An Interesting Way in Which Barack Obama’s Race Helps Him

Posted on March 23, 2012 by

The 2012 presidential election is shaping up to be an election highly focused on economics and class. It seems that one of the main themes of the election will be class, or the gap between the rich and the poor. At this point, it’s pretty likely that the main Democratic attack on Mitt Romney will be an attack based on class. Mitt Romney will be portrayed as rich and out-of-touch, a Wall Street banker.

Now what does this have to do with the title of this post?

Well, obviously this critique of Mitt Romney wouldn’t work if his opponent was also a billionaire businessman. The attack against Mitt Romney relies on the fact that Barack Obama is not rich, is not out-of-touch, and is not a Wall Street banker.

Except one of these things is false. Barack Obama is rich. His income level squarely puts him in the top one percent.

One can make a good argument, of course, that Obama’s wealth is a very different thing from Romney’s wealth. Obama is wealthy mainly due to the success of his books. He has never been and will never be rich in the way Mitt Romney is. Before gaining political success, Obama was pretty heavily indebted. Not to mention that he deliberately chose to be a community organizer after college, not the most high-income of jobs.

But more importantly than all these facts, there is the fact that Barack Obama just doesn’t look very rich. The typical American does not think of Obama as belonging to the top one percent when they look at him. Obama just doesn’t exude wealth in the way Mitt Romney’s very presence does.

Why is this? The answer is pretty simple: it’s because Obama’s black.

Despite the occasional successful black entertainer or athlete, the black community is still very strongly associated with poverty. Think about, for instance, the first image that usually comes to mind when people talk about poverty in America (and especially urban poverty).

The result is that Americans almost never associate Barack Obama with being rich, even though today he has become quite wealthy. This is one of those subconscious things which most people don’t even realize is happening in their minds. Nor even do many political experts realize this. Nor did I for the longest time.

But the fact that Obama is African-American, and the fact that very few people associate African-Americans with wealth, will end up making a huge difference in the 2012 presidential election.

Posted in 2012 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, Blacks | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

How Rick Santorum Ended Up Getting 8% in Puerto Rico

Posted on March 20, 2012 by

In my previous post, I wrote that:

In Hawaii, white and Asian Mormons in Laie ended up giving 93% of their vote to Mitt Romney. Put any group under a particular set of (usually adversarial) circumstances, and it will end up giving 90+% support to a certain side in an election. Hawaii’s Republican caucus is a perfect example of this.

Another example of this maxim cropped up a few days ago, when Puerto Rico voted in the 2012 Republican Primary. The territory ended up giving 83% of the vote to Republican Mitt Romney. This is a higher figure than Romney’s percentage in any other state which has so far voted.

Most political observers will connect Puerto Rico’s strong pro-Romney vote to a recent Rick Santorum interview. In this interview Santorum argued that Puerto Rico needed to make English its official language before becoming a state.

Santorum’s statements were treated negatively in the mainland press. However, this doesn’t necessarily indicate that Puerto Ricans themselves were extremely upset about Santorum’s views – or that they even knew about Santorum’s comments in the first place. I’ve searched out four Puerto Rican newspaper articles (here, here, here, and here) about Santorum’s comments. Three are pretty short and perfunctory; one is longer and more negative. Does this mean that the average Puerto Rican was aware of and upset by Santorum’s comments?

And just how important was the primary to the average Puerto Rican? Of course, America’s primaries have less to do with Puerto Ricans than people on the mainland. But just how much less so? To find the answer, we have to look for hints. The Puerto Rican primary results did make the reel of top news stories in Puerto Rican newspapers.

There is also turn-out. In the 2008 Democratic primary, turn-out was above that of Connecticut but below that of Oregon and Oklahoma. This matches the relative population of these respective states. In the 2012 Republican primary, however, the number of Puerto Ricans who voted was less than half the number of Oklahomans. So it seems that the 2012 Republican Primary was far less important to Puerto Rico than the 2012 Democratic Primary.

