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Agree with the IQ part, but the idea that the GOP has the swath on the midlevel education attained hasn't really played out in recent elections either nationally nor in CT especially in specific. It's important to note the exit polling where we'd usually get this information for this cycle is pretty sparse due to the sheer number of mail-in voting but the GOP is quickly becoming the party of essentially nothing but High School only White graduates and the Bond-Villain-esque hyper rich segment bankrolling the political machinery of the party. Unfortunately it has corralled, encouraged, and fostered aggrieved White voters (some key issues are very much legitimate, some are completely manufactured rage fantasies). It's sad to see but the party has gone whole hog in insanity, stoking the idea to their constituents that they have ultimate right to rule... regardless of if their ideas and policies are honourable, popular, feasible, or just.
David Frum put it pretty well a few years ago, paraphrased: "If the conservatives realise they cannot win democratically, they will not give up Conservatism... they will give up democracy." Pretty prescient to be honest.
Looking at groups as a whole divided by municipality, the red towns are overwhelmingly middle class and as they get more affluent or more poverty stricken, they begin to trend blue.
I don’t know how it shakes out nationally but, in CT, that’s pretty much how it seems to go.
Looking at groups as a whole divided by municipality, the red towns are overwhelmingly middle class and as they get more affluent or more poverty stricken, they begin to trend blue.
I don’t know how it shakes out nationally but, in CT, that’s pretty much how it seems to go.
The red areas are white poor, white working class and/or rural. That’s true nation-wide and other parts of the country add other groups of the red mix or those are the larger groups.
I don’t agree that the Connecticut Republican Party is suffering from the National party issue. It’s not like they’ve nominated any great candidates in recent years.
Extremist Bob Stefanowski made some outrageous promises that no one really bought. His running mate, Joe Markley is a blithering idiot.
Then the two previous Gubernatorial elections they nominated Tom Foley who was stupid enough to stand in front of a group of laid off employees and tell them its their own fault they lost their jobs. I’m sorry but that is bad, really bad. Foley ran against Danell Malloy, the least popular Governor in the country and he still couldn’t beat him.
The problem is that the party has turned their backs on more moderate, electable candidates like John McKinney or Erin Stewart in favor of hard right wing candidates. That won’t sell in highly educated, moderate Connecticut. Jay
I agree with this assesment. I am a Northeastern Republican who wants taxes to be kept as low as possible while providing quality services, I care about education, the environment, and a pro-growth, business friendly policies. I voted Republican when I was living in Fairfield, and have continued to vote Republican here in MA. CT needs a Charlie Baker type leader for the GOP. There are many who call him a RINO or not Republican but those very same people support bombastic, flamethrowing GOP candidates who never win, so all of this turns into a excerise in futility.
GOP needs to win back the Gold Coast, Hartford suburbs in order to be competitive again. When was the last elected GOP governor Jodi Rell? That was almost 10 years ago!
The red areas are white poor, white working class and/or rural. That’s true nation-wide and other parts of the country add other groups of the red mix or those are the larger groups.
That’s patently false. We’re talking about CT here and there is no true “white poor” in CT. Again, if you look at the areas in CT that are red, they all have average (and some above average) incomes.
My theory is once Trump is out, the usual Republican strongholds (especially the Gold Coast) will get back to normal.
Last edited by kidyankee764; 12-29-2020 at 12:19 PM..
That’s patently false. We’re talking about CT here and there is no true “white poor” in CT. Again, if you look at the areas in CT that are red, they all have average (and some above average) incomes.
Yeah, there are some towns like Middlebury, Monroe, New Fairfield that broke Trump, but that's not the majority. There are poor(ish) white areas. Torrington is 93% white, ranks 160 out of 178 for median household income. It broke for Trump by 12%. Naugatuck is 91% white. It's 151 out 178 for income. Go to Look at the electoral map. The biggest red block is Eastern CT. It's least economically vibrant part of the state. If you look at towns that went Trump, most of them are towns in the bottom third of income.
It's not accurate to say that the red areas more middle class. It's cultural divide as much as anything, Kidyankee. Probably blue-collar is a better way to describe it rather than middle class vs working class. Types of jobs, education level, lifestyle. It isn't always about money. LOTS of towns that are solidly in the middle, income-wise are blue. A guy with runs a plumbing business and makes 2x my income still blue collar, right?
Yeah, there are some towns like Middlebury, Monroe, New Fairfield that broke Trump, but that's not the majority. There are poor(ish) white areas. Torrington is 93% white, ranks 160 out of 178 for median household income. It broke for Trump by 12%. Naugatuck is 91% white. It's 151 out 178 for income. Go to Look at the electoral map. The biggest red block is Eastern CT. It's least economically vibrant part of the state. If you look at towns that went Trump, most of them are towns in the bottom third of income.
It's not accurate to say that the red areas more middle class. It's cultural divide as much as anything, Kidyankee. Probably blue-collar is a better way to describe it rather than middle class vs working class. Types of jobs, education level, lifestyle. It isn't always about money. LOTS of towns that are solidly in the middle, income-wise are blue. A guy with runs a plumbing business and makes 2x my income still blue collar, right?
Are we looking at the same map?
Middlebury, Monroe, Watertown, New Fairfield, Oxford, Bethlehem, Prospect, Harwinton, Wolcott, Litchfield, etc. all voted for Trump. Most of these towns are actually upper middle class with some being downright affluent. Even in eastern CT, towns like Colchester and Thompson went for Trump, and have a median income of 75k. Sorry, that’s not rural poor.
