Philip Klinkner | Vox

The pandemic is hitting counties that voted for Hillary Clinton harder — for now

2020-05-04T11:09:39-04:00

People in their vehicles protest against excessive quarantine orders from Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer around the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan on April 15, 2020. | Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

There’s a stark partisan difference in who has been affected by the coronavirus: Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to live in communities hit hard by Covid-19.

This has contributed to a partisan divide in attitudes about the pandemic, one in which Republican governors, lawmakers, and voters have remained broadly supportive of Trump — and have pushed for policies like the rapid reopening of businesses — while Democrats have not.

It is well known that the disease has disproportionately hit large cities and metropolitan areas. Given the geographic pattern of American political polarization, this also means that Democratic areas of the country have suffered the most from the pandemic, while Republican areas — despite recent outbreaks in smaller towns as the disease has spread at meatpacking plants — have been hit relatively lightly, if at all.

As of April 27, according to county-level case data compiled by the New York Times, Covid-19 cases and deaths were far more prevalent in counties won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 than in counties won by Donald Trump. Clinton counties make up a slight majority of the US population, but so far they have seen 76 percent of the Covid-19 cases and 80 percent of the deaths. Trump counties are 44 percent of the population, but just 24 percent of Covid-19 cases and 20 percent of the deaths.

This means Democrats and Republicans have experienced the pandemic in objectively different ways. These differences are already shaping the nation’s pandemic response — and may well influence American politics for years to come.

Covid-19 has hit counties won by Hillary Clinton much harder

On April 8, 77 percent of cases and 80 percent of deaths were in Clinton counties, versus 23 percent of cases and 20 percent of deaths in Trump counties. Despite some evidence of the virus spreading to more rural and Republican areas, these numbers have not changed over the past three weeks.

Of course, the true number of Covid-19 cases and deaths is unknown because of the lack of widespread testing. Still, given that the gap between Democratic and Republican areas hasn’t changed as more testing has become available suggests that the disparity between urban and rural areas is not just an artifact of incomplete testing.

Overall, Clinton counties have had nearly 2.5 times more cases per 100,000 people, and 3.2 times more deaths per 100,000 people, than Trump counties.

But these overall numbers obscure how the disease has had the most impact in heavily Democratic areas, but the least impact in heavily Republican areas.

In counties where Hillary Clinton won in a landslide (20 percentage points or more), there have been 486 cases per 100,000 people. Where Trump won in a landslide there have been only 120 cases per 100,000 people. And this is not just because of New York City, the nation’s biggest metropolis and a Democratic stronghold, as well as the city worst-hit by the pandemic: Excluding New York City only drops the rate in Clinton landslide counties to 364 cases per 100,000 people.

Similarly, in Clinton landslide counties there have been 27 deaths per 100,000 people; in Trump landslide counties, there have 5 deaths per 100,000. Even without New York City this pattern holds with Clinton landslide counties still having 17 deaths per 100,000 people.

Trump voters are also heavily concentrated in counties with few Covid-19 cases or deaths. In fact, a majority of Trump voters (56 percent) live in counties with fewer than 100 cases compared to a majority of Clinton voters (56 percent) living in counties with more than 500 cases.

The same is true for deaths. Almost one in five (18 percent) Trump voters live in a county with zero deaths from Covid-19. Half of Trump voters (49 percent) live in a county with 10 or fewer deaths. In comparison, only 31 percent of Clinton voters live in these counties.

As much as we might like to think that this crisis will unite Americans across party lines, the reality is very different. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to reside in counties with large numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths and therefore much more likely to have a friend, neighbor, coworker, or family member affected by the disease, not to mention possibly contracting the virus themselves.

On the other hand, for many Republicans, the disease and the deaths associated with it are more likely to be abstractions, something with little if any direct impact on them or their community so far.

Democrats and Republicans’ opposite coronavirus experiences are leading to opposing views on policy

There is some evidence these vastly different experiences are contributing to Democratic and Republican lawmakers — and voters —advocating for divergent policies. For instance, an April 19-21 Economist/YouGov survey found 81 percent of Democrats worried about contracting the virus, compared to only 54 percent of Republicans. This gap has not changed over the course of the pandemic. Another Economist/YouGov poll in mid-March found 71 percent of Democrats worried about contracting the virus compared to only 45 percent of Republicans.

Similarly, the April Economist survey found that 26 percent of Republicans thought that people were overreacting to the risk of the virus, but only 6 percent of Democrats did.

