this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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564
“Vibe shift”: Young Texas voters, motivated by Kamala Harris, lock into the presidential election (www.texastribune.org)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
71 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

…

The new matchup between Trump and Harris is helping Democrats close the enthusiasm gap, in part by capturing the attention and interest of young voters who historically vote at lower rates than older generations. But the historic nature of Harris’ candidacy as the party’s first Black woman and South Asian presidential nominee, coupled with the rapid shift in the campaign’s tone, has young voters of all political stripes taking a hard look — some for the first time — at the role they could play in November.

…

If motivated, Gen Z voters could have a major impact on elections. Texas’ population has the second youngest median age of any state, other than Utah. And in 2020, there were about 1.3 million Texans ages 18 to 24 who were registered to vote. Those voters have historically turned out to vote at rates lower than any other age range, with voter participation rates increasing steadily as age ranges increase.

About 43% of young Texans aged 18-29 voted in 2020 — an eleven point increase from 2016. 66% of all eligible voters and 76% of eligible voters age 64 and older voted that same year.

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[–] Barbarian 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering can be pretty brittle. It relies on accurate models of who will vote and for whom. If the underlying assumptions are either wrong or change, then it can backfire. Here's an extreme napkin-math example to illustrate the point:

You have 3 districts. Candidate A is extremely unpopular. You split the voters to get 2 out of 3 districts for candidate A.

District 1:

Candidate A: 5%

Candidate B: 50%

Not Voting: 45%

District 2:

Candidate A: 20%

Candidate B: 15%

Not Voting: 65%

District 3:

Candidate A: 25%

Candidate B: 20%

Not Voting: 55%

As you can see, even though if you add up all the voters for candidate B they heavily outnumber candidate A's voters, by siloing them into one district you can win. But look at the margins for the other 2 districts. It doesn't take many new voters who you assumed wouldn't vote to upset your scheme. Depending on exactly how unpopular your candidate is, the margins for this might be pretty tight. It only takes an extra 10% of the voters moving from not voting to candidate B to cause a landslide 3 district sweep in this example.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It has been working well for them for a long time though.

[–] Barbarian 2 points 3 months ago

Gerrymandering is indeed a powerful tool. I'm just saying that it can backfire under the right conditions.