The nationally representative poll of 1, citizens included voters who cast votes for Republican Congressional candidates in the midterm elections. Only one in four Republican voters felt that most or almost all Democratic voters sincerely believed they were voting in the best interests of the country.
We asked every Republican in the sample to do their best to imagine that they were a Democrat and sincerely believed that the Democratic Party was best for the country.
We asked them to explain their support for the Democratic Party as an actual Democratic voter might. But most had trouble looking at the world through Democratic eyes.
Again, there is a nice stairstep up in the Democratic vote as the median income of the county increases. Donald Trump won only Trump, however, won And so the political gap also increased between high and low-income communities.
The counties with the highest income in were 9. In , the difference in Democratic vote between these two groups of counties grew to We are a long way from the New Deal. Now the Democratic Party represents the richest, most educated places. There are more to "interests" than just the economic. If someone's core conviction is that abortion is murder or gay marriage is wrong then their decision to vote for a candidate who is against abortion or gay marriage is not an act of delusion but conviction.
In any case working class white voters who are against abortion are significantly more likely to vote Democrat than their more affluent counterparts. So the economy still matters. But it is not the only consideration. Given his plans to tax high earners more heavily many of them were voting against their economic interests as do Warren Buffett, George Soros and all of Obama's wealthy funders. If poor states voting Republican is a paradox then the fact that 9 out of 10 states with the highest median income vote Democrat is no less so.
Moreover some people, despite being poor, legitimately believe in free market and small government, even if it doesn't benefit them in precisely the same way that wealthy people may favour greater government intervention even if it doesn't benefit them.
Weaver had been the chairman of Loveland chamber of commerce and effectively lobbied for the business community of northern Colorado. He changed his registration to independent on polling day.
His political views are eclectic. He is for gun control and a more humane immigration policy and thinks unions are dinosaurs and is against abortion — thinks its preferable to get rid of it by changing peoples' hearts than the law. He's arrogant, and it's hard for me to get past that. It didn't change my mind about him because I always thought that about him.
One could argue about whether his assessment of Romney's deficit-cutting plans are plausible. But one can't reasonably insist it wasn't a considered viewpoint. Finally, as Weaver's circumstances illustrate, poverty is not necessarily a permanent state.
People fall in and climb out of it. Americans are particularly reluctant to describe themselves as even working class let alone poor. Relatively few claim to be working class or upper class, intimating more of a cultural aspiration than an economic relationship. Amy Pezzani, the executive director of the Larimer county food bank in Colorado , explained that politicians are reluctant to refer to "the poor" and "poverty" because it turns low-income voters off.
They're more likely to refer to themselves as the 'struggling middle class'. In a report from Minnesota earlier this year the New York Times examined the growing number of people who were simultaneously dependent on government aid and against more government spending. They are frustrated that they need help, feel guilty for taking it and resent the government for providing it. They say they want less help for themselves; less help in caring for relatives; less assistance when they reach old age.
In a country where social mobility is assumed — even if it has in fact stalled — and class consciousness is week the poor may vote in the interests of an imagined, but not necessarily imaginary future, rather than solidarity based on shared economic hardships.
No doubt that figure will have dropped since the crisis but it doubtless remains high. Indeed, so polarised is the nation's politics that a recent poll from the Pew research centre revealed that people's views on their financial situation are shaped by their partisan affiliation rather than the other way around.
In fact, the truly shocking thing about income and voting patterns in the US isn't the number of poor people who vote Republican but the number who don't vote at all. Going further, a mere two of the top 50 districts with Whites without a college degree have a Democratic representative and none of the top 10 do. It's important to note that it wasn't this way the last time Democrats won back the House from Republicans in , when the seat was last held by Republicans.
Loebsack held the seat until earlier this year, when he was replaced by Miller-Meeks, after he declined to run for another term in Mariannette Miller-Meeks won Iowa's 2nd District in Read More. The district lines that decade were slightly more favorable to Democrats in terms of White non-college graduates i. They held 23 of the top 50 districts matching this description, or 21 more than they do now.
Additionally, Democrats held five of the top 10 of these districts compared to zero today. He won by 24 points in an open seat and by 45 points in his home county. That district, in its form then, had more non-college Whites as a proportion of the adult population than all but one district nationally.
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