For Republicans, concentrated in counties with few cases, the primary impacts of the pandemic are the economic and social dislocations caused by business shutdowns and stay-at-home orders, which is affecting Democratic and Republican areas more equally than the disease itself: the April Economist survey found no difference between Democrats and Republicans on how much income they have lost due to the shutdown.

To be sure, Republican Party leaders, from President Trump on down, have presented mixed messages or inaccurate information about the disease. This misinformation may well have contributed to Republican attitudes about the pandemic from the start.

But the relatively light impact of the virus in Republican areas gives Republican officials and conservative commentators a receptive audience when they claim that stay-at-home orders and business shutdowns cause too much economic damage and threaten personal liberty, or when Fox News stars like Tucker Carlson, Britt Hume, and Laura Ingraham claim that the official death toll from the pandemic is inflated.

Furthermore, anti-lockdown protests have sprung up in several states. To be sure, conservative groups have organized and directed these protests for their own purposes and the number of persons involved is still relatively small.

Nonetheless, the protests have been supported by a number of prominent Republicans, including President Trump who tweeted out calls to, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”; “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!”; AND “LIBERATE VIRGINIA.” Given this support, the protests seem likely to continue — and perhaps escalate — if Republican areas remain relatively untouched by the virus but continue to suffer economic damage. Exactly that happened in Lansing, Michigan, where protesters crowded into the state Capitol building and tried to gain access to the House floor while legislators debated whether to extend Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s emergency declaration.

Still, at the federal level, we have seen lawmakers advocating for economic aid on a bipartisan (albeit asymmetrical) basis, resulting in the implementation of programs like the Paycheck Protection Program. But the parties have been divided more on public health measures. Passage of last week’s small business relief bill was held up because Democrats insisted, over Republicans objections, on including money for hospitals and more testing.

The differential impact of the pandemic also gives us clues about how the 2020 election might play out. Democrats will likely continue to criticize President Trump’s erratic and ineffectual response to the crisis and the need for the federal government to provide funding to meet the ongoing medical and economic emergency. President Trump, meanwhile, might argue that his actions have limited the pandemic at least in the areas where most of his voters reside, while Republicans might accuse Democrats of hyping the crisis in order to ramp up government spending for their voters in large urban areas.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office has already called aid to state and local governments devastated by the pandemic “Blue State Bailouts.” Such a message is all the more pernicious and perhaps more effective since it triggers prejudices related to race, religion, and immigration. If so, it seems likely that the pandemic will only deepen America’s chronic social and political divides.

Philip Klinkner is the James S. Sherman Professor of Government at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He is the author (with Rogers Smith) of The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America.

The easiest way to guess if someone supports Trump? Ask if Obama is a Muslim.

2016-06-01T17:18:00-04:00

The media loves to say Trump's support is fueled by economic anxiety. But race, religion, and immigration are far more closely tied to his support. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images

You can ask just one simple question to find out whether someone likes Donald Trump more than Hillary Clinton: Is Barack Obama a Muslim? If they are white and the answer is yes, 89 percent of the time that person will have a higher opinion of Trump than Clinton.

That’s more accurate than asking people if it’s harder to move up the income ladder than it was for their parents (54 percent), whether they oppose trade deals (66 percent), or if they think the economy is worse now than last year (81 percent). It’s even more accurate than asking them if they are Republican (87 percent).

Those results come from the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES) pilot survey. My analysis indicates that economic status and attitudes do little to explain support for Donald Trump.

These results might be rather surprising since most political commentators have sought to root Trump’s appeal in the economic anxieties of working-class whites. As George Packer recently wrote in the New Yorker:

The base of the [Republican] Party, the middle-aged white working class, has suffered at least as much as any demographic group because of globalization, low-wage immigrant labor, and free trade. Trump sensed the rage that flared from this pain and made it the fuel of his campaign.

Other analysts, however, have found that support for Trump is rooted in animosity and resentment toward various minority groups, especially African Americans, immigrants, and Muslims.

So which is the key factor in explaining Trump support? I believe it is the latter, based on my analysis of the data from the 2016 ANES.

How I determined Trump support isn't about the economy

Here’s how I examined the 2016 ANES pilot survey, which includes a number of questions on economic attitudes as well as attitudes toward race, religion, and immigration.

I compared feeling thermometer evaluations for Donald Trump and those for Hillary Clinton. These evaluations run from 100 (most positive) to 0 (most negative). By looking at the difference in these evaluations, voters were ranked from 100 (most positive toward Clinton, most negative toward Trump) and -100 (most negative toward Clinton, most positive toward Trump). Those in the middle (a score of zero) were equally positive (or negative) toward the two candidates.

