Geopolitics Review - 26th August 2024
The US Election By Demographics
Contents
Introduction
General Demographic Figures
Gender
Education
Urbanisation
Religion
Age
Ethnicity
Raw Numbers Data
Hypothesis Testing
Key Questions
Concluding Remarks
Bitesize Edition
In exploring the upcoming election in the United States in November, it’s easy to make a surface-level analysis. We can look at the Harris campaign, and see that momentum is currently on her side. It takes a deeper look at demographics to determine why this could be occurring.
What are the gender balances in the United States? How does education affect voting patterns? Does urbanisation, religion, age, or ethnicity drive voting patterns?
From this data, I’ll state some potential trends occurring within the data. Why, in general, do white voters support Republicans? Why do voters aged between 18 and 29 support the Democrats? Which demographic groups and characteristics will decide this election?
Finally, how does Clinton compare to Biden? Based on Biden winning and Clinton losing, it would seem on the surface that Biden was more popular in 2020 than Clinton in 2016. Does the data support this? Where Trump falls when competing with Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020 is also of importance. Find out more below.
Introduction
Upon looking at the polls for the upcoming election in the United States, it looks like the election is fairly even. It was expected that independent candidates would have a large sway on the outcome of this election, but RFK Jr admitting to leaving a dead bear cub in Central Park in New York has seen his polling figures fall, and his endorsement of Trump has seen him withdraw from 10 state votes. I’ll explore this situation in the following weeks. For now, with the polls not leading to many clear conclusions being drawn, I decided to dive into the demographics of the USA and explore who typically votes Democrat or Republican, based on the 2016 and 2020 elections as examples. I’ll also explore if these typical trends could unfold in similar or different ways during this election.
General Demographic Figures
Total Population = 334,914,895
Gender
The gender split in the United States is close to 50/50. A surplus of older females to older males slightly outweighs a surplus of young males to younger females, hence leading to 50.5% female vs 49.5% male.
In 2016, 52% of male voters cast a vote for Trump, and 41% of male voters chose Clinton as their candidate. Trump has adopted a display of masculinity in his political career and hence will attract male voters who value this.
As for female voters in 2016, only 39% voted for Trump, versus 54% for Clinton. Did Clinton attract more female voters, or did Trump’s history of misogyny push female voters away?
In 2020, 48% of male voters chose Biden, whereas 50% of male voters selected Trump. Trump’s percentage of male voters fell from 52% to 50%, and Biden saw a greater proportion of male votes come his way, rising from Clinton’s 41%. Did this increase in male voters help Biden win in 2020, and are men more likely to vote for a male Democrat candidate over a female candidate?
In 2020, female voters voted for Trump in a larger proportion than in 2016, with his voting proportion rising from 39% to 44%. This was still lower than the Democrat candidate Biden, who achieved 55% of total female votes. This was a 1% rise from Clinton’s 54% in 2016.
It could be assumed that a female candidate would gain more votes from the female population. However, Biden gained a higher percentage of female voters in 2020 than Clinton did in 2016. Both Clinton and Biden outshined Trump regarding female voters, but Trump did have an improvement between 2016 and 2020. Will this trend continue in the 2024 election?
In previous elections, independent voters can and have swayed the final results. Al Gore was beaten by George W. Bush in 2000, even though Gore won over half a million more votes than Bush. This was an example of how the popular vote can differ from the electoral college vote, which is the decider of who enters the White House. There were other controversial aspects of the 2000 election, such as bad ballot designs confusing voters and many ethnic-minority voters being denied a vote. Outside of all these issues, this election was an example of independent voters impacting the election.
In research from Gallup, pure independents who don’t lean towards one party or the other at all, account for 12% of the US electorate. In the swing states, margins between Harris and Trump are much finer than 12%, and hence this could affect those tight battles between them. I’ll explore the election at a state level in a few weeks where I’ll dive into this topic. For now, looking above, independents were quite evenly split in 2016, with 42% voting for Clinton and 43% voting for Trump.
In 2020, Trump retained his 43% of independent voters, but Biden’s 52% bettered Trump, a feat that Clinton didn’t manage to achieve in 2016. On the surface, Biden is already appearing more popular than Clinton in the popular vote.
Will Trump see an improvement in his proportion of independent voters this time, especially with an RFK Jr. endorsement?
Education
For individuals educated at high-school level or lower, in 2016, Trump attracted 51% of these votes versus Clinton’s 44%.
In 2020, Biden’s 41% proportion was lower than Clinton’s 44% in 2016, and Trump managed an improved proportion of 56%, up from 51%. Trump appears to be attracting at least a majority of voters with a high-school education or below. This was one rare example where Clinton gained a higher proportion of voters in a specific category than Biden.
As for those with a Bachelor’s degree, and Clinton attracted a majority of voters in 2016, with 52% versus Trump’s 41%.
Biden improved further on Clinton’s proportion in 2020, achieving 56% himself versus Trump with 42%. On the surface, it appears Democrat candidates gained more support among those of higher education, but Biden was preferred as a candidate to Clinton.
The correlation between education and voting Democrat is also evident in postgraduate voters, with Clinton’s 66% heavily outshining Trump’s 29% in 2016.
In 2020, Biden’s 67% improved on Clinton’s 66%. However, Trump’s proportion also increased from 2016 to 2020, albeit still a large distance from the Democrats. In 2016, 95% of postgraduate voters cast a vote for either the Democrat or Republican candidate. In 2020, this rose to 99%. For any dataset included, it's worth noting that the percentages may not add to 100% because some voters will vote for other candidates outside the Democrat or Republican nominee.
Urbanisation
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