20 April 2016
Notes on the New York primary
Big wins for Trump and Clinton. Trump received 60.5 percent of the vote, Clinton 57.9 percent. Republicans cast 860,000 votes, Democrats 1.8 million. Trump won all areas of the state, but a few by only a plurality. Clinton won the big urban areas — Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, New York City — the clusters of black and hispanic voters that favor Clinton by large margins. The NY Times has excellent maps. CBS has a good interactive page on the exit polls of Democrats.
The closed primary helped Clinton. In states with open primaries and caucuses, Sanders draws large numbers of self-identified independents. Many independents are not true independents. They are, rather, closet partisans who don’t want to make their political affiliation a matter of public record. Many are younger. New York’s closed primary disenfranchised all of Sanders’ supporters who were Democrats by any reasonable measure but who had registered as independents. This helped Clinton, who draws high support among older and old line Democrats. New York, incidentally, has the nation’s harshest laws on changing party affiliation.
Montana’s open primary should help Sanders. I doubt there will be much crossover mischief if the Republican contest remains competitive.
Race and ethnicity were factors in the Democratic primary, with Clinton doing well with black and hispanic voters. Reports Politico:
By race, Sanders won white men, 57 percent to 43 percent. But Clinton carried the other groups, winning 56 percent of white women, 67 percent of black men, 79 percent of black women and 67 percent of Latino women. (There were too few Latino men in the exit poll to report results.)
Note to Politico, and everyone else. Latino is an ethnic category. It describes a person’s geographic origin (Latin America) and is largely interchangeable with “Hispanic,” which refers to a person whose native language is Spanish. The U.S. Census Bureau, which uses the term Hispanic, reports that in the 2010 census, 53 percent of Hispanics identified as white (PDF, p.5).
Clinton has made race an issue, and not in a helpful way. She’s encouraged the slander that it’s an act of racism for white people to criticize President Obama, and the slander that Bernie Sanders cannot be trusted on issues involving race because he represents Vermont, one of the nation’s whitest states. This approach is helping Clinton win primaries, but it’s also alienating white voters.
Her favorable-unfavorable ratio is underwater, reports the Washington Post’s Dan Baltz:
…her negative ratings have been rising and now outweigh her positives by 24 points, according to the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll. That makes her seen no more favorably than Cruz is. Her only salvation is that Trump’s net negative is minus 41. Sanders, meanwhile, has a net positive of nine points — although it’s fair to say that one reason for that is that he has received far less in the way of attacks from Republicans or scrutiny from the media than Clinton has.
Clinton’s image is at or near record lows among major demographic groups. Among men, she is at minus 40. Among women, she is at minus nine. Among whites, she is at minus 39. Among white women, she is at minus 25. Among white men, she is at minus 72. Her favorability among whites at this point in the election cycle is worse than President Obama’s ever has been, according to Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who conducted the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll with Democratic pollster Peter Hart.
Minority voters have been the linchpin of Clinton’s nomination strategy and were a key to her success in New York. Among African Americans nationally, the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll shows her with a net positive of 51 points. But that’s down 13 points from her first-quarter average and is roughly at her lowest ever. Among Latinos, her net positive is just two points, down from plus 21 points during the first quarter.
Should Sanders, Cruz, and Kasich, throw in the towel? No, not yet, says the NY Times in an editorial written before the polls closed. And the bully boys in the Clinton and Trump camps shouldn't try to shoulder Sanders, Cruz, and Kasich, off the campaign trail
Mr. Sanders’s presence has made this an immeasurably more substantive race, in which both candidates’ policies have been better vetted, and as a result, better delineated. That’s the best preparation for the general election. Yes, Mrs. Clinton’s lead is nearly insurmountable, but it should be voters who erase the “nearly.”
Mr. Sanders has voiced the concerns and energized millions of young people, many of them voting for the first time. His candidacy has forced the party to go deeper on addressing issues like wealth inequality, college tuition costs and the toll of globalization — important points of distinction with Republicans. What’s more, Mr. Sanders’s commitment to small individual contributions has put the lie to Democrats’ excuses that they, too, must play the big money game to win. This is a message too seldom heard in the party that first championed campaign finance reform. That it’s back is long overdue, good for Democrats and good for campaigning. Mrs. Clinton “is clearly irritated by the fact that she has to deal with this guy,” the Democratic strategist David Axelrod said in an interview. “But he’s pushed her on a lot of issues in a positive way, and I think that his young supporters will be bitterly resentful if anyone tries to shove him out of the race.”
Indeed, Sanders is closing the gap with Clinton on a national basis, reports Nate Silver. This probably infuriates Clinton’s staff and surrogates, who loath Sanders and want to punish him for challenging Hillary by tarring and feathering him and running him and his supporters out of the Democratic Party. They really ought to employ strategic silence and let the primaries take their course.
Sanders, and some of his most fervent supporters, should ease up on the personal criticism of Clinton. Calling for her to release the transcripts of the speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs for 200 grand a performance is legitimate, but calling her unqualified to be president is a bit over the top. Like Clinton, he’s weary and grouchy, and would benefit from a quiet weekend and a good night’s sleep.
Will Bernie’s supporters not vote for Clinton if she’s the nominee? That’s what some polls are reporting. But — so what? As Meg Greenfield would have said, this is a nothingburger of an issue. “My guy or no guy” always is the cry from the faithful at this stage of the nomination cycle. No matter who wins the nomination, the loser’s partisans initially will steam and stew and fulminate like boiling sulphuric acid. They they’ll cool down, see clearly, and vote for the party’s nominee. No Democrat wants a President Trump, Cruz, or Kasich. That includes me. It’s no secret that I support Bernie, but if Hillary is nominated, she gets my vote and my support for the gitgo.