The first was a variable measuring how optimistic or pessimistic respondents were about economic opportunity in the US consisting of the combined results of these two questions:

Do you think people’s ability to improve their financial well-being is now better, worse, or the same as it was 20 years ago?
Compared with your parents, do you think it is easier, harder, or neither easier nor harder for you to move up the income ladder?

I also included a variable that asked whether respondents believed the nation’s economy is now better, about the same, or worse than it was a year ago. Since Trump has made opposition to free trade agreements a key part of his campaign message, another variable measured whether respondents favor or oppose the US making free trade agreements with other countries.

To measure attitudes toward different races, religions, and immigrant groups, I included a variable measuring racial resentment, which combines the responses to the following statements:

Over the past few years, black people have gotten less than they deserve.
Irish, Italian, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Black people should do the same without any special favors.
It's really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if black people would only try harder they could be just as well off as white people.
Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for black people to work their way out of the lower class.

Other variables include whether respondents believe that President Obama is a Muslim, whether the number of legal immigrants should be increased or decreased, and how well respondents think the word “violent” describes Muslims.

Here's what I found

Next I ran a regression model to see how much impact the different variables had. The results of the model are shown in the graph below. The dots represent the impact that variable has on support for Clinton versus Trump.

Since all variables have been scaled from 0 to 1, the location of the dots shows the impact of going from the lowest to highest level of the variable. Dots on the negative or left side of the line indicate that respondents become more favorable toward Trump as they move from lower to higher levels for the variable. Dots on the right or positive side of the graph indicate that they become more favorable to Hillary Clinton.

For example, the result for the party identification variable is -57, indicating that Republicans (1) were, on average, 57 points more favorable to Trump than Clinton compared with strong Democrats (0). Similarly, the older the voter, the more likely he is to support Hillary Clinton. The lines intersecting the dots represent the 95 percent confidence intervals. When the lines touch zero, the result is not statistically significant.

Racial resentment is a more important predictor of Trump support than economic insecurity. (Josh Rosenblat/Vox)

The graph indicates that neither income nor economic pessimism has a statistically significant impact on evaluations of Clinton versus Trump. On the other hand, those who think the economy is worse now than a year ago and those opposed to free trade agreements are more likely to support Trump, and these results are statistically significant.

Those who express more resentment toward African Americans, those who think the word "violent" describes Muslims well, and those who believe President Obama is a Muslim have much more positive attitudes of Trump compared with Clinton

The graph also indicates that several of the racial and religious views have a significant impact on evaluations of the candidates. Those who express more resentment toward African Americans, those who think the word “violent” describes Muslims well, and those who believe President Obama is a Muslim have much more positive views of Trump compared with Clinton.

Attitudes toward increasing or decreasing legal immigration, however, do not have a statistically significant impact, a rather surprising finding given Trump’s attacks on undocumented immigrants and his promise to build a border wall.

Furthermore, the impact of these variables is generally greater than that of the economic variables. For example, moving from the least to the most resentful view of African Americans increases support for Trump by 44 points, those who think Obama is a Muslim (54 percent of all Republicans) are 24 points more favorable to Trump, and those who think the word “violent” describes Muslims extremely well are about 13 points more pro-Trump than those who think it doesn’t describe them well at all.

This compares with an 11-point difference between those who are most opposed to free trade deals and those who are most in favor, and a 23-point gap between those who think the economy had gotten much better and those who think it had gotten much worse in the previous year.

At best, one can argue that Trump supporters are much more negative about the direction of the economy over the past year, but even this opinion may not represent actual economic dissatisfaction. In the year before the survey was administered (January 2015 to January 2016), unemployment fell from 5.7 to 4.9 percent, real GDP grew by 2.4 percent, inflation was almost nonexistent (0.1 percent), and personal income increased by 4.4 percent. Perhaps the economy hasn’t been booming, but there seems to be little evidence to support the contention shared by more than half of all Republicans that the economy got worse during 2015.

More likely, as political scientist John Sides has pointed out, evaluations of the economy have become a proxy for partisan and political preferences. And to the extent that opinions about President Obama influence evaluations of the economy, opinions about him are themselves strongly tied to opinions about race, immigration, and religion.

Indeed, Obama embodies of each of these concerns for a large segment of Republicans. He is obviously African-American; as mentioned previously, more than half of all Republicans believe he is a Muslim; and finally, only 29 percent of Republicans think he was born in the US. Thus, it’s no surprise that, as the graph below shows, opinions about Obama are heavily influenced by levels of racial resentment.

