The verdict on the presidential primaries is already in, but the best data on what they mean for the general election is only now emerging.
This data is voting history: a personal record of who voted and who didn’t. It provides a definitive look at the makeup of the electorate and will help answer some of the most important questions of the primary season, from whether Nikki Haley voters already support President Biden to whether the primary results indicate that Mr. Biden is better positioned than the polls suggest.
Last week we received the first major tranche of election history data from a place where we recently conducted a state survey: Georgia.
At least here, this suggests that most Haley voters already supported Mr. Biden in 2020. It also implies that Mr. Biden’s strength in the primaries is not at odds with polls showing him struggling among young and black voters.
The Haley vote in Georgia
In the Republican primary in Georgia, Ms. Haley received 13.2 percent of the vote. That may not have been nearly enough to win, but it could easily be enough to cause a major headache for Donald J. Trump among Republicans who have been upset with the former president.
The voting history data offers some evidence that Mr. Trump doesn’t have much to worry about here — or at least nothing new to worry about. Most of these voters already supported Mr. Biden in the 2020 election and will continue to support him in 2024.
There are two pieces of evidence that support this idea.
The first comes from voting data from previous partisan primaries in Georgia. That data shows that about 10 percent of voters in this month’s Republican primary voted in a Democratic primary in the last eight years — a good indication that they may have been Democrats who participated in a Republican race. These voters likely overwhelmingly supported Ms. Haley.
A second comes from our October Times/Siena poll in Georgia, which we cross-referenced with new voting history records. Respondents who voted in the recent Republican presidential primary said they voted for Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden in 2020 by a margin of 82 percent to 12 percent, a tally comparable to those voters’ prediction in November . Both numbers reflect Mr. Trump’s 85-13 victory in the Georgia primary.
The similarity between the Republican primary results and the poll results of Republican primary voters suggests that most of Mr. Trump’s weakness in the primaries simply came from those who were already willing to support Mr. Biden in 2020 and 2024.
Among solid Republicans, Mr. Trump remains on stronger footing. Among Republican primary voters who identified as Republicans in the Times/Siena poll, he had a 94-2 lead over Mr. Biden in the polls. Likewise, he had a 91-3 lead among Republican primary voters who had not voted in a recent Democratic primary.
What about Biden?
The Democratic primary has not been competitive this year, and Georgia was no exception. Overall, President Biden won 95 percent of the vote in Georgia, one of his best votes nationwide.
Not surprisingly, the Times/Siena poll last fall found no evidence of serious disagreement among these voters: Mr. Biden had a 96-0 lead over Mr. Trump among Times/Siena respondents for four months Democratic primaries voted later.
What’s interesting is that the Times/Siena poll found ample evidence of Democratic dissent among the broader group of registered voters. In the head-to-head race in Georgia in October, Mr. Trump led Mr. Biden by six points, with Mr. Biden polling just 76-19 among black voters overall. (In 2020, he won around 90 percent of the black vote in Georgia.)
So why did Mr. Biden score a decisive victory when the polls showed him doing relatively poorly? Voting history data suggests the answer is simple: voters in the Democratic primary and the broader group of registered voters are very diverse and have very different views of Mr. Biden.
Overall, only 4 percent of registered voters took part in the Democratic primary. Almost half were 65 years or older; only 5 percent were under 30. It turns out that this old and very committed group of Democrats is very loyal to Mr. Biden.
This is particularly evident when considering Biden’s support among Black voters, who make up over a quarter of Georgia’s electorate.
Remarkably, none of the black voters who flirted with Mr. Trump in the October poll — those who said they would vote for him in November 2024 — ended up voting in a primary, either in the Republican primary or as Democratic dissenters. Mr. Biden led 96-0 in the Times/Siena poll among self-identified black voters who participated in the March 12 primary, versus 74-21 among all other black voters. Despite Mr. Trump’s support in the poll, only about 5 percent of black primary voters decided to cast a ballot in the Republican primary, state voter rolls show.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a big difference between primary voters and the rest of the electorate. According to the Times/Siena data, Mr. Biden is struggling heavily among irregular young and nonwhite voters, helping to give Mr. Trump a narrow lead among registered voters across the country. At the same time, Mr. Trump performs poorly with highly engaged voters, such as those who vote in special elections.
Mr. Biden has major weaknesses in the polls, but his problems will not be tested in low-turnout primaries. In parliamentary elections, irregular voters are usually present, if at all.
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2024-03-27 09:04:14
www.nytimes.com