scholarly journals Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (19) ◽  
pp. E4330-E4339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana C. Mutz

This study evaluates evidence pertaining to popular narratives explaining the American public’s support for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential election. First, using unique representative probability samples of the American public, tracking the same individuals from 2012 to 2016, I examine the “left behind” thesis (that is, the theory that those who lost jobs or experienced stagnant wages due to the loss of manufacturing jobs punished the incumbent party for their economic misfortunes). Second, I consider the possibility that status threat felt by the dwindling proportion of traditionally high-status Americans (i.e., whites, Christians, and men) as well as by those who perceive America’s global dominance as threatened combined to increase support for the candidate who emphasized reestablishing status hierarchies of the past. Results do not support an interpretation of the election based on pocketbook economic concerns. Instead, the shorter relative distance of people’s own views from the Republican candidate on trade and China corresponded to greater mass support for Trump in 2016 relative to Mitt Romney in 2012. Candidate preferences in 2016 reflected increasing anxiety among high-status groups rather than complaints about past treatment among low-status groups. Both growing domestic racial diversity and globalization contributed to a sense that white Americans are under siege by these engines of change.

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (45) ◽  
pp. 27940-27944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Erikson ◽  
Karl Sigman ◽  
Linan Yao

Donald Trump’s 2016 win despite failing to carry the popular vote has raised concern that 2020 would also see a mismatch between the winner of the popular vote and the winner of the Electoral College. This paper shows how to forecast the electoral vote in 2020 taking into account the unknown popular vote and the configuration of state voting in 2016. We note that 2016 was a statistical outlier. The potential Electoral College bias was slimmer in the past and not always favoring the Republican candidate. We show that in past presidential elections, difference among states in their presidential voting is solely a function of the states’ most recent presidential voting (plus new shocks); earlier history does not matter. Based on thousands of simulations, our research suggests that the bias in 2020 probably will favor Trump again but to a lesser degree than in 2016. The range of possible outcomes is sufficiently wide, however, to even include some possibility that Joseph Biden could win in the Electoral College while barely losing the popular vote.


Author(s):  
Javier Contreras Alcántara

During the 2012 presidential election in Mexico, a movement arose that broke with the existing framework of political mobilizations. What began as a protest to call into question the past of one of the candidates became, with the assertion of their status as university students, a student and social movement that urged a discussion on the nature of Mexico’s democracy. The movement, called #YoSoy132 (#IAm132), became active on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, uniting young citizens from a generation that was beginning to distance itself from politics. Finally, following a series of debates on the path the country should take and the presidential election, the movement did not strengthen, but instead left behind a generation of young politicized citizens who now adopted new forms of socialization and organization for political action, which applied to further mobilizations. Since then, Mexico witnessed the emergence of new political players which have lifted the unease felt by the current political class.


The Forum ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-542
Author(s):  
Diana C. Mutz

Abstract Whether American citizens hold presidents accountable for changes in the condition of the economy has increasingly been questioned. At the same time, the outcome of the 2016 election has been widely interpreted in economic terms. Press and pundits on both sides of the aisle have endorsed the “left behind” voter thesis suggesting that those who were economically dissatisfied or anxious voted against the incumbent party and thus elected Donald Trump. Likewise, some have argued that Trump would have won again in 2021 if not for the economic downturn caused by the COVID19 pandemic. In this study I use seven waves of nationally-representative panel data to examine change over time in individuals’ perceptions of the economy across the two most recent presidential election periods. I compare the magnitude of change from partisan rationalization of the economy to the magnitude of changes in perceptions due to the record-breaking decline in GDP during the year that COVID19 hit the US. My results provide little to no evidence that changes in perceptions due to real economic change were strong enough to overcome the effects of partisan rationalization. Given that the COVID19 recession was unusually severe, these results provide little reason for optimism that voters can hold leaders accountable for economic change.


2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis L. Huang ◽  
Dewey G. Cornell

In response to media reports of increased teasing and bullying in schools following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, we investigated its prevalence with a Virginia school climate survey completed by approximately 155,000 seventh- and eighth-grade students in 2013, 2015, and 2017. Survey results were mapped onto presidential election results for each school division’s locality. In localities favoring the Republican candidate, there were higher adjusted rates of students reporting that (a) they had experienced some form of bullying in the past year (18% higher) and (b) “students in this school are teased or put down because of their race or ethnicity” (9% higher). For these two outcomes, there were no meaningful differences prior to the election. These results provide modest support for educator concerns about increased teasing and bullying since the 2016 presidential election in some schools and warrant further investigation.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 375
Author(s):  
Hongmeng Cheng

