Thursday, March 21, 2024

Who Is More Educated Democrats Or Republicans

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Can A Religious White Republican Party Survive

The partisan gap between black and white voters is the most durable and powerful split in modern American politics. Soon after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he , I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come. He wasnt wrong. Afterward, the Republicans courted racist white voters by opposing school and housing integration.

Among white people, religion is the most stable and important determinant of party choice. But the way religion shapes party attachment has changed. Today, the best way to sort the population of white voters is not by which religion they belong to, but by how religious they are.

Among white Americans:


else

Religious

The number of religious white Americans is plummeting. In the long term, that spells disaster for Republicans. I dont think the Republican Party right now has a sustainable business model, said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University.

The party knows this. Or at least it should. After Republicans lost the 2012 election, the party leadership commissioned a report on how to move forward. One answer was clear: appeal to nonwhite and less conservative voters. But in the years since, the Republicans led by Mr. Trump have doubled down on white identity politics and seem to believe that their path to a majority is through gerrymandering, voter suppression or to skew the census.


History Of The Democratic Party

The party can trace its roots all the way back to Thomas Jefferson when they were known as Jeffersons Republicans and they strongly opposed the Federalist Party and their nationalist views. The Democrats adopted the donkey as their symbol due to Andrew Jackson who was publicly nicknamed jackass because of his popular position of let the people rule. The Democratic National Committee was officially created in 1848. During the civil war a rift grew within the party between those who supported slavery and those who opposed it. This deep division led to the creation of a new Democratic party, the one we now know today.

The Relationship Between Education And Party Has Flipped

College-educated white people have left the Republican Party over the past decade, but higher-income voters are, as ever, disproportionately Republican. Wealthier people tend to be more educated, too, but now these forces push in opposite directions. That complicates the traditional relationship between Democrats and the white working class.


For decades, working-class people voted for Democrats, but recently, the difference in party affiliation between the white working class and other white people has evaporated. This trend, experts say, might make it difficult for the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee to mobilize voters by appealing to working-class identity.

Among white Americans:

Only white

Americans:

Some political scientists have attributed the emergent diploma divide to less educated white voters racial resentment. Dr. Sides, Dr. Tesler and Dr. Vavreck argue that during Barack Obamas presidency, less-educated white people who may not have followed politics began to link the Democrats to progressive attitudes toward race and fled the party as a result. Even education is, in a sense, a proxy for opinions about race, the brightest line in todays partisan conflict.


Marriages Between Democrats And Republicans Are Extremely Rare

  • College-educated adults are slightly more likely than those without a college degree to marry someone of a different party identification, and older adults are slightly less likely to be in politically-mixed marriages than those who are under 35.
  • Democrats are slightly more likely to marry someone who does not share the same party identification than are Republicans, and Independents are most likely to be in a politically-mixed marriage.

Research Brief

Marriage has always been a marker of both social solidarity and division in America. Marriages between people of different races were once prohibited, but they are now on the rise one indication of growing solidarity across racial lines in America. Tolerance toward interfaith marriages has also grown over the years, and Americans are more likely to marry a spouse of a different religion now. But the same cannot be said for politics.

Marriages across political lines appear to be falling. In 2016, when Eitan Hersh and Yair Ghitza  married couples among registered voters, they found that 30% of couples were politically mixed, meaning they did not share the same party identification. Most of these marriages were between partisans and Independents, and 9% of all marriages were between Democrats and Republicans. Today, only 21% of marriages are politically mixed, and nearly 4% are between Democrats and Republicans, according to my analysis of the new American Family Survey.


Politically-mixed Couples Are Less Happy 

 

Are Democrats More Educated Than Republicans

Top 10: Wyoming Is MOST GOP State, Vermont MOST Liberal

So whos smarter, Democrats or Republicans?Thats quite the controversial question, of course.  According to a blogger at Watchblog.com, though, it seems that Democrats are more educated than Republicans. Or hey, let me rephrase that.  People in the blue states are collectively more educated than people in the red states .According to Watchblog.com:


  • States that voted for Kerry in 2004 had 21 percent more college graduates than states that voted for Bush.
  • The states that ranked the lowest for high school and college graduates were all red states.
  • Eight out of 10 of the states that ranked the highest for high school college graduates were blue states.

Is this a bunch of hooey, or is there something to this?  What do you think?You can also see the educational background and alma maters of the Republican candidates, John McCain and Sarah Palin, and Democratic candidates, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, to see how they compare.

Why We Wrote This

President Trump won in 2016 thanks in part to support from non-college-educated white voters. Those with college degrees are increasingly voting Democratic shifting partisan policy priorities and campaign strategies.

In 1996, Republican voters were more likely than Democrats to have a four-year degree, according to a Pew study of party identification. Today, college graduates make up 41% of Democrats, compared with 30% of Republicans.


The shift is scrambling everything from long-standing party policy positions to traditional advantages and disadvantages when it comes to campaign cash and the electoral map. It also reflects the extent to which cultural issues as much as pocketbook concerns shape voting behavior.

Education is a stronger predictor because it correlates with your underlying values, says Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University who studies polarization.

Four years ago, Donald Trumps path to the White House ran through Rust Belt states with higher-than-average numbers of white voters without college degrees. 

That strategy paid off, seeding a narrative of a working-class revolt from the right led by a billionaire Republican, who is seeking to turn out those voters again on Nov. 3.  

But what also happened in 2016 now looks arguably more significant: College-educated voters, who once leaned Republican, swung hard to the Democrats, including voters in suburban districts who then helped flip the House of Representatives in 2018.


How The Taliban Won: They Leveraged Afghan History And Culture

In the United States, education is a proxy for class in a society that aspires to be classless. In fact, some non-college-educated white voters  who made up 42% of the electorate in 2016 are relatively affluent, which is why researchers control for income when studying their voting patterns. 

Where Mr. Trump did better, however, was in attracting votes from non-college-educated white people with higher incomes, a factor that many pollsters missed in tracking the 2016 race. 


These increasing margins reflect how cultural issues like same-sex marriage and race relations, as much as pocketbook concerns, shape voting behavior, says Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University who studies polarization. Education is a stronger predictor because it correlates with your underlying values, he says. 

Energy Issues And The Environment

There have always been clashes between the parties on the issues of energy and the environment. Democrats believe in restricting drilling for oil or other avenues of fossil fuels to protect the environment while Republicans favor expanded drilling to produce more energy at a lower cost to consumers. Democrats will push and support with tax dollars alternative energy solutions while the Republicans favor allowing the market to decide which forms of energy are practical.

Partisanship Can Turn Violent

Parties dont just matter in elections. They affect how people identify, not just the other way around. Some people their religious habits to better match their partisanship: For example, Republicans in search of other Republicans might start attending church more often. Put another way, people arent just sorting themselves into parties. Parties are sorting people, too, making cultural and racial rifts wider and harder to bridge.

And because partisan identities tend to be deeply held, political events rarely shake adults party preferences, which means the resentment from identity-based polarization probably isnt going to spontaneously dissolve. In fact, it might get worse. Dr. Abramowitz writes in his book The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump that polarizing forces increased racial diversity, the waning influence of religion and the rise of partisan media are far from spent.

Nathan Kalmoe, a political scientist at Louisiana State University, has examined political parties during the most divided period in American history: the Civil War. In his book With Ballots & Bullets: Partisanship & Violence in the American Civil War, he demonstrates how newspapers and party leaders encouraged citizens to fight by exploiting their partisan identities, fueling a war that killed 750,000 people.

Sahil Chinoy is a graphics editor for The New York Times Opinion section.

Illustration by Nicolás Ortega. Additional design by Jessia Ma.

Education Makes People More Likely To Support Political Compromiseexcept For Conservatives

In the current polarized environment of contemporary US politics, compromise between those from different sides of the political aisle seems hard to come by. In new research, James M. Glaser, Jeffrey M. Berry and Deborah J. Schildkraut look at the role of education as a factor in whether people support political compromise. They find that while those with a college education are more likely to support political compromise, this does not hold for conservatives, potentially because it may enhance their sense of individualism and skepticism.

