Here are the ten(ish) links I learned from this week:
- Presidential Election Update
- Sanders wins Washington, Hawaii and Alaska. But will they be enough? (Vox)
- The presidential campaign is making Americans like Obama – and that’s good for Dems in November (Vox)
- The more people pay attention to the 2016 campaign, the more it bums them out (The Washington Post)
- Does Hillary Clinton’s gender hurt her among male voters? Political scientists weigh in. (Vox)
- How the candidates’ tax plans will affect you, in 4 charts (Vox)
- New data show how liberal Merrick Garland really is (The Washington Post)
- Here’s why economists should be more humble, even when they have great ideas (The Washington Post)
- Public sector unions just avoided a huge defeat at the Supreme Court (Vox)
- Failure is Moving Science Forward (FiveThirtyEight)
- How to Manage Your Inner Critic (Lean In)
- We’re in a new era of international cooperation against terrorism. Is that good or bad? (The Washington Post)
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Barak Obama by Jose Luis Agapito (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
This article gives points both ways on how gender will affect the 2016 Presidential election. The NJ Fairleigh Dickinson survey makes a point, but who did they ask (what sample of the voting population – NJ is Democratic controlled blue state). Plus the two facts really are not relevant.
Jennifer Lawless’s points were valid in that gender will not be the largest point in the election (Hillary Clinton now is in a tight primary race with Bernie Sanders). As the text states, many factors are taken into account by the voters (looks may be too as some believed that it was a factor in the 1960 Nixon/JFK debates – people who watched on TV stated JFK won while radio listeners believed that Nixon won). As Lawless discussed (and the text too), party ID will be a larger factor (though some more conservative DEMs – “Reagan DEMS” may switch their vote).
Along with Jennifer Lawless’s views, gender will not be a big factor. While the percentage of women in elected positions is low (text), still there women elected in high national/state positions. Many governors have been women (in conservative states too – Ann Richards in Texas and two women governors in a row in Arizona – DEM Janet Napolitano and REP Jan Brewer – among others).
In 2008 (race card was played in the DEM primary and the question was can a Black be elected POTUS), Barack Obama became the first Black president. It is possible that Hillary Clinton may be the first US woman President.
Concerning the SCOTUS win for public sector unions. The arguments there concern and mirror the idea of “free riders.” People do benefit from what the unions do in the way of pay and benefits.
This is a win for the public sector unions, as they took a loss a few years ago in WIS by GOV Scott Walker.
This was a 4-4 SCOTUS vote – it shows how divided the court is and the outcome would have been different in Justice Scalia were alive. As discussed in class, this shows how the power and influence of the SCOTUs has increased over time (from “Marbury v. Madison” – the writers of the Constitution wanted the court to be the weakest part of govt – while some argue that Madison wanted judicial review). Also, why political parties want to get who they want to be on the bench. It will get worse as time goes on.
Does Hillary Clinton’s Gender hurt her among male voters?
Hillary Clinton is hoping to achieve the role as the first female president of the United States. While it may seem like gender should not be an issue in the world of politics, that is not the case. Clinton Could lose about 5-6% of her votes due to her gender.
Hillary definitely gains support simply based on the fact that she is a woman. While most of this support is female, there are plenty of men supporting her campaign as well. However, based on the studies from this article, the general trend was her support from men was low due to her gender. It also showed that she gained support from her female voters. What is interesting is that the amount of support she gains from females is not enough to outweigh the support she loses from the males. During the election, the results might differ a little due to the fact that democrats will likely vote for her if she is their candidate. However, her support is significant because the democrat voters are more likely to vote against their candidate than voters of the republican party.
In response to Vox in “Does Hillary Clinton’s gender hurt her among male voters? Political scientists weigh in,”I chose to read this article because I am genuinely interested in the effects race and gender have on the polls. Vox stated that Clinton’s gender cost her 24 points against Trump and 8 points overall, so does this mean that people are willing to change political identification depending on the gender of a candidate? As I continued reading, Vox then stated, that party identification matters more than gender. The article further contradicted itself by stating, a “study showed that party identification isn’t stable.” Does this mean that gender takes the lead on identification once again? Although it discusses how men feel less masculine when their spouse makes more than them, why would the gender of the president have a direct influence on how they feel about themselves and make them change their voting from Clinton to Trump when prompted a gender prime question? The question I’m left wondering is, why are traditional views on gender still taking control over the legitimacy of the candidate and why is political identification taken less seriously then it traditionally was when parties were more popular?
Christi, I think you’ve misunderstood some parts of the article. Party identification is more important than gender when deciding who to vote for. Democrats will vote for Hillary if she’s the Democratic nominee. Where gender does hurt her among Democrats, is in the Democratic primary where she is running against Bernie Sanders. White male Democrats are voting for Bernie Sanders to a greater extent than they are voting for Hillary. Does that make sense? In the general election, gender may still affect her, but Democrats will vote for the Democratic candidate, regardless of their gender.
The article regarding people becoming more bummed out about the elections was interesting for several reasons. One reason is that there are more republicans becoming discouraged with the elections than democrats; additionally republicans began to lose faith in the electoral system. I am curious as to if some of the election results are due to the fact that only eleven states hold fully closed primaries or caucuses. This means that voters must already be registered with a party in order to participate in primary elections or caucuses. The lack of closed primaries could be a contributing factor to the discouragement due to the fact that people do not have to decide a party affiliation when they register to vote and are able to be more fluid with their party identification.
Emily, I’m not quite sure what the connection is between people becoming bummed out and having open primaries. Closed primaries require voters to be registered with the party. Open primaries allow individuals to vote in whichever primary they want. Of course, there are variations in between. Do you mean the lack of open primaries may be contributing to voter discouragement? I think you may have open and closed primaries confused.