Exit Polling Analysis Part III -- the Economic Conundrum

Previous installments in this series can be found here (for the basic demographic breakdowns by Gender, Race, and Age Group) and here (for questions dealing with Religion, Education, Marital Status, LGBTQ, Unions, Military, 1st Time Voters, and Last-Minute Deciders). This installment will look at all the economic issues pertaining to the election, starting with how the various economic classes based on household income are trending. But first, I forgot to include how the Urban/Suburban/Rural divisions are trending in the previous installment so here it is:Vote Share by Land useLand Use:2012201620202024Urban32%34%29%29%Suburban47%49%51%51%Rural21%17%19%19%The main things to note here the overperformance of the Urban vote in 2016 and the sharp drop-off that followed, coupled with a corresponding dip in the Rural vote and a modest rebound, and a steadily growing share in the suburban vote that now constitutes a clear majority. Curiously, there was virtually no change in vote share distribution between these environments in 2024 from what they had been in 2020.Dem-Rep Margin by Land UseLand Use:2012201620202024Urban30%26%22%21%Suburban-2%-4%2%-4%Rural-20%-27%-15%-30%The most significant long-term trend to note here is the continued decline in the Democrats’ Urban base of support at the same time as its vote share distribution is also shrinking. Note that Biden was able to put together a fairly impressive win in 2020 by edging out Trump in the Suburban vote and cutting Rural losses in 2016 by nearly half despite the significant decline in the Urban vote. Harris’s fate was sealed by the 6% shift back toward Trump in the Suburban vote and the catastrophic loss in the Rural vote.Now onto the main event for this installment — the Economy, both in terms of Class divisions based on annual household income, and how voters perceived both their own financial situation and the state of the national economy. First up is the vote share and margins for the different income classes:Vote Share by Annual Household Income ClassIncome Class:201220162020202420%17%15%12%$30-$49k21%19%20%16%$50-$99k31%30%39%32%$100-$199k21%24%20%28%>=$200k7%10%7%13%As could be expected with a generally inflating economy, the share of voters in the poorest economic class continues on a downward trajectory, and for the first time is actually outnumbered by those in the wealthiest class. Likewise, while the ranks of the lower middle-class and upper middle-class started off in 2012 with roughly equal numbers, the upper middle-class voters now vastly outnumber those in the lower middle-class; and the truly middle-class, which still remains the largest single largest economic voting block, remains fairly stable — except for 2020 when the economic disruptions of the Covid Pandemic apparently reduced many of the newly upper middle-class back to a more modest middle-class income, at least temporarily. Note also how the two poorest economic classes combined (i.e. everyone with an annual household income under $50,000) constituted 41% of the total vote in 2012, but only 28% in 2024, while at the same time the two wealthiest classes (everyone over $100,000) have seen the exact inverse — going from 28% in 2012 to 41% in 2024. One might think at first blush that this helps explain Trump’s win, under the old assumption that the well-off tend to favor Republicans, but that would be a mistake:Dem-Rep Margin by Annual Household Income ClassIncome Class:201220162020202428%13%8%4%$30-$49k15%11%13%-8%$50-$99k-6%-3%15%-5%$100-$199k-10%-1%-17%4%>=$200k-10%1%0%6%2012 was apparently the last election with a fairly traditional distribution of electoral support by economic class in which the poorer you were, the more likely you were to support Democrats; and the wealthier tended to support Republicans. In 2016 this all started to change, with Democrats doing surprisingly well with the wealthiest classes, but suffering a major decline with their previous base in the poorest classes. In 2020 Biden was able to soar to victory almost entirely on the strength of his mobilization of the true middle-class, even though it cost him big time with the upper middle-class and he wasn’t able to halt the continuing erosion of support among the poorest class. In 2024 the real story is the collapse in support for Democrats among both the lower middle and true middle-class ranks, even though they managed to attract previously unheard-of support among the upper middle class and the wealthiest. Likewise, even though they saw continued erosion of support among the poor, it wasn’t nearly of the same magnitude as their collapse in the broader $30-$99k ec0nomic classes. Somewhat remarkably, this all led to what has probably been the least polarized election in terms of income classes for a very long time.Now let’s turn to the question of voter perceptions as to how they see their own financial fortunes with that old favorite “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”Vote Share by Personal Financial PositionFinancial Position:2012201620202024Better Off than4 Years Ago25%31%41%24%Worse Off than4 Years Ago33%27%20%46%About the Same41%41%39%30%This is where things start getting really weird. In 2012 more voters actually thought they were worse off than in 2008 when we had a complete financial meltdown in the Great Recession and unemployment skyrocketed? At least it didn’t stop Obama from getting elected, though the Better-Worse