The Shor of It All
David Shor and his Data
Anyone who has been a long-time reader or listener of mine may have heard me mention David Shor. He’s a Democrat data scientist who runs a firm called Blue Rose Research, and I highly respect him, even if I don’t always agree with him. He does incredible work and explains why Kamala Harris lost the election.
Shor says that Harris bled non-Trump 2016/Biden 2020 white voters while Trump also created a political realignment among non-white voters, specifically Asians and Hispanics.
Now, I’ve heard from more than one Republican who read this and said, “That’s it, we don’t need white voters anymore… peddle to the meddle on minorities.”
For those who can’t do basic math, that’s very stupid.
According to Shor’s data, Trump increased his share of the popular vote by about 3 percent - 1.5 percent from white voters and 1.5 percent from minorities. You can’t have one without the other, and you can’t win nationwide without those white voters.
Patrick Ruffini from Echelon Insights broke down the data from Pennsylvania, and aside from Latino areas of the state, Trump’s most significant bump came from working-class whites in Philadelphia and young people at State College.
The young people voting to the right is shocking, even for Shor. According to his data, white men under the age of 20 were the most supportive of Trump than any other group in America. Harris only earned about 25 percent of their support. Let that sink in: Kamala Harris did better among white men over the age of 75 than under the age of 20.
Trump’s support came in hot from people without a college degree and people who don’t spend their lives thinking about politics because the Democratic brand is utterly garbage at this point. They don’t trust Democrats on a series of issues that you probably don’t even think about much, as being exceptionally politically, like artificial intelligence and privacy.
Liberal justices now striking down Trump's executive orders on immigration, especially deportation, are not likely to increase their social trust among voters on these issues.
Lastly, and most importantly, I think that Republicans are now the party that does increasingly well during high-turnout elections instead of low-turnout ones, which was never the case. Democrats have this notion that Harris lost because their voters didn’t come out—they basically chose the couch instead of her. That’s not the case. Shor says if every voter who could have voted did, Trump would not only have won but would have won by a landslide.
By my calculation, which is not scientific, that map where Trump wins by 4.8 percent of the vote would look like this:
Democrats have a lot of work to do to recover their brand, even if the next election goes moderately well for them.
“Lastly, and most importantly, I think that Republicans are now the party that does increasingly well during high-turnout elections instead of low-turnout ones, which was never the case.”
This was my reaction to 2024 as well.
When you are the party of the working class and the young, two groups for whom voting is more afterthought than sacred duty, you have to drive them to the polls by any means necessary. Democrats knew that for decades. All big city machines did. (Watch Preston Sturges’ “The Great McGinty.”)
Mail in voting and long voting periods are now essential for Republicans, especially in traditionally low-turnout midterms. The more time and ways we have to get the 20-year olds and Barstool whites to the polls, the better.
Learn it, Live it, Love it.
“Let that sink in: Kamala Harris did better among white men over the age of 75 than under the age of 20.”
Not surprising. Older white men — not me, mind you — have the Boomer Mentality, the garbage hippie “Get Together” integrationist color blind crap we were force-fed as kids. Many still have it.
(See Paul Gottfried’s article in the February Chronicles magazine about Fox News and its audience.)
Younger whites have grown up with the reality of what we said was hunky-dory and they find that “Ebony and Ivory,” “The Colors of Benetton” bullshit to be destructive and demoralizing. So of course they’re rejecting it.
Young white men want to live.