Voting Behavior, Demographics & Political Polarization – Lecture Review

Voter Participation & Public Cynicism

• Initial class discussion: low voter turnout blamed on

  • Widespread cynicism toward politics

  • Dissatisfaction with the electoral system & media framing

  • Perception that results are “artificially contrived”

  • Possible voter complacency when satisfied with status quo

• Central follow-up question: Which demographic groups vote more?

  • Education: higher attainment ⇒ higher turnout

  • Age: older citizens vote at far higher rates than younger cohorts

Age, Voting, & the Politics of Social Security

• Social Security origins

  • Created during FDR’s New Deal to prevent elderly poverty

  • Initially a “trust-fund” model: workers’ payroll taxes held for their own retirement

• Current reality

  • Government has spent most of the trust fund; by 2035 funds projected exhausted

  • Program now pay-as-you-go: today’s workers finance today’s retirees

  • Dependency ratio collapsed from 13:1 workers/beneficiary in 1940s to 2.5:1 today

  • Causes: Baby-boom retirements + longer life expectancy

  • Labeled fiscally “unsustainable” without reform

• Political dynamics

  • Social Security = “third rail” of U.S. politics (touch it, you die)

  • Older voters + powerful lobbies (e.g., AARP) punish reform efforts

  • Politicians therefore court seniors (high turnout) rather than younger workers who may never recoup benefits they fund

Demographic Voting Patterns (based largely on exit polls)

Gender

• Persistent gender gap

  • Women (esp. single) skew Democratic

  • Men trend Republican

Age Cohorts

• Older voters: reliably Republican

• Younger voters (18–24): strongly Democratic; pivotal in 2008, 2012 & 2020

  • Counterfactual: removing just 18–24 vote would have elected McCain (2008), Romney (2012), Trump (2020)

  • 2024 saw Trump gains among young males; future trend uncertain

Race & Ethnicity

• African Americans: 85{-}90\% Democratic

• Asian American data sparse; historically Democratic but mixed

• Hispanic / Latino vote

  • Traditionally 60{-}70\% Democratic (≈65\% typical)

  • 2020 nearly 50$–$50 overall; highly region-specific

  • Texas: Trump carried Hispanic male vote and flipped heavily Latino districts (~87\% Hispanic)

  • Major driver of GOP shift: immigration concerns (job competition, border security, human trafficking along I-35/I-10 corridor)

• Cuban Americans

  • Predominantly Republican

  • Historical roots: anti-Castro sentiment, GOP’s hard-line Cuba stance, “wet-foot/dry-foot” policy repeal, memories of Bay of Pigs fiasco

  • Concentrated in Florida; helped push state from swing to reliably GOP

Geography

• Metropolitan cores: heavily Democratic (Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc.)

• Rural counties: strongly Republican

• Suburbs = modern battleground

  • Biden 2020 gains vs. Trump’s improved 2024 performance

Religion

• Jewish & religious “nones”: Democratic

• Protestants/Evangelicals: Republican

• Catholics: once solidly Democratic (New Deal coalition) → now true 50{-}50 swing bloc

  • Biden won Catholics 2020; Trump won 2024, aided by Harris skipping Al-Smith Dinner

  • Catholic vote influenced by multiple issues (abortion, social justice, health care)

Education

• Long-standing pattern flipped

  • Pre-2010: \text{HS/some college} \to Dem; \text{BA} \to GOP; \text{Grad}\,(MA/PhD) \to Dem

  • Today: college-educated voters now Democratic; HS/some-college drifting Republican

  • Graduate degrees remain strongly Democratic—possible reasons:

  • Higher student-loan dependence ⇒ favor larger federal education budgets

  • Academia’s liberal culture attracts/retains left-leaning individuals rather than “indoctrinates” them

Income

• Traditional model (“GOP = party of the rich”) eroding

  • <$50k still Democratic; middle incomes lean GOP

  • ≥150{,}000 now ≈50{-}50 and trending Democratic—tied to shifts in global trade & loss of manufacturing jobs

Internet Culture & Right-Wing Appeal to Young Men

• Rise of alt-right / neo-Nazi streaming platforms “soft-launching” extremist ideology to adolescents (14–15)

