One Nation, Divisible
In this project, I’m seeking to understand how demographic features – that is, basic facts about our lives – relate to political differences. I’m using various commonly measured features: age/generation, gender, race, education, region, urban/rural, sexual orientation, religion, church attendance, marital status, military service, income, union membership, work status, home ownership, and gun ownership.
Content Index
Chapter 1 - Current Divisions: When it comes to things like race, gender, age, etc., what are the most impactful divisions between Democrats and Republicans in the current U.S. voting public?
Section 1.1 - A Guide to the Basics of Political Demographics: How they vote, where they are on issues, and where they live.
Section 1.2 - What’s the Gappiest Gap in Current U.S. Politics? Here’s my nominee for the biggest, cleanest single split in basic voter demographics.
Section 1.3 - The Big Divisions: Here’s where the pieces come together.
Chapter 2 - Shifting Coalitions: How have these kinds of demographic splits between the political parties changed over time?
Section 2.1 - Gender and Education Gaps in Presidential Voting Over the Past Several Decades: How the parties flipped places.
Section 2.2 - Focusing in on What Changed Between the Obama Elections in 2008 and 2012 and the Trump Elections in 2016 and 2020.
Subsection 2.2.1 - The Evolving Presidential Electorate: How demographics that should have favored Democrats from 2008 to 2020 were offset by within-group shifts.
Subsection 2.2.2 - A Longitudinal Look at Changes in Presidential Voting from the Obama Elections to the Trump Elections: The roles of race, education, and religion in driving individual movement between the parties.
Subsection 2.2.3 - Changes in Issue Salience Over the Past Few Presidential Elections: Racial issues, immigration, and guns rose as economic issues and abortion fell in importance.
Subsection 2.2.4 - A Very Quick Comparison of 2024 and 2020 Exit Polls: What they suggest about the shifting party coalitions
Chapter 3 - Issue Specifics: How do different hot-button issues – relating to immigration, abortion, racial discrimination, income redistribution, government spending, gun regulation, and so on – relate to various demographic features? What can that tell us about the changing party coalitions?