It’s a difficult question how Puerto Rico would have voted without Santorum’s statements. Puerto Rico is very different from the American mainland; therefore it’s not easy to predict its political behavior.

In general, Puerto Rico seems to go for the more well-known, establishment candidate. And upstart Santorum is a bad cultural fit for Puerto Rico. It’s pretty hard to see Santorum winning Puerto Rico even without his English comments.

Nevertheless, Santorum ended up getting 8% in Puerto Rico. That’s a very, very low number. In 2008, despite his weakness amongst Hispanics, Barack Obama still ended up getting 31.2% of the Puerto Rican vote. It’s not unreasonable to think that Santorum would have done similar if he’d not argued that Puerto Rico make English its official language to gain statehood. At least he probably would have broken into double-digits.

All in all, as stated before, place any group under the right adversarial circumstances, and it will vote very strongly for one side and against another. Rick Santorum, with his English comments, put Puerto Ricans in a very adversarial circumstance. A few days later Puerto Rico gave his opponent ten times the number of votes Santorum won.

Posted in 2012 Republican Primary, Latinos, Puerto Rico, Republicans, Rick Santorum | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Secret Behind Mitt Romney’s Hawaii Landslide

Posted on March 17, 2012 by

It was late in the night of Tuesday March 13th, 2012. For most people it was just another normal day.

For Americans in three states, however, it was election day. The good folk of Alabama, Hawaii, and Mississippi were voting for the Republican 2012 presidential nominee.

Alabama and Mississippi voted first. Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney had a rough time in both primaries, coming third in both. Late at night, the returns from Hawaii started coming in. Romney did better there: he held a small but consistent lead as the precincts started trickling in. By 1:19 a.m. Pacific Time, Romney held 35% of the vote to second place Rick Santorum’s 29%. Things looked good, but not great, for Romney.

Then this came in:

Romney won an astounding 92.5% of the regular ballots in this precinct. His lead jumped to 46%. The Republican ended the night winning Hawaii by a landslide, taking 44.4% of the vote to second place Rick Santorum’s 28.1%

What happened?

The picture above indicates the caucus results in Laie, Hawaii. These were held in Laie Elementary School. You can actually take a look at list of caucus locations at the Hawaii Republican Party’s website; Laie is near the bottom. Laie is located on Hawaii’s main island, Oahu. Specifically, it’s on the island’s north shore.

Laie is one of the most conservative places in Hawaii. In the 2008 presidential election Republican John McCain won three precincts in Hawaii. One of these was Laie:

It was pretty close, however. John McCain took 50.0% of the vote, barely edging the 48.1% of the vote Obama took.

Laie is not the most populated place; 6,138 people live in the CDP that the Census uses for the area. 1,360,301 people live in Hawaii. So it’s about 0.45% of the population.

In the 2012 Hawaii Caucus, however, Laie dramatically overperformed its share of the population. In fact, the word dramatic is somewhat of an understatement. As the picture above indicates, 1,110 people cast regular ballots in Laie. In total, 10,288 Hawaiians participated in the caucuses. So Laie composed 10.9% of the votes cast in the caucus.

Without the votes from this one place alone, Romney would only have won 38.6% of the vote. His margin over Santorum would literally have been cut in half.

So why are the good folk of Laie so passionate about Romney, perhaps one of the least inspiring presidential candidates in recent history?

Well, I think most of you guessed the answer long ago: Laie is home to a Mormon temple. Indeed, the Mormon Church has had a long presence in Laie. The church writes:

Defrauded by Gibson of its property in Lanai, the Church purchased 6,000 acres at Laie, on the island of Oahu, on 26 Jan. 1865. Soon thereafter, a colony, school and sugar factory were started.

Mormons in Laie voted overwhelmingly for a person of their fellow faith. Their support for Romney was almost certainly also a reaction to the hostility Romney has encountered amongst other Christians. This recalls the 80% of the Catholic vote JFK pulled in 1960, when many Protestants opposed him on religious reasons. Since then no politician has ever come close to that level of loyalty amongst Catholics.

