded their share of the electorate in Louisiana as well. So far young voters are 8 for 8 in states where we have full vote history and I've run the numbers. More states to come...
Okay, make that 12 for 12. Young voters also expanded their share of the electorate over '16 in AK, NE, NM, and OK. I'm yet to find a state where the youth vote didn't surge by more than overall turnout.
Read 5 tweets
16 Dec 20
Early in person turnout in GA has exceeded general election early turnout for each of the first two days. Some of this (8.4% of early in person) is mail voters from the general switching to early in person.
A small share of early in person voters from the first two days of voting didn't vote in the general - 6.352 voters. These "new" voters are modeled at +9.4 Dem, as compared to the overall early voting universe, at +3.8 Dem.
It's difficult to draw conclusions from comparing the runoff early turnout to the general, as we will undoubtedly see people switching vote modes. But we can say that Black voters are accounting for a larger share of the vote now, relative to this same point in the general. Image
Read 4 tweets

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