When the 'Reagan Democrats' voted GOP in 1980/1984

[Drunken Irishman]

19. Yes. I pointed that out in my post.

Not to be rude, but I suspect you didn't actually read my post or you wouldn't have said that because I specifically mentioned both Clinton's win in 1996 and Obama's in 2008, and their overall support. However, both still didn't hit the level Carter did in 1976. Moreover, your point only reinforces mine: there was no long-term coalition of white voters out of Clinton's win.

Review the exit polls here:

https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2008/results/president/national-exit-polls.html

Clinton, according to the NYT, won 43% of the white vote in 1996. Four years later, Gore won 42% and four years after that, Kerry won 41% - a continuous decline up until Obama's landslide-ish victory in 2008. Even still, in 2012, Obama won only 39% of white voters.

That matches the 39% Clinton pulled in during the 1992 campaign, but that was also a race with a significant third party candidate. In fact, Clinton only lost the white vote to Bush by one-point according to that NY Times link I linked to. In 2012, Obama lost it to Romney by 20 points. In fact, if you look at the margins, you can clearly see, outside Clinton's performance in the 90s, the Democrats were hemorrhaging these voters and they never returned to the party.

Here's the margins each Democratic nominee lost the white vote:

Carter: -5
Carter: -20
Mondale: -29
Dukakis: -19
Clinton: -1
Clinton: -3
Gore: -12
Kerry: -17
Obama: -12
Obama: -20
Clinton: -20

Granted, Democrats are doing better than Mondale among white voters but that was a significant blowout.

My point is that Reagan Democrats permanently shifted to the GOP from the Democratic Party. While Clinton maybe won some of them over, much of his success was due to white voters supporting the third party. In fact, while Clinton only lost the white vote by one and three points to the Republican, in 1992 and 1996, the margin of white voters who voted against Bill Clinton was:

1992: -21
1996: -12

1992 was not that dissimilar to the 80s for the Democrats, except Perot won 20% of white voters. Maybe they still go to Clinton if Perot stays out of the race (I think they do), but it shows how reluctant they were at supporting Clinton.

My point is that 1980 was a realignment election because it permanently killed the Democratic Party with white voters. Even Clinton's best run, as a white southerner thirty years ago, still meant a strong majority (60% of white voters in 1992), voted against him.

I don't see these Republicans sticking with the party because the only thing they have in common with Democrats is the distaste for Trump. Once that's gone, so is any need to align with the Democratic Party. However, Reagan Democrats didn't just go support Reagan because they didn't like Carter - they went and supported Reagan because, after 1964, the party started bleeding out white support and they aligned more and more with the Republican Party, which is still true today.