Nate Cohn

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Now that said, it's important to note that 'topline changes' are absolutely not the only changes in the composition of the electorate. It's possible, for instance, that new white residents were more supportive of Biden than older white residents. That's not captured here — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

If so, then about 15% of Biden's gains could be attributed to topline changes in the racial composition of the electorate (as Biden gained about 3.9 pts of major party vote share, of which .6 pts could be attributed to the decline in the white share of the electorate) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

If you hold the Times/Siena results by race constant, then you'd get these results under different electorates (by race) 2016: Biden 61.2 2020: Biden 61.8 So that's a .6 pt shift due to simply due to topline changes in the racial composition of the electorate — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

If you take those figures along with the actual racial turnout data we just mentioned, then you'd estimate that Biden won 61.8% of the major party vote in these counties. That's pretty close to his actual 60.7% share, so I think this is more than good enough — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

If we take the two Times/Siena polls together, here's how voters broke by voter file racial group (here Biden share of major party vote, to fix undecideds): White 43 Black 92 Hispanic 60 Asian 61 Unknown 61 Other 82 Many are pretty small samples! But I think it's reasonable — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

So then there's the big question: how much did this shift contribute to Biden's victory, compared to shifting attitudes? The demographic data alone can't answer that question. You need to know how these folks voted, and so I'm going to go back to the Times/Siena poll — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

In these counties, the white share of registered voters fell from 48.1 to 44.4 since 2016--or about the same pace as the overall electorate. So that tells you that most of the decline is due to demographic shifts, not changes in differential turnout by race — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

So we have the same basic story as the statewide data, though with the Black share of the electorate holding up somewhat better and a larger decline in the white share of the electorate. This is mainly attributable to demographic changes — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

According to the state's vote history data, the composition of the electorate by race/ethnicity in 2016-->2020 is as follows: White 53.5 --> 50.1 Black 31.5 --> 31.2 Asian 2.4 --> 3.7 Hispanic 2.9 --> 3.9 Other 1.5 --> 2 Unknown 8.2 --> 8.7 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

As defined here, these Democratic-trending Atlanta metropolitan area counties include a majority of the Georgia pop… https://t.co/vlEdvYDcRm — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

There are plenty of suburbs in DeKalb and Fulton, and Biden made huge gains there. Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to exclude Atlanta-proper from the historical data. But we can go back at the end and take out DeKalb and Fulton and see if it's a different story — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

As an initial definitional question, we do have to define what we're calling the 'suburbs' here--and for simplicity I'm basically going to include the whole Democratic-trending part of the Atlanta area, including all of DeKalb and Fulton Counties--even though it includes Atlanta — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

This is a good question, so let's take a look https://t.co/8YXc3lhIre — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

I should add that I think it's genuinely surprising that the turnout increased so much without increasing the young/black/dem share of the electorate Nonvoters in 16 were disproportionately young/black/dem. But higher turnout just drew another disproportionately old/white/rep set — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The above average swing toward Biden does raise the possibility that the turnout data will be even worse for him elsewhere, though it may just reflect more 'persuasion.' It'll be interesting to revisit this when more of the data is in. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

So stepping back: in these counties, we have an older electorate, the black share of the electorate dipped, and no increase in Democratic turnout v. Republican turnout. But Biden gained a net-3.5 points over Clinton in these counties, more than the state/nationwide — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The only age group with an increase in its share of the electorate? Voters over age 65. They represented 23.7 percent of the electorate in these counties, v. 20.8 percent of the electorate in 2016. I'd guess the aging population is a big factor here — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The turnout rate *among* 18 to 25 year old registrants, however, went up from 53.9 to 60.3 percent. But the youth share of registrants went down, so there's no increase in the youth share of the electorate, whether as a consequence of coronavirus or an aging population — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The NC data in these counties shows no increase in the youth share of the electorate. 18 to 25 year old voters represent 9.4 percent of the electorate, the exact same as in 2016. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The NC data shows no increase in the youth share of the electorate. 18 to 25 year old voters represent 9.4 percent of the electorate, the exact same as in 2016. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

One thing we can do in NC that we can't do in GA is look at age. We can't look at age in GA because I don't have a totally final voter file there, and I'm worried that would bias our findings against late registrants, who are disproportionately young. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Another similarity to Georgia is that there are a growing number of 'unknown' race voters, who now represent 10% of RVs in these counties. We don't know about their actual racial composition, but if many are Black then the decline in the Black share could be a bit overstated — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

In these counties, Black voters made up 17.7 percent of the electorate v. 19.4 percent of registered voters. In 2016, Black voters were 19.9% of the electorate and 21.4% of registered voters — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

On all of these turnout rate statistics, the denominator is the registered voter population. And as in Georgia, the black share of registered voters has declined since 2016, so the decline in the black share of the electorate is greater than these turnout rates suggest — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

By race, we have a story fairly similar to Georgia. Over all, 79.4% of white registered voters turned out v. 69.5% of Black voters. That's a 7 pt. increase in white turnout rate, and a 4 pt increase in black turnout — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

As I mentioned, I think it's possible that it doesn't wind up quite that good for Democrats in the end. But if we do suppose for a second that these turnout rates hold statewide, then you get a D+3.5 electorate v. D+5.3 registration. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Let's start with party registration. In these counties, 77% of Democrats turned out v. 82% of GOP. That's a 7 pt increase over 2016 in both cases. As a result, the electorate by party reg in these counties is D+5.8, v. D+7.4 among all registered voters. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

These counties lean a little bit left, with a disproportionate chunk of the white liberal vote (Wake, Buncombe, Durham all in). So I think these numbers could be rosier than the final tallies for Democrats statewide, but I think the patterns will largely hold up — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Let's take a look at the turnout data so far in North Carolina, where counties worth one-third of the electorate have now updated their vote history data — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @BrianStryker: The 2004 comparison is interesting to me, that Black turnout isn’t hitting the heights of the Obama era but is still well… — PolitiTweet.org