The 2024 electorate is more interesting than either candidate
Like the Gorgons in Greek mythology whose glances could turn people to stone, today’s sour candidates have calcified our presidential politics with their glowering contest. “Rancor,” said José Ortega y Gasset, “is an outpouring of a feeling of inferiority.” Both men have much about which to feel inferior. The electorate, however, is at least interesting.
Until recently, presidential politics was significantly shaped by regional differences that were Civil War residues. In 1968, the Republicans’ “Southern strategy” (following 25 years of steady gains in the South) facilitated victory in four of the next five, and five of the next seven, presidential elections. But in 2008, Barack Obama received a larger percentage of the nation’s White vote than Democratic nominees Michael S. Dukakis, Al Gore and John F. Kerry won in 1988, 2000 and 2004, respectively. In 2020, Donald Trump won at least 56 percent in 18 states but not in Florida (51.2), Texas (52.1) or South Carolina (55.1).
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Today, the nation has newer class-based and culture-fueled divisions, but is not happier for having somewhat transcended regionalism: There are battleground states (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada) in the North, South, East and West.
When George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, Ohio was the only large state he carried outside the South. (His next most populous non-Southern victory was in Indiana.) Regional differences have not lost their salience, but Obama won Florida and Virginia twice, North Carolina once, and in 2012 received 44 percent of both Mississippi’s and South Carolina’s votes.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton became a harbinger – and casualty – of today’s ongoing class-based realignment. If her White working-class turnout and percentages of support had matched those of Obama in 2012, she would have won Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Florida and the presidency. She would have won Wisconsin and Michigan if she had matched Obama’s 2012 turnout in Milwaukee and Detroit.
Because so many Democratic voters are in California (13.7 percent of the party’s national popular vote total in 2020) and a few other noncompetitive states (e.g., Illinois, New York), the party probably must win the national popular vote by more than 3 percentage points to win 270 electoral votes. Oddities abound. Gerald Ford came closer to defeating Jimmy Carter in the 1976 popular vote than Mitt Romney came to defeating Obama in 2012. Clinton, losing to Trump in 2016, won the popular vote by a larger margin (2.1 points) than John F. Kennedy did defeating Richard M. Nixon in 1960.
In 56 of the 70 years prior to tumultuous 1968 (marked by assassinations, urban riots and a polarizing ground war of attrition on the Asian mainland with a conscript army), the federal government was united: One party or the other held the presidency and both houses of Congress. In the subsequent 56 years, there has been unified government for only 17 years.
In the 62 years from 1932 to 1994, there were Democratic House majorities for all but four years (and Senate majorities for 10 years). After Democrats controlled the House of Representatives for 40 years (1954-1994), control changed three times in 24 years. Now, for the first time, control has changed under five consecutive presidents (under Bill Clinton in 1994, Bush in 2006, Obama in 2010, Trump in 2018, Joe Biden in 2022). Before ticket-splitting became unusual, Nixon trounced George McGovern in 1972 by 23.2 points, and Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in 1984 by 18.2 points, yet in both cases Democrats retained control of the House.
It is asserted that independents will decide the 2024 election. Romney might be skeptical. In 2012, he won independents by 5 points but lost the popular vote by 4 points. Stasis is, however, notable: 36 states and the District of Columbia have voted for the same party in this century’s six presidential elections.
If Biden loses, he will be the fifth incumbent defeated in the past 100 years (Herbert Hoover, Ford, Carter, George H.W. Bush). If Biden wins, he might be the first incumbent since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 to win reelection while losing control of both houses of Congress. (Although Republicans seem to be trying to lose the House.)
Finally, for 50 years, the percentage of Americans calling themselves moderate has remained constant, around 40. Yet, remarkably, the ascent of glowering Gorgons has turned moderates away from politics.