(Josh Rosenblat/Vox)

Rerunning the original regression model to control for whether respondents approve or disapprove of the job President Obama is doing produces the following results. Not surprisingly, the more strongly someone approves of President Obama, the more positive their evaluation of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.

Resentment toward African Americans, the belief that Muslims are violent, and the perception that President Obama is a Muslim all remain significant even when controlling for attitudes toward Obama’s job approval

More interestingly, with this variable included, attitudes toward free trade and evaluations of the economy are no longer statistically significant. This suggests that Trump supporters’ opinions about the direction of the economy are less an objective evaluation of actual conditions than a chance to register disapproval of a president they strongly dislike.

At the same time, resentment toward African Americans, the belief that Muslims are violent, and the perception that President Obama is a Muslim all remain significant even when controlling for attitudes toward Obama’s job approval.

While there’s little evidence of a direct relationship between economic attitudes and support for Trump, there may be an indirect one in which economic pessimism combines with resentment against various out-groups, so that those who believe the economy is stacked against them are more likely to scapegoat black people, or immigrants, or Muslims for their problems. As political scientist Robert Putnam put it recently, perhaps economic deprivation has provided “dry tinder” for Trump’s inflammatory appeals to race and xenophobia.

To test this possibility, I reran the model to include an interaction between racial resentment and economic pessimism. The graph below shows no support for the “dry tinder” thesis. Racial resentment had no extra effect among those who were more pessimistic about the economy. If anything, racial resentment mattered more among those who were less pessimistic, but the difference is trivial.

Graphic by Vox’s Josh Rosenblat

Bottom line: It's not the economy, stupid

Given these results, political analysts need to understand that Trump’s appeal has little to do with economics.

To paraphrase what Marco Rubio once famously said (over and over and over), “let’s dispel with this fiction” that Donald Trump is appealing to the economic anxieties of Americans. Instead, attitudes about race, religion, and immigration trump (pun intended) economics.

Philip Klinkner is the James S. Sherman Professor of Government at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. He is the author (with Rogers Smith) of The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America.

Men shouldn't fear women. Trump should.

Racial resentment is a more important predictor of Trump support than economic insecurity. (Josh Rosenblat/Vox)

The Democrats’ woes are overstated

2019-03-05T10:57:33-05:00

In his article “Democrats are in denial. Their party is actually in deep trouble,” Matt Yglesias points to the real problems the Democrats face in elections below the presidency. At the same time, many of these problems are similar to those faced by all parties that have controlled the White House for two terms. Political scientists often refer to the “thermostatic” nature of American public opinion, where support for activist government declines during Democratic administrations and increases during Republican ones.

A similar dynamic occurs with elections, as every party that controls the White House for two terms loses ground in down-ballot races. The table below shows the number of senators, House members, and governors at the beginning and the end of the most recent two-term presidencies. The only president who was able to beat this pattern of losing Senate, House, and gubernatorial seats was Ronald Reagan, who, while losing Senate and House seats, did manage to pick up one governor. In fact, Yglesias seems to understand this, since he writes, “So-called ‘wave’ elections in which tons of incumbent lose are typically driven by a backlash against the incumbent president. Since the incumbent is a Democrat, Democrats have no way to set up a wave.”

Nixon/ Ford

Ronald Reagan

Bill Clinton

George W. Bush

Incoming Senate Seats

Outgoing Senate Seats

Change

-5

-8

-12

-1

Incoming House Seats

192

258

221

Outgoing House Seats

144

177

211

202

Change

-48

-15

-47

-19

Incoming Governors

Outgoing Governors

Change

-18

-13

-7

Yglesias also overstates the self-perpetuating nature of Republican advantages in non-presidential elections. According to him, “GOP control of most state legislatures lets Republicans draw boundaries in a way that is even more GOP-friendly than the natural population distribution would suggest.” But most political scientists agree that gerrymandering has very little impact on House elections, adding perhaps seven to 10 seats to the GOP total in 2012. That’s enough to tip control to the Republicans in a close election, but it certainly doesn’t explain the GOP’s 33-seat majority in 2012 after the last round of redistricting. Moreover, redistricting does nothing to explain why the GOP was able to pick up an additional 13 seats in 2014 without any additional redistricting.

Overall, there’s nothing wrong with the Democrats that losing the presidency probably won’t fix, and by the same token, the best way for the Republicans to risk their majorities in the Senate, House, and governorships is to win the White House in 2016.

Philip A. Klinkner is the James S. Sherman professor and chair of the government department at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.