Conclusions

The Mormon vote in Laie is reminiscent of the margins that Democrats often pull in inner-cities. It’s pretty stunning.

This result, however, is not actually that unique in the wider context of worldwide voting patterns.  There is a long history of extremely polarized voting based on religious voting. For most of the 19th century in America, you could guess pretty accurately who somebody would vote for by their religion. In Nigeria Muslims in the north and Christians in the south consistently vote different ways. In Israel a similar divide occurs with Muslims and Jews.

In Hawaii, white and Asian Mormons in Laie ended up giving 93% of their vote to Mitt Romney. Put any group under a particular set of (usually adversarial) circumstances, and it end up giving 90+% support to a certain side in an election. Hawaii’s Republican caucus is a perfect example of this.

Posted in 2012 Republican Primary, Hawaii, Mitt Romney, Religion | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Demographics of America’s Governors: Place of Birth

Posted on March 11, 2012 by

This post will look at the demographics of America’s governors by place of birth, as of March 2012. All in all, this series on the demographics of America’s governors examines:

  • Place of Birth

The following map indicates the birth place of each of America’s governors. I honestly had no idea what to expect when making this map. On the one hand, the result is quite interesting in several ways. On the other hand, it’s somewhat difficult to interpret what appears in the following map. Is this a result of randomness, or is there a pattern?

Let’s take a look:

There are actually a lot of states whose current governor was born in said state. 31 states fit this category.

This is an interesting result. America is commonly thought of a very mobile society; there are very few regional differences, with the exception of the South, between one part of America and another. You can’t tell a Pennsylvanian from a Californian, for instance. Yet the majority of American states are still governed by native-born members of those states.

Another element is missing here: foreigners. Not a single American state is governed by a person born outside of the United States. Arnold Schwarzeneggers are very rare.

There seems to be a degree of regional difference. Most obviously, a band of states stretching from the Pacific Northwest to the Southwest are governed by individuals born outside said state. It’s hard to draw conclusions about the other parts of the country, however.

The map above does bear some resemblance to the electoral college. States with governors born elsewhere in the United States tend to be states which Barack Obama could possibly win in 2012. There are, of course, plenty of exceptions to this statement (such as Oklahoma and New York).

Finally, there a lot of Pennsylvanians governing states elsewhere. On the other hand, only one New Yorker (Neil Abercrombie) is governing a state outside of New York. Nor does anybody born in heavily populated Florida govern a state. You can make a lot of jokes about this result, although it’s most probably just randomness.

Are there any revealing partisan differences in this demographic? Let’s look at states governed by Democrats:

Now states governed by Republicans:

If such differences exist, they escape me.

Perhaps the most relevant conclusion to be drawn from this result is that America is still a pretty introverted place. Chances are pretty good that the your state is governed by somebody born there. And chances are very good that your state is governed by somebody born in the United States.

(Edit: Apparently about six in ten American live in the same state that they were born, which is a lot higher than I thought. Consider that 12.9% of Americans are foreign-born. Anyways, the number of governors born in the same state that they govern happens to match pretty well the number of Americans born in the same state that they live – although not-so-well the number of Americans born in a different country.)

Posted in Democrats, Politics, Republicans | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Thinking About Romney’s Southern Problem

Posted on March 8, 2012 by

It’s pretty clear that Mitt Romney has a Southern problem. The Republican candidate has consistently lost southern states. Indeed, it’s probable that if the South didn’t exist, then Mitt Romney would already have the nomination sown up today.

It’s also pretty probable that Romney will be the Republican nominee for the 2012 presidential election. At this point, it would take an extraordinary event to deny him the nomination. It would need to be something on the lines of Romney saying that he doesn’t care about poor people.

It’s a very interesting exercise to think about how Romney’s weakness amongst southerners in the primary will affect his general election performance in the South.

