The question of the week is “How Demographically Sorted Is the US Voting Age Population?”—in other words, just how reliable are broad generalizations about party affiliation based on ideology, income, education, urban or rural, race or ethnicity, gender and issue patterns? Most polling data does show that support of a particular policy or issue varies among voters who self-identify with one party or the other, meaning there can on occasion be an intersection of interest among individuals of opposing parties, and it doesn’t have be among similar demographic groups. Low-income Republican voters are more receptive to government assistance programs than Republican “elites,” who themselves are at odds with Democratic “elites” on the issue.
Generalizing also sometimes leads to false assumptions. Both white men and women tend to vote more often Republican, but the assumption is that more men than women do; this was the case in the 2016 election, where there was a 15 percent gap between white men and women voting for Donald Trump. But that gap narrowed to just 4 points in 2020. In fact Trump received the same percentage of support among white women in 2020 as he did in the head-to-head count against Hillary Clinton; the so-called “suburban” white women vote pushing Joe Biden to victory is a largely a myth, being erased by Trump’s significant increase in support among rural white women. Biden actually did slightly less well among Hispanic and black voters; but because of their high percent of the electorate, Biden’s gains among white male voters was what allowed him to overcome his losses among his supposed “core” demographic support.
Setting aside the rare occurrence of an individual deciding to join the political party least aligned with their political and social beliefs, polling done by the Pew Research Center released in 2019, entitled “In a Politically Polarized Era, Sharp Divides in both Partisan Coalitions” seems to indicate that even though there are intraparty divides, and stark differences of opinion by age, income and education in some policy categories, these divisions are not significant enough to change partisan party loyalty. Below is a graphic of the wide partisan gaps that are in "hot button" topics:
For example, younger Republicans may be more tolerant of same-sex marriage than older Republicans, while over half of Republicans earning less than $100,000 believe that large business and corporations should pay more taxes—quite at odds with what Republican lawmakers did at the behest of Trump. But such issues are overshadowed by certain “core” Republican “principles”—and one of them, in this hyper-partisan world, is opposing anything the other party wants to do just because they are the “other” party, something that Mitch McConnell has consistently sought to do. It doesn’t really matter what individuals “agree” on.
The Pew study tells us that partisanship “continues to be the dividing line in the American public’s political attitudes, far surpassing differences by age, race and ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, religious affiliation or other factors.” However, “there are substantial divisions within both parties” and that the issues of internal division are different for each party, with division within the Democratic electorate most apparent along education lines as well as racial lines, which are less “consequential” in the Republican Party because it is predominately a “white” party.
Pew finds that the “differences between the two parties are starker than those within the two parties. Across 30 political values—encompassing attitudes about guns, race, immigration, foreign policy and other realms—the average partisan gap is 39 percentage points.” Those differences are most substantial in regard to race and gun rights; for example. Pew found that Democrats were seven times more likely than Republicans to say that white people “benefit a great deal from societal advantages that black people do not have.” Democrats are also three times more likely to support stricter gun laws.
What this tells us is that in the current hyper-partisan world that was initiated by Newt Gingrich back in the late 1980s (remember that Ronald Reagan was more than willing to talk to and “joke around” with Democratic lawmakers), it is that core Democrats and Republicans generally put aside their intraparty differences and coalesce around certain shared “values”—which can be as simple as just not being the other party. The question is what values those are—or more importantly, which of those values are felt most strongly within the parties that are not shared by the other party.
Looking at the Pew polling, it is clear that while on certain issues younger Republicans have significantly more support for than do older Republicans, such as same-sex marriage, environmental laws, foreign relations and immigration, that level of support is not high enough to start with to make them “game-changers” in the voting booth. On the other hand, there are nearly identical levels of opposition to more government assistance, the notion of systemic white “privilege,” and gun control. These are issues that Republican voters coalesce around when push comes to shove.
While there are significant divides among Republican income groups on business profits, government responsibility on health care and helping needy Americans, what support there is among low-income Republicans is offset by starting at a low bar, and greater animosity toward immigrants. On the other hand, while higher income Democrats are more supportive than those of lower-income of good foreign relations, immigration, strict environmental laws, federal responsibility for insuring all American have access to health care and helping needy Americans, the differences are not significant because the bar was already high in overall support for these. More important is the difference between higher income Democrats and Republicans, who are at opposite poles in the belief that the country’s economic system favors “powerful interests.”
But you cannot escape notice that the Republican Party is the party of white, and the Democratic Party is more diverse. What are the beliefs that underline this fact? 35 percent of the voters for Republican Glenn Youngkin in the Virginia governor’s race said that “critical race theory” in schools—a false flag issue concocted by Fox News and far-right extremists—was the “most important” issue for them, according a local ABC News affiliate. The Pew study found that Republicans thought that the Black Lives Movement made race relations worse, while Democrats were of the opposite view. There was also almost no gap between all Republican age groups in the belief that racism was “not a problem.”
Although younger Republicans did not view immigration as great a threat as older Republicans, there was still a big enough number who did believe this that it remained an “important” concern generally. 58 percent of Republicans apply the usual cultural and economic scapegoating to immigrants, compared to 19 percent of Democrats. While a majority of both Democrats and Republicans say a “minority-majority” country is neither a “good” nor a “bad” thing, 21 percent of Republicans, compared to 7 percent of Democrats, say it is a “bad” thing.
Ultimately, as the Pew study finds, while there are different levels of support for certain issues among particular demographics within parties, in this era party loyalty is more important than any potential differences of opinion, and “bipartisanship”—particular among Republicans on major legislation, is to be stridently opposed. There are of course the outliers and “mavericks,” but they are in the distinct minority. This is why you see Republicans and “moderate” Democrats ignore polls showing overwhelming support for policies they either oppose as individuals, or collectively as a party. Even “moderate/liberal” Republicans—if there are such things—by a 2-1 margin oppose doing more for social safety net programs because it is against the “conservative” principles of the party.
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