How Dems Lost Ground in Atlanta and Wayne County

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Our next book will look at the 2024 election. 

 Robert Gebeloff, Eli Murray, Elena Shao, Charlie Smart and Christine Zhang  at NYT:

In Atlanta and its suburbs, both candidates found new voters, but Ms. Harris’s gains in precincts where white voters were the largest racial or ethnic group were canceled out by losses elsewhere. Mr. Trump’s uptick in support from voters of color across Atlanta, along with improved performance in the state’s rural areas, was enough for him to win Georgia — a swing state he narrowly lost to Mr. Biden in 2020.

In Wayne County, which includes Detroit, Ms. Harris struggled to capture the support of Arab-American voters, many of whom had been turned off by the Biden administration’s Middle East policies. In a swath of voting precincts spanning Dearborn and Hamtramck, which have the nation’s highest concentration of people of Arab ancestry, Mr. Trump picked up thousands of votes compared with 2020, while the Democratic Party lost an even bigger number. Countywide, precincts with high shares of Arab residents made up just 6 percent of the electorate but accounted for more than 40 percent of the decline in Democratic votes.

The wins keep mounting for Deaborn in Trump's personnel choices: "In one video last year, he provided advice to Israeli leaders on how to prosecute their conflict with the militant group...“Kill every single one of them,” Gorka said. https://t.co/enGxSUTxSA

— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) November 23, 2024

Michigan Primary

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun. The nomination phase has effectively ended.  But primaries go on.

Nate Cohn at NYT:

In Tuesday night’s results in Michigan, around one in eight Democrats voted “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary — a protest of the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel and the war in Gaza.

In some predominantly Arab American precincts in Dearborn, around three in four Democrats cast a protest vote for uncommitted.

Having one in eight Democrats vote uncommitted in an uncontested primary is not wholly unusual. As recently as the last time a Democratic president sought re-election, in 2012, 11 percent of Michigan Democratic caucusgoers voted for “uncommitted” instead of for Barack Obama.

Having three in four Democratic primary voters in Arab American communities do it, on the other hand, is an eye-popping figure. It goes well beyond the norm, and it’s a powerful indication that the war in Gaza poses serious political risks to President Biden.

Cohn offers some important caveats:

Imagine, for a moment, that in the last election Mr. Biden had lost every single voter in Dearborn, Hamtramck and Dearborn Heights — the three Michigan townships where Arab Americans make up at least 30 percent of the population. He still would have won Michigan — and still would have won it by more than he did Wisconsin, Arizona or Georgia.

For that same reason, Mr. Biden’s deficit in the polling of Michigan can’t mostly be attributed to his weakness among Arab American and Muslim voters. Overall, Arab Americans make up 2 percent of the state’s population and probably an even smaller share of the electorate. There are non-Arab Muslim voters, of course, adding another percentage point or more. In the end, 3 percent of the electorate can only do so much.

Why sequencing of reported election results matter:

Early in the evening Uncommitted was getting ~15% of the vote

The final tally is ~13%

In 2012, Uncommitted was ~11% -- so we might attribute ~2% to a ceasefire protest vote

Yet an early narrative set in Biden is in trouble

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) February 28, 2024