margin was only 8%. In 2016 with the economy humming along and slightly more voters thinking they were better off than 2012, it still didn’t help Clinton avoid electoral defeat. Then in 2020 voters actually thought by a more than 2:1 margin they were better off than 2016, despite being in the middle of the worst pandemic to hit the US in more than a century and with millions out of a job due to the economic disruption?! Nonetheless, that bizarrely optimistic view of their own financial situation was not nearly enough to secure Trump’s reelection.And now we have 2024 with a similar nearly 2:1 margin of the voting public thinking they are worse off than 2020 despite the soaring national economy — all because the post-pandemic inflation apparently overshadows everything else, and even though that inflation hasn’t been a continuing problem for at least the last 18 months. It’s also interesting that 2024 is the only one of the last four elections in which the Better Off/Worse Off margin actually aligns with the expected electoral result.Dem-Rep Margin by Personal Financial PositionFinancial Position:2012201620202024Better Off than4 Years Ago69%49%-46%68%Worse Off than4 Years ago-62%-58%57%-64%About the Same18%2%31%41%At least the partisan breakdown here makes political sense — if you thought you were doing well financially, that overwhelmingly favored the incumbent party; and conversely if you thought you were worse off than previously, that equally overwhelmingly favored the opposing party. The real question is why so many voters’ perception of their financial position seemed to be so divorced from what most economists would consider objective reality. One other interesting thing to note is that for the significant portion of the electorate that was neither particularly optimistic nor pessimistic about their current financial position, they generally ended up favoring the Democrats by a considerable margin — 2016 being the partial exception.Moving on, let’s now consider the electorate’s perception of how well they think the national economy is doing:Vote Share by Perception of US Economic DirectionUS Economic Direction:2012201620202024Good or Even Better23%36%49%31%Not so Good or Worse77%63%50%68%This just goes to show how utterly divorced from the reality of macro-economic trends most Americans really are, not to mention how pessimistic in general they seem to be about the future. By nearly 2:1 margins or even higher, Americans thought the national economy was actually getting worse during every election since 2012 — except for the one year it really was getting much worse, 2020!Dem-Rep Margin by Perception of US Economic DirectionUS Economic Direction:2012201620202024Good or Even Better81%59%-56%83%Not so Good or Worse-22%-30%63%-42%Once again if you thought the US economy was moving in the right direction, you overwhelmingly favored the incumbent party, otherwise you favored the opposition — though not necessarily quite so overwhelmingly.In a similar vein, we’ll now consider the broader but related “Right Track/Wrong Track” question as it pertains to America, which includes social and cultural trends as well as economic direction:Dem-Rep Margin and Vote Share by Right Track/Wrong TrackOverall Directionof America:201620202024VoteShare:201620202024Right Track82%-49%67%33%40%25%Wrong Track-42%42%-26%62%47%73%Not surprisingly, these results closely track those for the US Economic Direction question, though they tend to be even more pessimistic. Note that Republicans at least thought the US was generally heading in the right direction under Trump, but that huge bipartisan majorities thought the US was heading down the wrong track in 2016 and 2024 (though for completely different reasons of course). The nearly 3:1 margin in thinking the US was on the Wrong Track in 2024 was obviously a big factor in the Democratic loss.So putting this all in a larger context, what did the voters actually think were the most important issues in deciding each election?Vote Share by Most Important IssueIssue:2012201620202024Democracy34%Economy59%52%35%32%Abortion/Health Care18%11%14%Immigration13%11%Foreign Policy5%13%4%Crime/Terrorism18%11%Racial Inequality20%Pandemic17%Federal Deficit15%The Economy tends to dominate the question of “Most Important Issue” in most elections, often decisively so, but this year the issue of basic Democracy actually came out on top, even if narrowly.Dem-Rep Margin by IssueIssue:2012201620202024Democracy62%Economy-4%11%-66%-61%Abortion/Health Care51%25%59%Immigration-31%-81%F0reign Policy23%27%-20%Crime/Terrorism-17%-44%Racial Inequality85%Pandemic66%Federal Deficit-34%So while Democrats dominated the issues of Democracy and Abortion, Republicans dominated on the question of the Economy and Immigration. Not quite sure what aspect of Foreign Policy is reflected in that issue, but it’s quite possible that US support for Israel in its war over Gaza may indeed have caused some loss for Democrats among certain constituencies, and could well have been decisive with the Arab community in Michigan. In terms of overall US support for Israel:Dem-Rep Margin and Vote Share by Support for IsraelDem-Rep MarginSupport for Israel:2024VoteShare:2024Too Strong37%31%Not Strong Enough-65%30%About Right20%31%That’s all for this installment. We also have some fairly reliable polling data on 10 different states (AZ, FL, GA, MI, NV, NC, OH, PA, TX, and WI) that I hope to get to at some point for a future 4th installment.