The Republican Party in the South is composed of two constituencies: business Republicans and evangelical Republicans. Back when the South was solidly Democratic, wealthy white suburbanites (the business Republicans) were the first to start voting Republican. The white evangelicals came late to the party; indeed a dwindling number of them still vote Democratic. Romney is weak amongst the evangelical wing of the Republican Party in the South.

A good way to think about what this weakness means for the general election is to take a look at the 2008 Democratic primary, where Barack Obama was weak amongst several groups as well. Most famously, the president did poorly amongst white working-class voters in the Appalachians. This is a bad example to use, however, because Appalachian working-class whites have been moving against the president’s party for a while now. Southern white evangelicals, if anything, are becoming more loyal to Romney’s party.

There’s another group which Obama did very poorly with in the 2008 primary, and which is better suited to this analysis (see if you can guess what I’m talking about before finishing the next paragraph).

This group opposed Obama from the beginning to the end of the Democratic primary, despite his best efforts. People today forget this fact because group (unlike working-class Appalachians) is a strong Democratic constituency. Nevertheless, Obama’s weakness amongst this group made him lose states ranging California to Texas.

Indeed, if you look at Obama’s performance in the counties bordering Mexico in Texas, you’ll find him doing just as badly amongst Hispanics in Texas as he did amongst working-class whites in West Virginia and Kentucky.

The Hispanic vote in the 2008 Democratic Primary and the southern white evangelical vote in the 2012 Republican Primary have a lot in common. Both constituencies voted strongly against the party’s nominee during the primary, but both constituencies are still very loyal to the party during the general election.

So how did Obama’s poor performance amongst Hispanics in the 2008 primary end up affecting the general election? Well, there wasn’t much effect. Obama didn’t do great amongst Hispanics, but he didn’t do poorly. He did about average. Obama won the same percentage of the Hispanic vote that a generic Democrat winning a comfortable victory would win. He did underperform somewhat in several rural Hispanic areas.

By the same logic, Romney’s poor performance amongst southern white evangelicals in the 2012 primary won’t have much effect. Romney won’t do great amongst southern white evangelicals, but he won’t do poorly. He’ll do about average. Romney will win the same percentage of the southern white evangelical vote that a generic Republican will win. He will underperform somewhat in several rural southern areas.

There is one caveat to this analysis. Hispanic opposition to Obama was generally based on Hillary Clinton’s popularity and economic reasons. On the other hand, southern white evangelical opposition to Romney is based on personal dislike for Romney and religion. One could make a pretty strong argument that the latter two are more powerful forces than the former two.

But, all in all, Democrats shouldn’t get too excited about Romney’s Southern problem.

Posted in 2012 Presidential Election, 2012 Republican Primary, Mitt Romney, South | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

It’s Not Five Minutes to Midnight

Posted on March 5, 2012 by

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a magazine dedicated towards ending nuclear weapons. It’s most famous for the “Doomsday Clock.” The magazine describes the Doomsday Clock as so:

The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction–the figurative midnight–and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons…

In some ways the magazine is a lingering remnant of another time. The Doomsday Clock used to be much more well-known than it is now. Today most young people have never heard of it.

Currently the clock stands at 5 Minutes to Midnight. That is, the world is figuratively five minutes away from nuclear warfare and the end of the comfortable, mostly peaceful world we live in.

There’s just one problem: the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is wrong. It’s not five minutes to midnight.

Of course five minutes to midnight is a figurative term; the world will not literally end in five minutes as of this writing. It’s impossible to say just what “five minutes to midnight” actually means in real terms. How can I argue, then, that the scientists are wrong?

Because the world today is much safer than it ever was during the Cold War.

The Cold War was shaped by the threat that one misunderstanding, or the actions of one crazy general, would cause the world’s two superpowers to unleash their weapons. There was a constant threat that the Cold War would turn into a Hot War – a world war far worse than the last one.

