Republicans Are Losing Their Midterm Advantage. Though they still do have a gain of around 400k votes above the Democrats, Republicans percentage lead compared to 2014 is much lower.This may be due to a massive increase in young voters and new voters. According to early voter data Democrats have gained 1.1M votes among the youth demo compared to about 500k for Republicans.If Early voter turnout favors Republicans this could be Good news for Democrats going into Tuesday.
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According to the latest polls, the Republicans are still expected to lose the House majority but retain the Senate.
The issue is, the polls were wrong in 2016 when it came to Donald Trump.
And I can't imagine that these polling companies have updated their methodology to correct it for the mistakes they made in 2016.
The predictions were wrong, the polls were wrong.
However, early voting data suggests Republicans may be losing their edge.
A couple weeks ago, we heard that in early and absentee voting, Republicans had a huge lead.
But according to the latest data, it looks like their percentage lead over the Democrats compared to the last midterm is actually much, much lower.
So perhaps all of the rhetoric and all of the media has really riled people up to get out and vote.
And that's why we're seeing record early voting turnout.
However, Young people are turning out in massive numbers, and this could be bad news for Republicans because young people tend to vote Democrats.
So today, let's take a look at all of the relevant data and ask the question, are the polls wrong again, or are the polls being proven right by the latest data?
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From the hill, young and new voters surge in early voting.
Hundreds of thousands of new voters are showing up to cast their ballots early in the weeks before the midterm elections, fueling democratic hopes that a younger electorate may help them over the finish line in key states.
The number of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 who have cast ballots early has surpassed turnout levels from the last midterm election in just about every state, according to several sources tracking early vote totals.
The youth vote is higher than 2014 so far, but so few young people have voted at this point, it is not hard to double the numbers, said Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who tracks early voting totals.
Young people tend to vote in larger numbers during the week prior to the election, and we're seeing some evidence that young people are indeed starting to turn out.
They say that according to a Harvard poll, younger voters favored Democrats over Republicans in the battle for Congress by a 66% to 32% margin.
And similar data is found when we go to Pew Internet Research.
Millennial men, 49% are Democrat, 41% are Republican.
And among millennial women, the gap is even more staggering.
70% of millennial women identify as Democrat, and only 23% identified as Republican.
Which means if the early voting numbers are accurate, the Democrats have a huge advantage as of right now, even though Republicans are outpacing them in terms of early voting.
The interesting point to make out is that according to that other article from The Hill, young people are turning out for early voting, but it's not hard to double those numbers because they don't come out very often as it is.
Will we see a massive voter turnout for the actual day of the election?
Well, here's my prediction.
If we're seeing early voter turnout for young people, then we'll probably see the same thing on election day.
However, according to one poll in The Hill, only 4 in 10 young voters say they will definitely vote.
40% of young Americans said they will definitely vote in this year's midterm elections, which, if true, would be more than the number who voted in the last two midterms, according to a poll released Monday.
They add, it remains to be seen if voter interest among young Americans will translate to voter turnout.
The Harvard poll noted that midterm turnout among young Americans has surpassed 20% just twice since 1986.
So here we have early voting data from a group called TargetSmart.
And full disclosure, TargetSmart appears to be a Democratic data analytics company.
So perhaps they favor the Democrats in terms of how they break things down.
Just keep that in mind.
But we're going to look at their data because I believe their data does come from each state's early voter data.
But real quick, let's take a look at the current polls.
According to RealClearPolitics, the aggregate shows Democrats are expected to take 202 seats, Republicans 196 seats, but 37 are toss-ups.
They could really go either way.
Now according to their data, the Republicans are facing a larger risk than Democrats are.
There are many more seats that are considered toss-ups towards Republicans than Democrats.
So if the data from TargetSmart is accurate, it looks like the Democrats might take a huge lead when it comes to young people.
As of right now, we can see right here that the GOP, as modeled by TargetSmart, has an advantage of around 400,000 votes in early voting.
What's interesting is that when you compare those numbers to 2014, where the total was 22, we can see, based on all of this data down here, that the percentage, the GOP leads of the Democrats, is actually much lower.
When you combine the totals of the model Democrats vs. GOP, they had close to a 10% lead in 2014, but only around a 2.5% lead as of right now.
That's an important point because Republicans are typically ahead of Democrats in early and absentee voting.
That was true in 2014.
The Democrats get a bigger push when it comes to in-person voting.
If their lead has shrunk this much, it looks like Democrats are starting to encroach on the edge the Republicans had.
This could be bad news for Republicans.
But what's really interesting, the increase in voter turnout among young people favors Democrats, and it's a pretty massive turnout.
In 2014, the model Dems was 559,000.
It's 1.1 million votes higher as of the same time.
It's 1.1 million votes higher among 30-39, and it's about a million votes higher among 40-49.
30 to 39, and it's about a million votes higher among 40 to 49.
The Republicans only made a gain of about 500,000 from 18 to 29, 30 to 39, and just
shy of a million when it comes to 40 to 49.
It's the 50 to 64 and 65 plus demographics that lean in favor of the Republicans, but
only by about 20% each.
Here's the bad news for Republicans.
Early voter turnout tends to favor Republicans.
Democrats are favored when it comes to in-person voting.
That means, if this data is a reflection of who is going to turn out, And the Democrats are seeing a two-to-one advantage in early voting among young people.
Young people might actually turn out in large numbers and have a huge impact on the midterms.
But there are other important factors to take in.
First of all, most of the early voting has come from white people.
And this makes sense, considering white people are the majority of the country.
