This ‘diary’ is admittedly more along the lines of a ‘heads-up’, but I wanted to rec what I believe is a very important observation about Trump’s immovable support. As NateSilver538 puts it:
“Basically, the headlines about Trump approval being super high among Republicans imply there are a core group of voters who *never* desert Trump. But that isn't necessarily the case. Party identification is fluid. Trump approvers will join the party; disapprovers will leave.”
I have been waiting forever for someone to address this conundrum of the recent avalanche of statistics braying about Trump’s support — namely, we can say that Trump has 88% of Republicans, BUT what if we consider that self-identification as Republican is NOT static.
The gist of Silver’s observation is that roughly 10% of Republicans have left the party over the last couple of years. This diminution has been masked by a concurrent joining of the party by former self-identified Independents. What is telling about this observation is that we fundamentally contort our understanding when we key in on this targeted subset of the electorate. It is the NET of Republican + Independents which is salient.
This situation further suggests that analysis of party identification ‘churn’ is going to be essential in future electoral models. Let’s put a positive spin on this state of affairs: if the rate of acceleration of ‘Republican Party disavowal’ is increasing and is not adequately incorporated into the modeling, then there could be a huge yawning chasm opening up for Republicans this fall!
updated with link: