Can Trump win in November?
川普嬴得了十一月的大選?
若得不到黑人與少數族裔的支持，川普須得到多少白人選票才選得上? 大約70%的選票吧! 由於多數白人選票支持共和黨及少數民族選票支持民主黨的分岐，人口統計資料顯示，對民主黨逐漸有利…….
Based on the primary elections to date, politicos and pundits are already anointing Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee for president. This begs the question: What will he have to do to win in November?
Given the sharp racial divide between Trump’s Republican primary support among whites and Hillary Clinton’s strong support among blacks and other racial minorities, I was facetiously asked by a colleague: How much white support would Trump need if he got no support from minorities? Assuming that whites made up 72 percent of voters, I calculated that if Trump got zero percent of minority votes he would need 70 percent of whites to win the national popular vote. This would be well above Mitt Romney’s 59 percent in 2012, or Ronald Reagan’s watershed 66 percent in 1984. Of course, this is an unrealistic exercise since Trump will get votes from racial minorities, and because winning the Electoral College reflects the clustering and dispersal of minority and white voters across states.
由於銳利的種族分岐，川普的共和黨主要支持在白人，而黑人和其他少數種族則對希拉蕊的大力支持，有人開玩笑地問我的一位同事: 川普需要多少白人的支持才選得上，如果他得不到少數族裔的支持 ?假設白人佔了 72%的選民，我計算出，若川普得不到少數族裔選票，他就需要 70%的白人選票，才能贏得全國的選舉。這也會遠高於羅姆尼的59%，在 2012 年或 1984 年雷根的 66%。當然，說川普將會獲得少數種族的票，這是不切實際的運作，因為贏得了州選舉人票，反映出全國少數族群和白人選民的聚集與分散。
Fortunately more sophisticated models exist based on both demography and geography. One of these is a new study, America’s Future Electorate that I authored with Ruy Teixeira and Robert Griffin as part of a collaboration between Brookings, the Center for American Progress and the American Enterprise Institute. In it, we simulated the 2016 election under several different scenarios based on the projected race and age composition of the electorates in the 50 states and D.C. The simulations assume different sets of turnout and voting patterns which get applied to the updated demography.
As might be expected, scenarios which apply the turnout and Democratic/Republican voting patterns from the 2008 and 2012 Obama victory elections, yield similar Democratic Electoral College wins in 2016. But when we instead apply the turnout and voting patterns from the 2004 election, when George W. Bush defeated John Kerry, the simulation produces a 2016 Democratic popular vote win but a Republican Electoral College win, though smaller than in 2004. In other words, the changing demography (read: increased racial diversity) of the electorate affected the outcome in just 12 years.
The fact that a 2004 voting scenario could yield a slight Republican win in November does not necessarily bode well for Trump. That 2004 scenario built in markedly lower voter turnout and Democratic voting preferences for blacks, Asians and Hispanics than occurred in the last two presidential elections. While it might be argued that minority support could be more tepid for a potential Hillary Clinton candidacy than it was for Barack Obama, the opposite argument could be made if her opponent is Trump. In fact, negative minority pushback against both a Trump candidacy and the fact that a Republican president would nominate the next Supreme Court justice might increase minority enthusiasm for Democrats especially among Hispanics who still have a high ceiling for voter turnout. The latter could steer swing states like Florida, Virginia, and Colorado- those that voted Republican in 2004- to the Democrats.
The most favorable Republican scenario for 2016 that the study produced assumes the same minority voting patterns as 2012, but increases white Republican support by 5 percentage points in all states—almost the levels in Reagan’s 1984 re-election. This simulated increase in white support does produce a substantial Republican win not only in Sun Belt states but also in Northern states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. This would seem an unrealistic scenario. A huge rise in white Republican support, occurring uniformly across the country, will probably not occur given the wide ideological and age spectrum of white voters.
共和黨2016年最有利的情形，假定像2012年少數族群投票款式，但在各州共和黨增加5%，亦即如同1984年雷根嬴得連任一樣。這種白人選票的類似增加，的確製造了共和黨的大勝，不僅在陽光地帶區的幾個州，而且在北方的其他州，如俄亥俄、賓州、威斯康辛、和明尼蘇達州。這是不切實際的情形。全國一致的白人選票大量的增加不可能發生，因為白人選民廣泛的意識型態及年齡因素之關係。
However it does paint a picture of a possible game plan for Trump. That is, the white support for Republicans in those older, whiter Northern states has traditionally been lower than in much of the South and Great Plains—creating a higher ceiling especially in an atmosphere of white blue collar anger. If there is a possible path for his victory, it might be to elevate white support in those states, particularly Ohio, where recent elections have been close.
On the other hand, the demography of diversity could well work in favor of the Democratic candidate in states like Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, and Colorado. If that occurs, each party’s candidates will be trying to make gains in the other’s traditional strongholds.
Win or lose, Trump’s possible candidacy could make the 2016 election a pivotal one with respect to the divide in white and minority politics. According to the study’s long term projections, the nation’s demography will become increasingly favorable to the Democrats if recent voting patterns by race and age persist. This should lead both parties to reassess their long term strategies toward cultivating new bases of support.
無論輸贏，川普的可能取得候選人的資格，會使 2016年的這一場選舉，成為與白人和少數族群政治觀點有關的一個關鍵。根據這項研究的長期的透視，美國的人口調查將逐漸有利於民主黨，如果最近以年齡和種族投票模式的因素仍然存在。這應導致雙方重新評估，它們培養新的支持基礎的長期戰略
03/08/2016
Justin Lai 編譯
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