Education is the universal solvent. So political scientist Phillip Converse about the importance of formal education to our democratic functioning. For so many reasons, education contributes to political sophistication. It gives individuals more information to draw upon in making political decisions, and more information also feeds political interest. Educated people are most likely to be surrounded by other educated people, magnifying its effect via social pressure or stimulation. Little wonder that most social scientists include education in their models of political behavior, even if it is not the centerpiece of their inquiry.

Figure 1 Percent who prefer compromise by educational attainment

‘we Don’t Really Have A Choice’

Shor, who built Barack Obama’s campaign forecasting system in the 2012 election, said the demographics are stacked against Democrats under the party’s coalition.

Because the Electoral College and Senate representation is “biased” toward voters in less populated states where Republicans dominate, Shor said, Democrats would need to win 54% of the popular vote for the next six years to gain control of the Senate and keep control of the House. Democrats must start winning rural, mostly white states such as Iowa and Montana to change that trend. Shor predicted this year that Biden would need to win the popular vote by 4 percentage points for a comfortable Electoral College victory.

Biden won the popular vote 51%-47.2%. 

Biden wins: Democrat who vowed return to ‘normalcy’ defeats Trump in cliffhanger election

“It is mathematically almost impossible for our current coalition to wield electoral power,” Shor said. “There’s a lot of people in the party who are uncomfortable with the implications of the idea that we really have to adopt a maximalist attempt to appeal to working-class voters.” 

“But we don’t really have a choice,” he said. “Our path to holding power is that we have to get somebody who voted for Donald Trump twice in Montana to vote for us. And if we don’t, we won’t be able to pass any laws.”

Most Jews Thought Trump Was Friendly Toward Israel Less So Toward Us Jews

Regardless of what they thought of his policies, a majority of U.S. Jews said that Trump was friendly toward Israel, slightly higher than the share who rated the Republican Party in general as friendly toward the Jewish state . Among Orthodox Jews, 94% described Trump as friendly to Israel 21 percentage points higher than the share of Orthodox Jews who said the same about the GOP at the time of the survey.

Even among Jewish Democrats, more than half described Trump and the GOP as friendly toward Israel, although these figures were much lower than the comparable shares among Jewish Republicans .

Older Jews and those with college degrees were more likely than those who are younger and less highly educated, respectively, to describe the Democratic Party as friendly toward Israel.

Although a majority of Jews said that both Trump and the GOP were friendly toward Israel, most did not think this posture extended to Jews in the United States. About three-in-ten Jews surveyed in 2020 said Trump was friendly toward Jews in the U.S., and a similar share said the same about the Republican Party. Nearly four-in-ten Jewish Americans said Trump was unfriendly toward U.S. Jews, while the prevailing view toward the GOP was that it was neutral toward U.S. Jews . On the whole, Jews were more likely to describe the Democratic Party as friendly toward Jews in the United States than to view the GOP that way .

Biden Party Gaps Nearly 10 Points Higher Than Trump’s; 30 Points Above Others’

Who is more educated as a majority, Democrats or ...

An average of 86 percentage points have separated Democrats’ and Republicans’ ratings of Biden so far, eclipsing the 77-point gap in the early ratings of Trump. This difference results from Biden’s higher scores among his fellow partisans than Trump received . Each got the same low 10% approval ratings from supporters of the opposition party.

Party gaps in approval ratings were about 30 points lower for Obama, Bush and Clinton than they have been for Biden. This is primarily because about one-third of opposition-party supporters approved of the job those presidents were doing early in their terms.

But Biden’s approval rating among his fellow Democrats is also higher than those for Obama and Clinton among Democrats, and for Bush among his fellow Republicans .