• Trump’s appearances on Joe Rogan, UFC events, etc. culturally resonant with younger males

Immigration, Crime & Trafficking Context

• South Texas communities face economic competition from undocumented labor (construction, oil, food service), fostering GOP alignment

• Human trafficking (both labor & sexual exploitation) is prominent along \text{I-35}/\text{I-10} corridors; intensifies border-security politics

Structural Sources of Electoral Advantage

Incumbency in the U.S. House

• Typical reelection rate ≈95\%

• Advantages

  • Constituency service (e.g., locating lost Social Security checks)

  • \text{Franking privilege}: free mass mailings that double as campaign ads

  • Pork-barrel spending: inserting localized \,projects into federal bills

  • PAC money: incumbents receive \approx10\times challenger funding

• Result: in >80\% of House races, winner exceeds 60\% vote (landslide)

Legislative Productivity Context

• Only 3{-}5\% of introduced bills become law ⇒ writing doomed bills still yields PR benefits (“I sponsored X, others blocked it”)

Gerrymandering

• Partisan redistricting to create safe districts; bipartisan practice, dates to Elbridge Gerry’s 1812 “salamander” district

• Enabled by granular voter-data analytics; often splits streets/neighborhoods

Residential Mobility

• Americans self-select into ideologically comfortable locales (urban liberal, rural conservative) ⇒ clustering simplifies gerrymanders & magnifies polarization

Consequences of Declining Electoral Competitiveness

1. Lack of Responsiveness

   • Representatives behave as trustees (vote own judgment) rather than delegates (mirror district opinions)

   • Example: 2008 TARP bank bailout (\approx\$700\text{B})

     • \approx80\% public opposed, but bill passed easily; only members in tough races dared oppose

2. Increased Partisanship in Congress

   • Decline of cross-party voting; by 2012 virtually no legislators frequently crossed aisle

   • Safe-seat members (e.g., Chip Roy, Nancy Pelosi) have zero incentive to compromise

3. Erosion of Civil Discourse / Public Polarization

   • “Echo chambers” reinforced by cable news & social-media algorithms

   • 2016 media shock at Trump victory & student disbelief in Cruz > Beto illustrate bubble effects

   • Gallup presidential approval gap (Dem vs. GOP) now widest in polling history; every top-10 year has occurred since 2004

Historical & Constitutional Connections

• Founders embraced compromise (e.g., \text{CT}/Great Compromise: 2 Senators per state + House by population)

• Modern gridlock contrasts with Benjamin Franklin’s carpentry metaphor: democracy sometimes requires “shaving off” ideological edges

Real-World & Ethical Implications

• Inter-generational equity: young pay for seniors’ benefits they may never see

• Economic anxiety from globalization reshaping party coalitions

• Policy inertia (e.g., Social Security, immigration) stems from electoral incentives, not policy merits

• Online radicalization of youth poses long-term democratic resilience challenges

Key Numbers, Ratios & Equations (LaTeX formatting)

• Social Security depletion: \text{Trust Fund} \to 0 \text{ by } 2035

• Dependency ratio change: \frac{\text{Workers}}{\text{Beneficiaries}}: 13!:!1 \;\to\; 2.5!:!1

• House incumbent reelection: P(\text{win}|\text{incumbent}) \approx 0.95

• Landslide threshold: \text{Vote Share} > 0.60 in >80\% House contests

• Bill passage rate: \frac{\text{Laws}}{\text{Introduced Bills}} \approx 0.03{-}0.05

• PAC funding disparity: \text{Incumbent Money} \approx 10 \times \text{Challenger Money}

Study Tips & Connections

• When analyzing any policy (e.g., trade, health care, education), revisit how each demographic (age, race, income, education, religion, geography) is likely to respond—politicians surely will.

• For essay questions, link structural factors (incumbency, gerrymandering) to behavioral outcomes (turnout, partisanship) and finally to policy stalemate (Social Security, immigration).

• Remember major historical analogies (Bay of Pigs → Cuban GOP loyalty; Great Compromise → value of bipartisanship) to enrich arguments.