Mormon studies in China began in the early 1990s and can be divided into three phases between the years of 2004 and 2017. The first Master’s and Doctoral theses on Mormonism were both published in 2004, and journal articles have also been increasing in frequency since then. The year of 2012 saw a peak, partly because Mormon Mitt Romney won the Republican nomination for the 2012 US presidential election. In 2017, a national-level project, Mormonism and its Bearings on Current Sino-US Relations, funded by the Chinese government, was launched. However, Mormon studies in China is thus far still in its infancy, with few institutions and a small number of scholars. Academic works are limited in number, and high-level achievements are very few. Among the published works, the study of the external factors of Mormonism is far more prevalent than research on its internal factors. Historical, sociological, and political approaches far exceed those of philosophy, theology, and history of thoughts. To Mormon studies, Chinese scholars can and should be making unique contributions, but the potential remains to be tapped.


Significance At least in the EU’s eleven eastern member states (EU-11), there has been significant if slow progress in lifting standards of living across the board in the past decade. However, progress is uneven and the impact of the economic slowdown due to lockdowns in the past year may well have affected disproportionately already poorer regions. Impacts Some governments, notably Hungary’s, will put political loyalty above need in directing recovery funds to the localities. People in ‘left-behind’ regions may seek a better life in relatively prosperous capital cities or abroad. There is scope for countries and regions to learn from each other given clear cases of significant development in the past decade.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamir Levy ◽  
Joseph Yagil

<p class="ber"><span lang="EN-GB">This study investigates the relationship between daily US presidential election poll results and stock returns. The sample consists of the daily presidential election polls published in the New-York Times for the period between May 31 and November 5, 2012. They include the percentage of support for the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, and the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney. The findings indicate that stock returns are positively related to the poll results that support the candidate favored to win the election.</span></p>


Itinerario ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
D.H.A. Kolff
Keyword(s):  

The motto I wrote at the top of this address and that I quoted just now is quite ordinary. But what else would a British civil servant, unmarried, note in his diary at a quiet post at the foot of the Himalayas? What fascinating details for that matter does one expect to find in the papers left behind about British Indian colonial relations in this century and the last? What indeed should a newly appointed professor tell you about them which is more than just curious or half exotic, and which, buried in the past as they have been for decades, would moreover only be appropriate at a Dutch university that refuses to withdraw into a hedgehog position called ‘Europe’?


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-42
Author(s):  
Pankaj Sinha

The paper categorizes factors responsible for forecasting the outcome of U.S. presidential election 2016 using factor analysis, which groups the various economic and non-economic parameters based on the correlation among them. The major economic factor significant in 2016 US presidential election is the growth of the economy, and the ‘anti-incumbency factor that signifies how long the incumbent party has been controlling the White House is found to be an important non-economic factor likely to play a dominant role in the election. The dependent variables considered are the vote shares of the nominees of the incumbent and the non-incumbent majority party candidates. The forecast is calculated by running a regression of the significant factors, obtained through factor analysis technique, on the incumbent party vote share as well as on the non-incumbent party vote share. The proposed models forecast the vote share of Democrat candidate Mrs. Hillary Clinton to be 45.59% with a standard error of ±2.32% and that of Republican candidate Mr. Donald Trump to be 39.51% with a standard error of ±3.87%. Hence, the models built in the paper signal a comfortable margin of victory for the Presidential nominee of the incumbent party, Hillary Clinton.The study re-establishes the notion that the non-economic factors have a greater influence on the outcomes of election as compared to the economic factors, as some of the important economic factors such as inflation and unemployment rate failed to establish their significance. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-74
Author(s):  
Charles Prysby

Young voters contributed disproportionately to Barack Obama’s presidential victory in 2012. In fact, if the electorate had been limited to those over 30 years old, Mitt Romney might be in the White House today. Obama captured 60 percent of the vote of those under 30, compared to 49 percent of those over 30, according to the national exit polls (Schier and Box- Steffensmeier 2013, 86). A similar pattern characterized the 2008 presidential election: Obama won 66 percent of the vote among those aged 29 or less, but under one-half of voters older than 45 (Pomper 2010, 53). The tendency for younger voters to be disproportionately Democratic emerged in the 2004 presidential election. Prior to that, Democratic presidential candidates did not consistently do better among younger voters. In 2000, for example, Al Gore did as well among older voters as he did among younger voters, and in 1992, Bill Clinton did his best among older voters, as did Walter Mondale in 1984 and Michael Dukakis in 1988 (Pomper 2001, 138; Pomper 1989, 133). 


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