Democrats
28 50
Figures are based on average approval ratings in polls conducted from Jan. 20-March 31 in the year of the president’s inauguration.
Gallup

Independents’ 55% approval of Biden during his inaugural period is similar to their ratings of Clinton and Bush, slightly lower than for Obama , but well above the group’s rating of Trump .

Percent Of Representatives Have A Degree Look Where Thats Got Us

All these credentials havent led to better results.

Opinion Columnist

Over the last few decades, Congress has diversified in important ways. It has gotten less white, less male, less straight all positive developments. But as I was staring at one of the many recent Senate hearings, filled with the usual magisterial blustering and self-important yada yada, it dawned on me that theres a way that Congress has moved in a wrong direction, and become quite brazenly unrepresentative.

No, its not that the place seethes with millionaires, though theres that problem too.

Its that members of Congress are credentialed out the wazoo. An astonishing number have a small kite of extra initials fluttering after their names.

According to the Congressional Research Service, more than one third of the House and more than half the Senate have law degrees. Roughly a fifth of senators and representatives have their masters. Four senators and 21 House members have M.D.s, and an identical number in each body have some kind of doctoral degree, whether its a Ph.D., a D.Phil., an Ed.D., or a D. Min.

But perhaps most fundamentally, 95 percent of todays House members and 100 percent of the Senates have a bachelors degree or higher.Yet just a bit more than one-third of Americans do.

This means that the credentialed few govern the uncredentialed many, writes the political philosopher Michael J. Sandel in The Tyranny of Merit, published this fall.

Think Republicans Are Disconnected From Reality It’s Even Worse Among Liberals

Arlie Hochschild

A new survey found Democrats live with less political diversity despite being more tolerant of it with startling results

In a surprising new national survey, members of each major American political party were what they imagined to be the beliefs held by members of the other. The survey asked Democrats: How many Republicans believe that racism is still a problem in America today? Democrats guessed 50%. Its actually 79%. The survey asked Republicans how many Democrats believe most police are bad people. Republicans estimated half; its really 15%.

The survey, published by the thinktank More in Common as part of its Hidden Tribes of America project, was based on a sample of more than 2,000 people. One of the studys findings: the wilder a persons guess as to what the other party is thinking, the more likely they are to also personally disparage members of the opposite party as mean, selfish or bad. Not only do the two parties diverge on a great many issues, they also disagree on what they disagree on.

Read more

This effect, the report says, is so strong that without a high school diploma are three times more accurate than those with a postgraduate degree. And the more politically engaged a person is, the greater the distortion.

Should the US participate in the Paris climate accord and reduce greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do? A majority of voters in both parties said yes.

Demographics Of Republicans Vs Democrats

Although Republicans only made up 28% of the total electorate, independent voters tend to lean more towards the Republican demographic than the Democratic demographic. This tends to be the case whenever a Democratic president is in office and the reverse is also true. Independents lean towards the Democratic Party demographic more when a Republican president is in office.

  • The Republican Party has seen a 6% shift in white voters who identify as being supportive of the GOP view.
  • Minorities primarily support the Democratic Party, but their support levels have remained largely unchanged since 1992.
  • With the exception of 1992, Americans have identified more as being Republican or leaning toward Republicans than being Democrats or leaning toward the Democratic perspective.
  • Only 8% of black voters described themselves as Republicans.
  • People who are younger and poorer tend to vote for Democrats, but people who are older and more wealthy tend to vote for Republicans.
  • College graduates historically tend to support both parties equally.

Interesting Republican Vs Democrat Demographics

Brandon Gaille

In the United States, although there are multiple parties present, there are two primary political parties. The Republicans and the Democrats have been battling each other on social, domestic, and international issues for more than a century.

In the 2012 election cycle, more people registered as independent voters then as Republicans. Democratic supporters accounted for 35% of the electorate.

Views On The College Admissions Process

The equity of the college admissions process has come into question recently, with many concerned that wealth and privilege are having an undue influence. Earlier this year, the College Board announced that it will begin including an adversity score along with a students SAT score in an effort to provide more information about students educational and socioeconomic backgrounds.

According to the WGBH News survey, the vast majority of Americans say its important for colleges and universities to have a diverse student body in terms of race and ethnicity. About six-in-ten say this is extremely or very important and an additional 22% say its somewhat important. Only 13% say diversity on campuses is not important.

However, a recent Pew Research Center survey finds that the public is not in favor of colleges and universities considering race or ethnicity in making admissions decisions. Some 73% of all adults say race or ethnicity should not be a factor in college admissions decisions. About one-in-five say this should be a minor factor and 7% say it should be a major factor. Majorities across racial and ethnic groups 62% of blacks, 65% of Hispanics, 58% of Asians and 78% of whites say race and ethnicity should not be a factor in admissions decisions. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say race and ethnicity shouldnt be a factor in admissions decisions, but majorities of both groups express this view .

What The Exit Polls Are Telling Us

Editors Note: Jennifer Lawless and Paul Freedman wrote this piece as part of the University of Virginia Democracy Initiatives effort to provide context around the 2020 presidential election. Scholars from across the University are providing real-time analysis on this page tracking the 2020 election and its aftermath. This post was published in two parts on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday morning, former Vice President Joe Biden was projected to win the election, becoming president-elect. Lawless is the Commonwealth Professor of Politics and chair of the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics, as well as a senior fellow at UVAs Miller Center. Freedman is an associate professor of politics and teaches courses in media, campaigns and elections, research methods, and the politics of food.

 

In the immediate aftermath of a national election, exit polls offer the best glimpse of what the electorate looked like who voted for whom and what seemed to drive their choices.

Americans Not As Extreme As They Think They Are Assume Bad Motives

Napp Nazworth

Americans largely misunderstand their political opponents, and the more they misunderstand, the more they assume bad motives.

While Americans are becoming increasingly divided along political lines, this polarization is exacerbated by misperceptions. We agree more than we think we do. This is the conclusion of a study, “The Perception Gap: How False Impressions are Pulling Americans Apart,” by More in Common.

On average, Democrats and Republicans believe that over half of their partisan opponents are extremists, but in reality, less than one-third , are extremists, the report found. This perception gap is even wider for strong partisans, those who consume lots of news, and highly educated Democrats.

The survey of 2,100 Americans was conducted the week after the 2018 midterm election, Nov. 7-10, and included a subset of respondents to a 2018 survey. The margin of error for the full sample is 2.1 percentage points.

The study found that 34% of Republicans hold extreme views but Democrats on average thought that number would be 53%. For Democrats, 29% are extreme, but Republicans thought 56% would be that way. Independents also had a perception gap but it was much smaller, and overall they estimated that majorities of both parties are not extremists.

For Republicans, the perception gap was highest for a question about whether Democrats believe cops are bad. Their smallest perception gap was on whether Democrats think ICE should be abolished.

When It Comes To Conspiracy Theories Education Matters

Whats Wrong With Higher Education? Republicans, Democrats ...

Daniel A. Cox, Jacqueline Clemence February 26, 2021

Political conspiracies are nothing new, but a new crop of wild claims and falsehoods have become prominent in the Republican Party. At last weeks impeachment trial, Donald Trumps lawyers pushed the baseless theory that antifa the anti-fascist activist group was responsible for the January 6thriots at the US Capitol. Donald Trump himself has falsely claimed that the Deep State has infiltrated government institutions like the FDA. Many key Republican leaders continue to cast doubt on the validity of the 2020 election.

But even if many of these beliefs have become common currency in parts of the GOP, there are important divisions in who most readily accepts these ideas. The January 2021 American Perspectives Survey found that Americans without a college education are more likely to believe in political conspiracies. But how much does education matter and for who?

This pattern persists when it comes to Republicans belief in QAnon. Republicans without a four-year degree are 15 percentage points more likely to believe in the accuracy of the claim Donald Trump has been secretly fighting a group of child sex traffickers that include prominent Democrats and Hollywood elites. Thirty-four percent of college educated Republicans, compared to 19 percent of their college educated counterparts, say the statement in accurate.

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