Part of the ugly reality of politics is that there are multiple ways that people identify themselves — parental status, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, race, education.  In a more perfect world, some of these forms of self-identification would have no political meaning.  However, in today’s world, they still do.   One reason good pollsters reweight their samples by things like race and gender is because different races and genders tend to vote differently.

In light of this ugly fact, politicians trying to win election have three basic options for dealing with political demographics as they exist:  1) try to change what a demographic group thinks (persuasion); 2) try to increase turnout among groups that favor you (get out the vote); and 3) try to decrease turnout among groups that do not favor you (vote suppression).  The latter issue has been in the news again recently with several cases dealing with state voter ID laws, and that will be a topic for another post sometime within the next week.  This post is more about where the demographics stand now and what they might mean for the next three months of the campaign.

Continue Reading...