There is no such threat today. People rarely use the term nuclear winter anymore, or at least they use it much less today. The nuclear threats today are merely local ones. Even if Iran or North Korea (or both) launch nuclear weapons, the devastation will merely be local rather than global. A Pakistani-Indian nuclear war would likewise be a local war, not a global one.

In 1963 and in 1972 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists stated that the world was 12 Minutes to Midnight. The world is much farther away from nuclear catastrophe today than it was in 1963 or 1972.

So, at the very least, the world is 13 minutes away from midnight.

Posted in Foreign Affairs, Other | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Romney’s Shifting South Carolina Coalition

Posted on March 3, 2012 by

This is part of a series of posts analyzing how Mitt Romney’s 2012 coalition has changed from his 2008 coalition. Hopefully such analysis will provide clues as to Romney’s performance in the general election. This post will examine South Carolina, where Romney came in second to Newt Gingrich.

South Carolina

To do that, this post will examine exit polls of the South Carolina primary in 2008 and exit polls of the South Carolina primary in 2012.

We should also note, as has been stated before many times, that these exit polls should be taken with two heavy grains of salt. Exit polls consistently fail when it comes down to something as simple as predicting who will win the election. This fact should always be taken into account when using exit polls to examine much more complex relationships (such as the relationship between income and support for Romney). Only when a pattern appears again and again in multiple exit polls should it be possibly noted as valid.

With that said, let’s begin:

Gender Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Male 15% 26%
Female 14% 29%

Similarly to previous exit polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, there is no gender gap in Romney’s support.

Next is age. Previous exit polls indicated that Romney’s strongest supporters tend to be the elderly. Was this the case in South Carolina?

Age Romney 2008 Romney 2012
18-29 12% 16%
30-44 12% 19%
45+ 16% 32%
Oldest vs. Youngest Support Gap 4% 16%

Yes indeed.

In New Hampshire education made no difference in support for Romney. In South Carolina:

Education Romney 2008 Romney 2012
High School or Less 9% 22%
Some College/Associate Degree 13% 26%
College Graduate 18% 28%
Postgraduate Study 16% 36%
Most vs. Least Education Support Gap 7% 14%

Education did make a big difference.

Let’s go to income. Romney did consistently better with higher-income voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Income Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Less than $30,000 9% 29%
$30,000 – $49,999 13% 22%
$50,000 – $99,999 15% 25%
$100,000 – $199,999 18% 30%
$200,000 or more 24% 47%
Highest Income vs. Lowest Income Support Gap 15% 18%

In South Carolina the income gap is about as wide as it was in Iowa and New Hampshire. The fact that Romney got 47% amongst voters making more than $200,000 is quite amazing.

The next question is a bit less interesting:

Party Affiliation Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Republican 15% 28%
Independent 12% 25%
Republican vs. Independent Support Gap 3% 3%

Romney does a bit better amongst Republicans, something which we also saw in New Hampshire. The gap, however, is quite a bit smaller in South Carolina.

Next is political philosophy:

Political Philosophy Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Very Conservative 16% 19%
Somewhat Conservative 17% 30%
Moderate 11% 36%
Somewhat Liberal 11% 29%
Somewhat Liberal vs. Very Conservative Gap -5% 10%

This is a very interesting question. Romney’s base of support has essentially become the polar opposite of 2008. In Iowa Romney did best amongst somewhat conservative voters; in New Hampshire he did best amongst moderates. Here Romney does best amongst moderates.

The next questions focus on religion:

Born-Again Evangelical Christian? Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Yes 11% 22%
No 20% 38%
Non-Evangelical vs. Evangelical Support Gap 9% 16%

Unsurprisingly, there’s a large support gap between evangelicals and non-evangelicals.

What about Catholics versus Protestants?

Religion Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Protestant 13% 27%
Catholic 24% 29%
Catholic vs. Protestant Support Gap 11% 2%

Considering the margins of errors in the exit polls, there’s almost no difference. Romney’s actually closed the gap quite a bit since 2008, which is good news for him.