You’re making a completely separate point than I am re blue collar. My initial post was solely based on voting trends by income. You’re changing it to voting trends by societal categorization. Two very different things.
Again, no town on CT is truly rural poor. You’re making faulty claims and I’m not sure what point you’re trying to drive home.
Highly educated? A huge percentage of CT’s left wing voter base is not at all highly educated. See Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, New Britain, etc. Tough to make that claim with those statistics being what they are.
For the way someone leans, looks like some college and college are about the same percentage, whereas the lower educated have a higher percentage leaning republican and higher educated have a higher lean towards democrat.
That’s patently false. We’re talking about CT here and there is no true “white poor” in CT. Again, if you look at the areas in CT that are red, they all have average (and some above average) incomes.
My theory is once Trump is out, the usual Republican strongholds (especially the Gold Coast) will get back to normal.
See, I disagree. Fairfield County has shifted increasingly blue with each successive election since the '90s. I know the 2020 election was one where many affluent areas turned blue, but in Fairfield County's case, this was already in motion. If you look at the election results since the 1990s, it has increasingly favored Democrats. It's the same thing that's happening just over the border in Westchester. Now, only Hartford County favors Democrats more than FFC, and unless the GOP shifts back to a more traditional stance at the federal level, I just don't see them recapturing the Gold Coast. Granted, there are still very wealthy people who still support the GOP, and they will probably continue to vote down ballot for anyone with an "R" after their name, but overall I think the GOP is going to have a hard time regaining their support. Their real support lies in the working class enclaves that Democrats used to have.
I wonder if what Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson predicted will come to fruition, where the GOP will fragment off into several factions of the pre- and post-Trump Republicans and the latter assumes a new party. There's still a lot of voters who identify as Republicans who are unhappy with the direction their party is going, and they are giving serious thought to leaving the GOP. Many already have.
The GOP does not have a monopoly on fringe lunatics, as we've seen. I'm very familiar with the liberal loons (like some who have taken the helm in this state) who are more committed to competing in woke Olympics than they are in financial matters. These are the ones who subscribe to cancel culture, the ones who want to abolish the police, the ones who want to take down statues of Lincoln because he wasn't woke enough for his day, the ones who say if they were alive back when that they wouldn't have been racist like everyone else, to which I want to respond, "Ahem, yes you would. If you were alive in the 1970s, you would have worn bell-bottom jeans and tie-dyed clothes, with the long hair parted in the middle. And if you were alive in the 1770s, and you were well-off and white, you would have owned slaves." The first abolitionist society was formed in 1775, and it had 24 members. 24 people in the whole country thought slavery was wrong the year before we formed independence. So my message to these woke folk who are constantly asleep at the wheel and trying to cancel the past is this: "Let's live in the present, and try to make the future better. You're not morally better than their grandparents, you just came later."
Both sides need to take a good look in the mirror, no one more so than our outgoing president who has never been put on any notice of ANY kind, and who has never been told "no" before, which is probably why isn't accepting this loss well at all.
For the way someone leans, looks like some college and college are about the same percentage, whereas the lower educated have a higher percentage leaning republican and higher educated have a higher lean towards democrat.
That can’t be ignored, but the way the opinion was presented earlier made it appear that all low income people vote Republican. As we all know, the urban, poverty stricken poor are a massive base for the Democratic Party. To refute that would be illogical.
The GOP does not have a monopoly on fringe lunatics, as we've seen. I'm very familiar with the liberal loons (like some who have taken the helm in this state) who are more committed to competing in woke Olympics than they are in financial matters. These are the ones who subscribe to cancel culture, the ones who want to abolish the police, the ones who want to take down statues of Lincoln because he wasn't woke enough for his day, the ones who say if they were alive back when that they wouldn't have been racist like everyone else, to which I want to respond, "Ahem, yes you would. If you were alive in the 1970s, you would have worn bell-bottom jeans and tie-dyed clothes, with the long hair parted in the middle. And if you were alive in the 1770s, and you were well-off and white, you would have owned slaves." The first abolitionist society was formed in 1775, and it had 24 members. 24 people in the whole country thought slavery was wrong the year before we formed independence. So my message to these woke folk who are constantly asleep at the wheel and trying to cancel the past is this: "Let's live in the present, and try to make the future better. You're not morally better than their grandparents, you just came later."
Both sides need to take a good look in the mirror, no one more so than our outgoing president who has never been put on any notice of ANY kind, and who has never been told "no" before, which is probably why isn't accepting this loss well at all.
Well said. One reason I stay a registered independent is while I tend to agree more with the left than the right, I don't take it to what I will call for lack of a better word the "woke extreme". For example, I think there needs to be police reform, but certainly not abolish them nor really even defund them and increased crime in NYC is proof where that leads. And while I think keeping military bases named for Confederates our armed forces fought and died against is ridiculous and honoring our enemies with Conferederate statues in town squares is also ridiculous to have, I think taking it to the level of Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson or Theodore Roosevelt takes it too far (reversing what you said about if the "white woke" lived in the 1770s, I think if any of those 4 lived today they would be for civil rights, police reform (but I doubt abolition and defunding) and the environment, heck Roosevelt was an environmentalist before anyone knew the term).
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