Thread by @ElectionsAddict

My election theory

First off, I have no way to actually prove it, but I think it’s one of very few possibilities that explains elections from 2016-2024, polls + also difference between Obama vs Trump/Biden years. Short answer: it’s “the resistance”, long answer, a thread 🧵 /1

Let’s go back to the Obama years first and what changed between now and then. Democrats only cared about the presidency, but Republicans cared about all levers of power. That’s why the GOP was inches away from a 2/3 legislature majority to rewrite the constitution. /2

They held purple/blue states + seats easily, from federal to local. Other than presidential years, Democrats did very poorly, leading to biggest GOP majorities in decades + complete control over all, but darkest blue states. Then coalitions changed, but something else did too. /3

After Trump was elected in 2016, Democrats of all stripes were enraged and more importantly, engaged, in not just the power of the presidency, but sending a message in every single election from top of the ticket to the bottom. The mindset changed to “I have to do something”. /4

Thus, the loosely termed “resistance” sprung up. Both in new organizations and old ones gaining more people to get involved in registering, persuading and turning out voters early and on Election Day outside the normal campaign infrastructure that is always limited in scope. /5

People started to register voters, write letters + postcards, text bank, phonebank, knock doors and donate, anything they could to help elect Democrats. Many whom had never participated before. The response was overwhelming. Organizations were flooded with volunteers and cash. /6

As example of what I’m talking about, prior to 2016, did you ever hear of anyone writing single postcard to single voter to GOTV? Now 1 person is writing 100’s by themselves. There’s no accurate way to measure impact, but millions being involved + millions raised adds up fast. /7

While there’s no way to gauge what new organizations did prior to Trump being elected (because they didn’t exist), let’s look at a few before and after differences for organizations that Democrats became involved with, that did exist before, starting with a behemoth: ActBlue. /8

We don’t really think about fact that billions being raised is brand new thing, because we’ve gotten so used to it always being there, but the before + after is staggering. To get the best overall picture, let’s compare its’ best Dem year before Trump to worst Dem year after. /9

As you can see, the difference is astonishing. I’m not going to go through every single Democratic organization, because quite frankly that would take years and hundreds of tweets, but here’s a few more. Unions are Democrats biggest supporters, so let’s compare 2012 to 2020. /10

The same thing occurs again: an enormous increase between the two election’s spending. Vote Vets was formed in 2006. It’s a liberal veterans group that endorses Democratic veteran candidates and targets veteran voters to GOTV. Contrast its first presidential year to 2020. /11

The League of Conservation Voters is a massive organization for all sorts of environmental causes that endorses and supports Democrats. To give a conservative estimate, let’s see the difference between a presidential election year and midterm election year from 2012 to 2018. /12

And who can forget the pro-choice juggernaut Emily’s List that supports pro-choice Democratic women candidates. They formed way back in 1985, but have really grown exponentially recently, to a point they now dwarf their GOP counterpart which is the SBA. Compare 2012 to 2020. /13

This is happening across every single Democratic supportive group between Obama years and now. Now imagine how fast that adds up. But it’s not just raising money that’s changed either. It’s the activism that money can create, like registering voters. Look at Voto Latino. /14

As I mentioned earlier, it’s not just the old organizations getting a boost, it’s new ones that didn’t exist before also. Let’s take a look at some. Swing Left, March For Our Lives, Black PAC and Indivisible were all nonexistent before 2016. This is their impact in elections. /15

How about an organization dedicated specifically to recruiting and training candidates to run for office? Yup, Democrats have that now too! Run For Something formed in 2017 and is an organization focused on downballot races all the way to School Board and City Council. /16

The Democratic outside group constellation for helping win elections isn’t done growing either. Here’s only some of the groups that have formed after Joe Biden was first elected in 2020: Justice Unites Us, Dirt Road Democrats, The States Project and Leaders We Deserve. /17

Now you know about small sliver of massive political campaign infrastructure dedicated to helping Democrats win elections that’s grown from nothing or expanded from previous levels, but what about this is answer to how elections turned out from 2016-2024? I’m getting to it! /18

Let’s get obvious out of way. In 2016, when Democrats underperformed, all these organizations didn’t exist or didn’t have reach they do now because Democrats didn’t care as much (or at all) other than maybe casting a ballot every 4 years. After 2016, that permanently changed. /19

The other 2 years Democrats underperformed were during the once a century pandemic that ground world to a halt. In 2020 there was no in person campaigning from any of these groups, Democrats or even Joe Biden’s campaign, which knocked 0 doors in the election. That matters. /20

