by James Wallace Harris, Saturday, July 13, 2019
I’m using statistics from Pew Research Center’s “An early look at the 2020 electorate.” I’ve graphed them so blue is older voters, light green the younger voters, and middle-age voters are dark green. There is a certain symmetry to this graph. I’m going to “borrow” a PEW graph that shows the change vectors of each generation.
It’s obvious that Baby Boomer and Silent generations are in decline, but if you look closer, Millennial and Gen X generations have already started their decline. You’d think the 2020 election should reflect a generation shift.
If you look at PEW’s other graph in that article,
you’ll see the shift that Republicans fear. Why do Republicans keep alienating minorities? Haven’t they even considered embracing diversity?
Finally, if we consider gender,
where we see that woman voters are also increasing.
I have no way to predict how the U.S. 2020 presidential election will go. There are too many factors. But if population demographics are good indicators, then youth, minorities, and women should play a bigger role. But are they a large enough factor for Democrats to shun running another old white guy? Which side of the graph should the Democrats bet on?
Trump won in 2016 by finding the right dissatisfaction in America. I think that same dissatisfied voting block still exists, but are they satisfied with Trump? Many independent voters voted for Obama and then Trump because they hoped for significant change. Should the Democrats pick someone promising to make big changes? What do younger voters – liberals, conservatives, independents – really want?
We never seem to know the deciding issue in a U.S. presidential election until after its over. The face-palm slap factor is always a black swan that surprises us. You’d think with all the artificial intelligence out there that data scientists could tell us ahead of time. But I doubt they will.
As of now, I’m going to bet that the 2020 election will be about youth. I’ve been reading articles lately about climate change depression. Young people are bummed out about the future, and who can blame them? I’m guessing they might be the reactionaries in the 2020 election. Maybe I feel this because I don’t want to see the young giving up on the future. Climate change isn’t the end of the world, but voters who don’t vote about the future could be.
JWH