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Nevilledog

(51,078 posts)
Sat Oct 16, 2021, 07:40 PM Oct 2021

Military bases swung hard away from Republicans in 2020



Tweet text:
Alfons López Tena
@alfonslopeztena
Military bases swung hard away from Republicans in 2020, moved towards Democrats by 8 points, compared with US swing of just 2. Trump lost ground among both enlisted soldiers and the officer corps, who had historically voted disproportionately Republican

Military bases swung hard away from Republicans in 2020
By our calculations they moved towards Democrats by eight points, compared with a nationwide swing of just two
economist.com
2:14 AM · Oct 16, 2021



https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/10/14/military-bases-swung-hard-away-from-republicans-in-2020

No paywall
https://archive.is/5Vc2O

Allegations of fraud can seldom be stood up by mere insinuation of fishiness. But with scant evidence, one Republican Party poll-watcher in Detroit fell back on that in 2020. In a notarised statement presented by the Trump campaign, the onlooker noted that most of the military ballots he “saw were straight ticket Democrat or simply had Joe Biden’s name filled in on them”. “I had always been told that military personnel tended to be more conservative, so this stuck out to me as the day went on,” he added. Although military voters and their families do tilt conservative (see chart), there is little evidence that they are a Republican constituency. In fact, analysis by The Economist suggests that Mr Trump performed far worse in 2020 across precincts that map onto military bases than he did four years earlier.

The political leanings of service members are difficult to measure. The Department of Defence–reluctant to poll active duty soldiers about their commander-in-chief and his party—rarely approves external political surveys. And while today’s soldiers are encouraged to exercise their right to vote, for some, including a number of America’s most distinguished generals, non-partisanship has precluded boots in the ballot box. General George C. Marshall once wrote, “I have never voted, my father was a Democrat, my mother was a Republican, and I am an Episcopalian.”

“There’s a broader narrative that the military is monolithically conservative or Republican, and that just really isn’t the case, or at least is not any more”, says Danielle Lupton, a scholar of civil-military relations at Colgate University in New York. Enlisted soldiers are drawn from, and thus generally reflective of, the American public, although they have greater racial diversity (a constituency that leans Democratic) and far more men (who tend Republican). As voting patterns shift nationwide, so too do they shift among the armed forces.

The Economist’s analysis of precincts that map closely onto military bases found a median swing of nearly eight points towards Joe Biden, compared with a nationwide shift of a little over two points in the same direction. On average, Mr Trump still won these precincts, though his margin shrank by nearly half. Patrick Air Force Base—located on Florida’s Atlantic coast and since renamed Patrick Space Force Base—supported Mr Trump by a 17-point margin in 2016. By 2020, his lead there shrank to 11 points. This method is inexact: two-thirds of enlisted service members who vote send in absentee ballots and military bases are often sprawling compounds where spouses, civilian contractors and other support staff reside and vote.

*snip*


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Military bases swung hard away from Republicans in 2020 (Original Post) Nevilledog Oct 2021 OP
This message was self-deleted by its author Chin music Oct 2021 #1
Trump was very disrespectful to the military, unless if course you were a traitor like Flynn. Kittycatkat Oct 2021 #2

Response to Nevilledog (Original post)

Kittycatkat

(1,356 posts)
2. Trump was very disrespectful to the military, unless if course you were a traitor like Flynn.
Sat Oct 16, 2021, 07:53 PM
Oct 2021

I was counting on the drop in military support to help Trump LOSE the election. I wonder if Trump still trashes one term Presidents?

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