A study showed that a huge surge in senior turnout swayed the 2021 VA election

[spooky3]

Thanks to Jennifer Rubin at WaPo for alerting readers about this.

Once again, the post-election pundit analysis was off-base. Parental anger over McAuliffe "gaffes" and education were unlikely to play much of a role. This TargetSmart study's results are consistent with the observation that the attorney general and lt. governor race margins were almost identical to the governor race margin, and that turnout was high among both parties but even higher for the GOP. This suggests that the results had less to do with gaffes, COVID, or CRT than pundits claimed. The study suggests that GOTV may be the most important thing this year.

"Before the polls closed in Virginia on Election Day 2021, conventional wisdom was baked: Governor Youngkin bested Terry McAuliffe because of anger over school closures, mask mandates and supposed anger over ‘Critical Race Theory.’

NPR wrote that, “Democrats have to come up with a convincing way to answer the (often false) charges about how children are being taught about structural racism in schools.” MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace declared that, “Critical Race Theory, which isn’t real, turned the suburbs 15 points to the Trump insurrection endorsed Republican." Republican Senator Josh Hawley tweeted, that voters “don’t want parents persecuted, they don’t want critical race theory, they don’t want woke liberalism.” And so on.

The reality is much more complex. As is often the case, conventional wisdom is too often formed before all the facts are available.

...

Turnout among voters age 75 or older increased by 59%, relative to 2017 while turnout among voters under age 30 only increased by just 18%. Notably, turnout of all other age groups combined (18-74), which would likely include parents of school-aged children, only increased by 9% compared to 2017.
These are massive changes in the electorate in an election that was far from a blowout: Youngkin won by just 2%.

Voters age 65 and older are an estimated 15.9% of Virginia’s population according to the census, yet accounted for 31.9% of all ballots cast in 2021.
348,314 more seniors (ages 65+) voted in Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial election than in the 2016 presidential election.
...
Notably, turnout among voters of color also surged in 2021 compared to 2017: African-American turnout surged 13%, Hispanic turnout by 17.5% and Asian-American turnout by 37%..."

more at

https://insights.targetsmart.com/did-education-sway-the-va-election-maybe-but-probably-not.html

[brush]

1. I don't get why the large surge in POC voters didn't...

have a bigger effect on the race. African-American turnout surged 13%, Hispanic turnout by 17.5% and Asian-American turnout by 37%...those are significant numbers. Seems they should've more than offset the surge of voters over 75.

What's up with that?

[spooky3]

3. In part, because those groups are smaller in absolute numbers

Than are people over 65 in Virginia. And the senior surge was much larger in % terms than for other groups.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/virginia-population

[Hekate]

7. Without looking up the demographics of Virginia, I'd say it's because POC are still a minority...

Unlike, say, my state of California, which as far as I know is now a minority-majority state.

Other than that, googling for their state demographics would probably give you a better notion.

[spooky3]

11. See the link in my reply. Census data are also online. Nt

[Hekate]

13. Yes, I saw that you replied while I was both typing and trying to talk to my husband

[spooky3]

14. Damn husbands! :-)

[Hekate]

17. It's good to have a life outside DU, isn't it?

[elleng]

2. Bye Bye, 'conventional wisdom.'

'conventional wisdom is too often formed before all the facts are available.'

[spooky3]

4. Agree. The night of the election, the results in NJ were much closer

Than predicted; the Dem won but by a much smaller margin than expected. So that suggested that it was not local education issues, gaffes, etc., but instead, a “red” trend affected voters in BOTH states. It would be interesting to see a study of those voters too.

This is speculation, but when people were voting, the infrastructure bill had not passed, and the negative media coverage of Afghanistan was happening. It could be that many ill-informed voters just voted GQP because they weren’t happy with perceptions of Biden and the Dems then.

[Elessar Zappa]

5. We need more young people to vote

in order to counteract the seniors.

[spooky3]

6. Definitely. Nt

[uponit7771]

16. +1 on the red trend, 500k Biden voter loss in VA 100k for TFG. There's no reason dems can't stoke

... turnout like GZP.

Don't know the demographics but we need to do something else vs losing our brute force voter advantage.

[zaj]

8. School issues are a proxy for racism and a trigger for older voters

Last edited Sat Mar 19, 2022, 05:19 PM - Edit history (1)

Seems it's all part of the same strategy

[spooky3]

10. We need data to confirm or disprove that. Nt

[zaj]

18. Sure 💯, but Fox News seems to prove the point everyday

[Calista241]

9. So inflation hurts seniors more proportionally than other age groups.

Though it sucks for everyone. I’d hate to be in the election prediction business this year. Who the fuck knows how all this is going to go down.

[Elessar Zappa]

12. Seniors always vote Republican.

The only way to mitigate this is for younger voters to turn out in higher numbers.

[elleng]

19. NOT

[Elessar Zappa]

20. Not all seniors of course.

But exit polls always show that 65+ voters usually favor Republicans.

[uponit7771]

15. K&R, ***Biden vote in VA was off 500,000*** TFG vote off only 100,000 !!! Dems need to stoke...

.. dems

[brooklynite]

21. Conventional wisdom: young people don't show up to vote....