The next question delves into one of the most important factors behind Romney’s performance in South Carolina:

Religious Beliefs of Candidate Matter… Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Great Deal 7% 10%
Somewhat 16% 27%
Not Much 21% 39%
Not At All 26% 39%
Least Religious vs. Most Religious Support Gap 19% 29%

There’s an enormous gap between those towards whom the religious beliefs of a candidate matter, and those towards whom they don’t. Romney barely breaks into double-digits amongst religious bigots those who care a great deal about a candidate’s religious beliefs. He barely improves from his 2008 performance.

The result above probably explains the responses to the next question:

Abortion Should Be… Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Always Illegal 9% 14%
Mostly Illegal 15% 25%
Mostly Legal 20% 37%
Always Legal 15% –
Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life Support Gap 11% 23%

This is probably a proxy for those who care a great deal about a candidate’s religious beliefs. The more pro-life a voter, the more likely to oppose Romney.

Here’s an interesting question:

Served in Military? Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Yes 17% 32%
No 14% 27%
Soldiers vs. Civilian Support Gap 3% 5%

There’s slightly greater support amongst veterans and soldiers. It might not great enough to be statistically significant, however.

Next, another question on wealth:

Family’s Financial Situation Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Falling Behind 13% 25%
Holding Steady 15% 27%
Getting Ahead 15% 32%
Good Financial Situation vs. Bad Financial Situation Support Gap 2% 7%

Romney does better amongst voters getting ahead. Unsurprising.

What do people like most about Romney?

Top Candidate Quality Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Says What He Believes/True Conservative 7% 2%
Shares My Values/Moral Character 12% 19%
Experience 23% 34%
Electability 33% 37%
Electability vs. Purity Support Gap 26% 35%

Well, it’s definitely not the fact that he’s a true conservative. One should note that the wording of the question in 2012 is slightly different from 2008, so the comparisons may not be valid. Nevertheless, the 2% Romney picks up amongst those looking for a true conservative is quite noticeable.

This question is about when the supporters of Romney decided their vote:

Decided Whom to Support… Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Today 17% 26%
Past Few Days 11% 21%
Earlier This Month 14% 33%
Before That 15% 36%
Earliest Decision vs. Latest Decision Support Gap -2% 10%

As in Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney does best amongst those who decided early.

Let’s look at the rural-urban gap:

Size of Community Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Rural 16% 24%
Suburban 14% 27%
Urban 12% 41%
Urban vs. Rural Support Gap -4% 17%

It’s pretty large. Interestingly, Romney does poorly in the suburbs of South Carolina. In New Hampshire the suburbs were the most pro-Romney.

I’m finally going to add a question which did not appear in the 2008 exit poll but nevertheless deserves to be put in this post.

Opinion of Bain Capital Romney 2008 Romney 2012
Generally Negative – 3%
Generally Positive – 40%
Positive vs. Negative Perception Support Gap – 37%

This is the much-noted Bain Capital question. Whilst most Republicans dismissed the negative attacks on Romney’s work with Bain, Romney did terribly amongst those who bought the attack. This suggests a general election weak point with Romney.

Conclusions

Out of all these categories, Romney did best amongst voters making more than $200,000 (47% support). He did worst amongst voters looking for a true conservative (2% support). The greatest gap between Romney supporters and his opposition occurred between voters looking for a true conservative and those looking for an electable candidate (a 35% support gap). If you count the Bain question, then the greatest gap occurs between those who liked Romney’s work at Bain and those who didn’t (a 37% support gap).

In the 2008 Republican primary, on the other hand, Romney did best amongst voters looking for the most electable candidate (33% support). He did worst amongst voters looking for a candidate who says what he believes (7% support). The greatest gap occurred, again, amongst those voters looking for a candidate who says what he believes and those looking for the most electable candidate (a 26% support gap).

A next post will examine the differences between Romney in 2008 and Romney in 2012 with respect to the Florida primary.

Posted in 2012 Presidential Election, 2012 Republican Primary, Mitt Romney, South Carolina | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment