Month: March 2017

Last week, I suggested that the 206 Pivot Counties that voted twice for Barack Obama and then voted for Donald Trump are a good place to study the changing political landscape. Data developed by Ballotpedia, the Encyclopedia of American Politics, shows that these counties consistently voted more Democratic than the nation at large from 1996 to 2012.

For example, in 2012, when President Obama won the national popular vote by four percentage points, he won the Pivot County popular vote by eight percentage points. In 2004, when President Bush won the national popular vote by three percentage points, John Kerry won the Pivot County vote by a single point.

On average during those five elections, the Pivot County vote was four percentage points more Democratic than the nation at large.

They weren’t always Democratic counties, however. The results in recent elections represent a significant shift from earlier results. In fact, during the six elections from 1968 to 1992, the Pivot Counties came close to perfectly mirroring the national vote. On average during that stretch, the Pivot County vote was just half a percentage point off the national totals. Three times it leaned a bit in the Democratic direction and three times towards the GOP.

The transition between the era when Pivot Counties mirrored the national mood and then became more supportive of Democrats took place with the election and re-election of President Clinton. Those years also included the most significant third party candidacy of the past century. In 1992, Ross Perot received more than 20 million votes nationally, roughly 20% of the total. In 1996, his support fell, but he still picked up 10% of the vote.

In both of those years, support for Perot in the Pivot Counties was higher than in the nation at large. It is obviously possible that there is a strong connection between support for Perot and President Trump. In both cases, the candidate represented a rejection of politics as usual and the political class.

But, it’s what happened in the Pivot Counties when Perot’s vote faded that is especially interesting. The former Perot voters became Clinton Democrats. Virtually all the decline in support for Perot in 1996 went to President Clinton. In 1992, the GOP candidate (George H. W. Bush) won 36% of the Pivot County vote while the 1996 candidate (Bob Dole) won just 37%. However, Clinton’s support in those counties jumped from 41% in 1992 to 51% in 1996.

What this suggests is that President Bill Clinton won over the Pivot Counties for the Democratic Party. He built a base of Clinton Democrats by stressing a more centrist approach than the Democratic candidates of the 1980s. Even when George W. Bush was elected twice, most voters in these counties stayed with the Democratic nominee.

But that preference for Democrats came to a dramatic end in 2016. President Trump won the Pivot Counties by an eight-point margin, 51% to 43%. Ironically, the counties that Bill Clinton won over for the Democrats rejected the party that nominated Hillary Clinton for president.

There are 3,088 counties in America and only 206 of them voted for the winner in each of the last three presidential elections. In other words, these Pivot Counties voted twice for President Obama before switching sides to vote for President Trump in 2016.

The Pivot Counties had an outsized impact on the election results. Despite casting only 5 percent of the national vote total in 2016, they accounted for 51 percent of the popular vote shift toward Republicans.

Not surprisingly, just over half of the Pivot Counties are found in the Midwest. That includes 31 counties in Iowa, 22 in Wisconsin, 19 in Minnesota, 12 in Michigan, 12 in Illinois, nine in Ohio, and five in Indiana.

Nationally, President Obama won the popular vote by 6 percentage points in 2008 (52 to 46 percent) and by 4 percentage points in 2012 (51 to 47 percent). Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by only 2 percentage points in 2016 (48 to 46 percent).

In 2008, President Obama won the 206 Pivot Counties by 10 points, with a margin of 54 to 44 percent. In 2012, he won them by a slightly smaller margin of 53 to 46 percent. But the results in 2016 were dramatically different. Donald Trump carried them by 8 points, 51 to 43 percent. That reflects a net swing of 15 percentage points (from D+7 in 2012 to R+8 in 2016).

Because of their unique status and significant impact, these Pivot Counties are a good place to study the changing political landscape. I am thrilled to be working with Ballotpedia, the Encyclopedia of American Politics, to examine what these counties can teach us about the ever-shifting landscape of American politics. From now until Election 2018, we will regularly release new Pivot County data and analysis.

Additionally, every morning at 8:00 a.m. Eastern, Ballotpedia will publish Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day to explore the intersection of culture, politics, and technology.

A small number of these Pivot Counties (22) are true swing counties, voting for the winner in eight consecutive elections dating back to 1988. Two counties—Vigo, Indiana and Valencia, New Mexico—have gone with the winner in every election dating back to 1960!

But while some of the Pivot Counties consistently swing with the national mood, a larger number have a background that traditionally leans towards Democratic candidates. Most voted for the Democratic candidate during the Republican victories in 1988, 2000, and 2004. Only a few voted Republican during the Democratic victories in 1992 and 1996.

This suggests strongly that Donald Trump’s ability to capture the allegiance of certain formerly Democratic voters was essential to his victory. As the next few years unfold, it will be interesting to see if President Trump can retain the support of these counties. It will also be fascinating to explore whether that support is unique to the president or if it is part of a broader shift to the Republican Party.

In any such evaluation, of course, it’s essential to keep a proper perspective and remember that the political system is a lagging indicator of cultural trends. It’s the culture and technology that lead the nation forward.

One fact consistently forgotten by political activists is that politicians don’t lead the nation, they lag behind. The culture and technology lead us forward.

A great example is the automobile industry. While regulations have a big impact in the short term, reality is ultimately driven by other factors. For example, when the price of gas falls, people buy bigger cars. That overwhelms the regulatory desire to put people in smaller cars that get better mileage.

Looking ahead, ride-sharing services and the imminent reality of self-driving cars will bring about an even larger transformation.

Today, the typical car is actually in use only about 5% of the time. It will soon be more efficient to share cars rather than keep them reserved for personal use. In other words, rather than having a car parked in the driveway, we might order a car to take us to work in the morning. The car would drive itself to pick us up and take us where we need to go. A different car might take us home. When we head out with the family for a road trip, we might order still another car, something a little roomier.

Not all of us will do this, of course, but most probably will. Sharing rather than buying saves money and hassle. It provides just the right vehicle for the right trip and all sorts of other benefits.

But, while change is good, transitions are hard.

If most of us are sharing cars, there won’t be a need for as many cars. One estimate suggests that car sales could fall nearly in half over the next generation. The ripple effects of the changing car culture will spread far beyond the direct decline in auto sales and loss of those manufacturing jobs. What happens to auto dealers when consumers start ordering rides rather than buying cars? Even the best news will create problems for someone. As auto safety improves, the auto insurance industry will decline. So will the need for tow trucks, auto parts stores, body shops, and other repair services.

It could also bring an end to the public transit industry. Once we are able to order a driverless car to pick us up at any time, why would we need busses and trains? It’s even possible to imagine self-driving cars cutting into the airline business. For shorter distances, working or napping while a car handles the ride may be easier than dealing with the growing inconvenience of air travel.

I know this sounds fanciful to some who can’t imagine Americans giving up their love of cars and driving. But we’ve seen it before. The same sort of transformational change took place more than a century ago when cars replaced horses as the primary means of transportation in America.

It’s impossible, of course, to know exactly how we’ll solve those transition challenges and what this will look like in a generation or so. Fortunately, in a free and self-governing nation, bureaucratic regulators do not determine the future. Instead, decisions are made by unleashing the creativity of countless individuals and organizations to meet the needs of society. The journey may be unpredictable and bumpy at times, but we can take comfort in the fact that the culture leads, not the politicians.

To see the future, look away from official Washington.

Most Americans believe that no matter how bad something is, Congress can always make it worse. With their new health care bill, Republican Congressional leaders seem intent on proving that point. Even those with a passionate hatred of Obamacare can find something to hate in the GOP replacement plan.

The plan fails because is based upon the mistaken belief that only official Washington can fix what ails our nation’s health care system. In truth, the solutions we need will come from outside the world of politics.

Amazing new technologies can provide better health, lower costs, and more personal control. Resistance to these benefits exists because they threaten powerful insurance and health care companies. If, for example, we can get an EKG on our smart phone, why would we pay a lab to do it for us? And, why would we pay an insurance company to cover the cost of that lab?

In a free and functioning health care system, the benefits of these new technologies would flow naturally as patients explored the best options for their own care. Sadly, though, we have a politically driven health care system that blocks progress to protect the status quo. Rather than working to lower the cost of care, the political process is more interested in keeping costs high but hidden.

In their world, it’s better to have an insurance company pay $100 for an EKG rather than have a patient do the test on their phone. That provides revenue for both the insurance company and for the health care corporation. The patient is inconvenienced, care is delayed, and the monetary cost is hidden in ever higher insurance premiums.

The first step, therefore, to fixing health care in America, is to recognize that politicians can’t fix it. They are the problem. We need to create a free and competitive system where people can make reasonable decisions about their own health care choices.

The second step is the single most important thing Congress can do. The current health care mandate forces most Americans to buy far more insurance than they need. It benefits insurance companies and blocks new technologies from gaining traction. That mandate should be replaced with a far more modest requirement that people maintain coverage for big-ticket items like surgery. That would dramatically reduce the cost of Obamacare to individuals and governments at every level. It would also open up competition in the health insurance industry.

Finally, there is a third step that could firmly transfer power over insurance companies from politicians to the American people. When offered health insurance, every employee should be able to reject some or all of the coverage. They could then keep whatever savings result in the form of a higher salary. If people are given this choice, insurance companies would have to prove that their services are worth the cost. And, the choices would constantly change over time as new technologies reduce the cost of testing and care.

Three simple steps. Recognizing that politicians can’t fix the health care system, reducing the mandate to improve choice, and giving every employee control over how much health insurance they want to buy. The biggest problem with our health care system is that its run by bureaucrats and those steps directly address that problem. It’s time to shift power to the people.

President Donald Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress was remarkable partly because it was so unremarkable. What I mean is that it was very much like speeches to Congress given by countless presidents before him.

There was the now-familiar build-up of chatter on cable television describing what to look for in the speech and what the White House hoped to accomplish. There was the grand entry and hand-shaking and introduction by the Sargent at Arms. When the president delivered his lines, members of his party stood up and applauded while the opposition party stayed in their seats. When the president introduced special guests, the heartfelt applause came from both sides of the aisle.

Everything else in the young Trump Administration had been heralded as so different from what came before, that the mere normalcy of the moment seemed to be a surprise.

Just as they had for President Barack Obama, the speech was reviewed as a theater performance. “The delivery was solid. It had true moments of emotion,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told Politico. “It was the moment he went from being a partisan figure to trying to be a uniting figure. For the first time, he seemed like a president. He seemed to have the aura. It was the high-water mark of his presidency.”

As I watched, I realized that a transformation was taking place. The reality TV star and presidential candidate Donald Trump had always found a way to connect with everyday Americans who are skeptical of the political class. Tuesday’s speech showed that, for the first time, President Trump had found a way to connect with the political class as well.

Sure, there were derogatory comments from elite politicians. “The speech and reality have never been more detached,” according to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. But that’s what you expect from members of the opposing party. Republicans said similar things following speeches by President Obama. That’s just the way political games are played.

So how did the ultimate outsider and breaker of conventional political rules go about generating such a normal response to a major speech?

His speech accepted a central premise of official Washington. His tone and comments suggested that politicians and the government lead the nation. That was enough to earn the president credibility among the political class. Even Van Jones, one of the more left-leaning members of the Obama Administration was impressed. “If he finds a way to do that over and over again, he’s going to be there for eight years.”

The challenge for President Trump, though, is that the political elites are wrong. They do not lead the nation. In America, the culture leads and politicians lag behind. Everyday Americans using their freedom to work together in community are the only ones who can make America great.

It’s good that the president reached out to the political class and is looking for ways to work together. There are important tasks for the politicians to accomplish such as confirming Neil Gorsuch’s nomination for the Supreme Court.

To be successful over the long-term, however, the president will have to find ways to remind the politicians that they really aren’t in charge.