But they're the only demographic to lean in favor of the Republicans.
African-American, Asian, Hispanic, Other, and Uncoded all lean towards the Democrats.
And even among gender, men lean Republican, women lean Democrat.
This is exactly what we expected, based on the data.
Men tend to be Republican, according to the Pew Research.
A lot of people are saying the midterms are a referendum on Donald Trump.
The midterms tend to be a referendum on the current job of the president.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
I think this is all about the culture war.
Most people who don't like Donald Trump don't like him for cultural reasons.
When you talk to people, it's because he's racist, or his rhetoric is bad, or he encourages violence.
They're not really talking about his policy for the most part.
And a lot of the policies they do criticize have been in place for a really long time.
When it comes to foreign policy and drone bombing, that all existed before Trump.
When it comes to the border and family separation, it existed before Trump.
Now, Trump is definitely stronger on immigration, and the ideas towards immigration among Democrats are changing.
So that may be a factor, but for the most part, I think what we're seeing when it comes to race and gender is that this really is about identity politics and the culture war.
Why is it that among millennials, white men tend to be much more in favor of Republicans than millennial women?
Although millennial men are more likely to be Democrats, I think the answer is simple.
You constantly hear rhetoric from the mainstream left talking about white men and white privilege and these ideas that can threaten or insult young white men.
And when they push the idea that white people have an inherent advantage over other people, they kind of misconstrue what's actually going on.
You can't make the argument that a minority millionaire has less privilege than a homeless white person.
They seem to misunderstand the ideas of class.
And thus we end up seeing wealthy progressives and celebrities who tend to be white talking down to working class whites.
And one of the reasons Donald Trump carried states he probably shouldn't have is because Hillary Clinton wasn't communicating with the working class of this country.
And it is widely believed among a lot of people that working class whites were abandoned by the Democrats.
Now here's something I find really interesting about the young people who are turning out to vote for Trump.
What I see when it comes to this internet culture of memeing and funny jokes and, you know, tricking the press into reporting things like it's okay to be white is some kind of racist symbol.
What it says to me is that it's much less about Trump.
And this is one of the reasons why I believe this is a culture war battle.
Younger people who are on the internet playing these games and making these memes are more likely to view this like a mission.
That they want to see their internet power personified in real life.
They want to see the meme magic.
That the jokes they spread on the internet can turn into something real.
I've seen this happen since the dawn of 4chan.
There was a 4chan operation called Operation King Kone a few years ago.
And this sounds like the most irrelevant story ever, but hear me out.
The goal was, on 4chan, with numerous threads, to figure out how, just through the internet, someone could make a streetcone fall over.
It seems inane and nonsensical.
But people on 4chan were desperate to make it happen, and eventually, what they were doing is they were watching this webcam.
of Times Square and they said, come on, somebody, figure out how to knock this over.
People were ordering pizzas, people were calling other people in New York trying to get them to do it.
Eventually, someone walked up, knocked the cone over.
This thread was being reposted non-stop for over 24 hours.
And it seems to make no sense.
Who cares?
Why would someone want to go on a forum just to knock over a street cone?
But then think about how that plays into the larger realm of politics.
Getting a president elected, winning the midterms, this is much more impactful.
And people want to win.
So they're on a mission.
It's an operation.
They have a desire to go out and make sure they do this so they can win.
And while I think there are not many people who hold this idea or participate in these kinds of forums, most of these people, I'd imagine, are definitely going to go out and vote if they can.
Because young people, they want to play the game and they want to win.
They want to show that as a collective they have the power.
So I think that although we are seeing more young people come out and voting Democrat for sure, You shouldn't discount the young people who will come out and vote for the Republicans.
Ultimately, however, I think this is breaking down into one simple idea.
Identity politics.
Why is it that a lot of center-left individuals are unhappy with the Democrats?
It's because almost all of them embrace identity politics.
And people like me, look, I don't want to vote for Democrats who are willing to get behind Racist policies.
What the left does is instead of addressing the racism, they just say racism means something else.
All they're doing is brushing it under the rug by saying, oh, that word means something different.
But racial discrimination is a real problem, and it's not something I'm a fan of.
Why?
Because I grew up in a mixed-race neighborhood with mixed-race friends and mixed-race families, and I don't take kindly to people who would insult, deride, or diminish my friends, whoever they are, based on their race.
And that's what I see coming from the Democratic Party.
Now the Republicans, for sure, have their fair share of racists, by all means.
Of course they do.
But the moderates are willing to call that out and say no to this.
What we end up seeing is Republicans who are all about meritocracy regardless of race, and the Democrats who are all about equity based on your race.
And this is what I think this vote comes down to.
Why is it that Republicans tend to be white men?
Because white men are having the finger pointed at them as the problem.
And there you have it.
I don't think this is about Donald Trump, but we'll see what happens.
Young people are turning out in huge numbers.
This could be bad news for Republicans if young people don't come out and vote for Republicans.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
How do you feel about all this?
Do you think the data is still wrong?
Because, look, the point is, the polls can be wrong, the predictions can be wrong, but we're looking at raw voter data right here.
And I get it.
Target Smart is a Democratic advocacy data collection site.
So maybe they're just slanting in their favor to try and convince all the Democrats they're going to win.
That could be true too.
But I don't think that's the case.
I think this data is fairly sound and it's being cited far and wide.
If this data is true, it could spell bad news for the Republicans because they're losing their edge.
The gains they have over Democrats are not nearly as high as they were percentage-wise in 2014.
So again, comment below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
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