Open Left: 2008 Electorate: Looking Back, 1988 vs 2008
After a year it's worth looking back to when the United States elected a Democrat to the office of President of the United States with a majority of popular votes, the electoral college, and no input from the Supreme Court for the first time in 32 years. The changes in the behavior and composition of the electorate over those 30 years have been dramatic. The maps below show 2008 results and compare them to 1988.
Click to enlarge.
More maps and analysis for the nostalgic can be found in a diary here.
This diary is the introduction to a series exploring the electorate of 2008.
We will take a tour through the 2008 presidential election poking our noses into every nook and cranny available, collecting trivia and trends while developing three main themes:1. We Are Not All of Us Alike
How many times in 2008 did we hear references to references to one demographic group or another in authoritative tones making sweeping generalizations? "Latinos won't vote for a Black man," or"White working class voters are McCain's demographic," or"McCain is making strong inroads in the Jewish vote this year." Besides usually being wrong, such statements encourage the impression that an individual's demographic group determines his or her vote, instead of representing a factor that influences voting choices. In these diaries we will explore as many demographic groups as possible, emphasizing differences within demographic groups as well as tendencies to support one candidate or another.
2. Progressive Feedback Loops
It turns out that many progressive policies and achievements over the last several centuries were not just the right thing to do as history would judge it, they were also instrumental in producing an electorate more likely to enact additional progressive policies. This is obvious to Republicans as well, as witnessed by their utter lack of rational rationale for opposing such current progressive positions as allowing citizens of Washington DC full representation or making it simpler for poor and working class citizens to vote.
3. Demographic Change
No matter which way you look at it, the country is changing in ways that won't help Republicans. After several decades of demonizing minorities of every stripe - racial, religious, geographic, sexual, educational - those minorities now add up to the majority and are generally in no mood to vote for Republicans. Not only that, but these Democratic-supporting minorities are growing, while the base of Republican support is projected to continue shrinking for the foreseeable future.