Republicans on other hand, had full fledged million + army of volunteers going out to talk to voters. That allowed them to turnout unlikely voters, persuade undecided + swing voters and make the election a nail biter. A field ground campaign can add up to 3% for a candidate. /21

Democrats throughout history have had a not so secret weapon with their ground game powering them to a popular vote majority in 9 of the last 10 presidential elections, a remarkable record that any political party would be jealous of. The only year the GOP got one was 2004. /22

The final year of underperformance for Democrats was 2021, again, a pandemic year where voter activities were very limited and these organizations were hamstrung from operating with their full force. You can’t run campaigns solely online because you miss crucial voters. /23

While the Obama years had far more ticket splitting, since Trump ran for president, special election results have more closely followed partisanship, with fewer voters crossing over to other party’s candidates. That means less rural Democrats and suburban/urban Republicans. /24

There isn’t much special election polling conducted period + what we do have is almost entirely for congressional races, so there’s a very limited dataset, which may or may not skew the special election polling average. What we do have points to the same phenomenon occurring. /25

2017 had 4 special elections. In case there’s confusion, 2nd image is Democrat Jon Ossoff’s poll results for 1st round, not runoff (until recently those disadvantaged Democrats in Georgia). I’m also limited by 4 images per tweet. Ossoff got 48% in election prior to runoff. /26

2018 had 3 special elections. If there was no polling conducted, I’ve left those special elections out, because there’s nothing to compare them to, so that’s why there’s 2019 missing. Democrats uniformly outperformed their polling more than Republicans did these years. /27

Then the pandemic hit and Republicans began to outperform their polling by far more than Democrats did as Democratic organizations ground all in person activities to a halt while the GOP continued their campaigns. 2020 only had 1 election with data and 2021 had only 2. /28

Democrats got their groove back in 2022 after vaccines were widely available and it was safe to campaign in person. Their outside group organizing muscle started to show in special elections again. There were 3 special elections with data, which I’ve broken down into 2 posts. /29

A side note on 2 elections without poll data. The NY-23 special election held at the same time as NY-19 and the VA-04 2023 special election saw Democrats way outperform expectations. If there was polling, Democrats likely would’ve also out performed the polls at ballot box. /30

2023 saw 2 specials with polling done. 1 matched previous examples and the other didn’t. I hypothesize the UT-02 result was from Republicans picking a more mainstream candidate, but also specials can be, well, special, so a race going the opposite way can and does happen. /31

Lastly 2024, which had 1 special with poll data. NY-26 + OH-06 also had Democrats overperform, but there were no polls. If there were, same occurrence would likely happen. That makes 13/15 congressional specials that follow pattern, likely more if we had data for other races. /32

Now when you look at how Democrats did in specials compared to previous presidential, a similar pattern emerges, although more loosely as 2 years are exceptions (2020 + 2022) and 2016 had unique circumstances in Kentucky specifically boosting Democrats, skewing average. /33

If you take out the 4 specials in KY, when Democrats still held State House majority, then 2016 also fits, making 6/8 general election cycles when Democrats overperformed or underperformed special elections average depending on whether these organizations were active or not. /34

Last part is polls. Why did they miss right/left depending on year? Most rely on “likely voter” model where they screen out voters who aren’t likely to vote. In general elections where Democrats did poorly compared to polls, they didn’t have this infrastructure helping them. /35

Polls weren’t wrong per se, they would have been accurate if that was the electorate. But they screened out voters who cast ballots. Because of huge number of groups, Democrats expanded electorate, getting unlikely voters to vote early, which also aided GOTV on Election Day. /36

A dream scenario for any party, to get more votes in early and more effective last minute targeting of those voters remaining due to a much narrower list of people from Democratic base’s embrace of casting ballots by mail or early in person before the day of the election. /37

We only have a few months left (can you believe election is less than 5 months away!) until we find out whether this explanation holds true for 2024 general elections and if it does, Democrats should be very pleased based on the election results so far. I’m eager to find out! /38

The resistance outside campaign organizing theory for election results explains all general elections, most special elections and most polls, but sometimes there’s uniqueness and they buck trend. That’s normal, to be expected. After all, it’s candidates who run, not parties. /39

If you’ve stayed with me through this monster thread, thank you for reading! Whether you agree or disagree with me, I hope you enjoyed it and appreciate the time and effort it took to put this thing together for everyone. Please like and share it if you found some value! 😊 /fin