Tman
2944
The Lincoln project goal was to persuade 3% of the people who previously voted for Trump. They knew they only had to target a small percentage.
Looking across red states, the percentage of change from 2016 to 2020 was about 3%.
Was it due to the Lincoln project? I think until you can say one way our another, saying they had no impact is a bit disingenuous.
Timex
2945
The fact that you had a bunch of downballot races go to republicans, while Biden beat Trump in those same locations, suggests that something caused GOP voters to split their tickets. Because I don’t think those guys voting for the GOP downballot were Democrats.
On their latest Lincoln Project podcast they are certainly claiming that they had an impact with their chief stats guru on to present the data.
Timex
2947
None of the claims I’ve seen so far have been particularly convincing.
There’s the progressive claim that Trump claimed an increased percentage of registered Republican votes, which ignores that the make up of the Republican party has changed, so it’s entirely possible that the increased percentage was just from non-cult members leaving the party.
There’s the Lincoln Project claim that A) we tried to get Republicans to vote for Biden B) some Republicans voted for Biden, therefore C) we were responsible for Republicans voting for Biden. Which is just as unconvincing. The change could have been due to this Republican-converting- rock that I bought, or due to Kasich speaking at the DNC, or just because Trump was obviously unfit for the Presidency and a certain number of Republicans could see that.
Timex
2949
Do you have a link to this data? I saw the same claim, but I didn’t see any underlying data backing it up. I’d like to see what the source was.
Now survey data show the strategy epically failed, as Trump actually garnered even more support from GOP voters than in 2016. Indeed, Edison Research exit polls on Tuesday found that 93 percent of Republican voters supported Trump — three percentage points higher than in 2016, according to numbers from the same firm.
This claim has been echoed in a few other places (AOC tweets? TNR articles? Jacobin articles?), but as I said it’s not convincing on its own.
This is out there as well if you have WaPo
How 2020 exit polls show changes from 2016
Timex
2952
But the thing that data is missing, is that LP didn’t try to shift the GOP vote nationally.
In the end of the campaign, they were focusing their efforts on very specific regions in the key battlegrounds. So you’d need to look at those battleground states.
Also, I think it’s probably important to consider the difference in 3rd party support this year as well, as the libertarian candidate was far less prominent than in 2016. Also, it’s important to look not only at the Republican voters, but the republican LEANING voters as well.
I feel like there are a lot of moving parts, and I’m not sure we have the data we need to really analyze the impact.
I’m not sure that we ever will. I think the only thing we can say with absolute certainty is that downballot Democrats underperformed compared to the Presidential race. Any explanation for why is just going to be someone guessing or pushing a narrative. I mean, what are all the different things that affected this election? You’ve got Trump’s unique unpopularity, a pandemic being handled at differing levels of effectiveness depending on where you live but affecting your life regardless, polling issues, different factions of anti-Trump people emerging… it’s a lot.
The Daily Poster is David Sirota’s gig, so… there’s a little bit of bias in what he’s writing. Doesn’t necessarily make his interpretation of data right or wrong, but he’s certainly not going to say anything flattering about the Lincoln Project, even if it turned out they were unequivocally and solely responsible for Trump’s defeat.
In which Anderson Cooper shows how to cover trump now.
“You know what, it doesn’t matter. He’s done.”
Explanation for de-center:
Cue photo of middle aged white guy in rural PA looking wistfully out a window.
KevinC
2957
I’m so tired of these New York Times bumpkin safaris.
The problem is that people who support Biden (and previously Clinton) are going to be normal boring folks. There’s no attraction there. Looking at Trumpers gets clicks because the NYT audience can feel all superior to these idiots. Even if you voted for Trump, there’s a greater than average chance that you’re smarter than the folks they profile, so you can feel smug about it.
During the VT day celebrations I saw a young couple with children of color interviewed. The mom fought back tears as she explained what beating trump felt like. Edge lord observations aside, there’s a story to be told that’s being ignored
The fact that the entire world erupted like a world war had just ended seems like a story that’s being msotly ignored.
But are those multitudes around the world dancing in the streets really as important as this sad-eyed white dude in an Ohio diner?
You’d be sad-eyed too if you had to eat in an Ohio diner!
