Chapter 13 Exercises: Demographics and the Electorate

Exercises are organized into three tiers: Foundational, Analytical, and Advanced.

Foundational Tier

1. The Four Layers of the Electorate Describe the four layers of the electorate introduced at the start of the chapter: citizen voting-age population (CVAP), registered voters, likely voters, and actual voters. For each layer, explain what determines who is included and why each layer tends to differ from the one above it in demographic composition.

2. The Education Realignment In your own words, explain the education realignment in American politics. What is the trend, when did it begin to accelerate, and which voters have moved in which direction? Why is the education realignment not simply a return to class voting under a different name?

3. Origins of the Gender Gap Explain the origins of the gender gap in American politics. Why did it first appear in 1980, and what were the forces that produced it? Explain why the gender gap is better understood as men moving toward Republicans than women moving toward Democrats.

4. Social Identity and Racial Voting Patterns Using social identity theory, explain why Black voters have remained strongly Democratic even through significant political events and candidate changes. What would need to happen for a significant shift in Black partisan alignment to occur, and why is that difficult?

5. Generational vs. Life-Cycle Effects Define the difference between generational effects and life-cycle effects on political behavior. Give one example of each. Why is it analytically important to distinguish between them when projecting how today's young voters will vote in 30 years?

6. Urban-Rural Cleavage List four factors that contribute to the urban-rural partisan divide in contemporary America. For each factor, explain how it produces different political orientations between dense urban areas and rural areas.

7. The Demographic Destiny Fallacy Explain the "demographic destiny" argument and its two biggest flaws. What does the failed "emerging Democratic majority" prediction teach us about the relationship between population demographic change and electoral political change?

Analytical Tier

8. The Three Filters The chapter describes demographic change reaching the electorate through three filters: naturalization, registration, and turnout. Choose a specific demographic group in a specific state (for example, naturalized Latino citizens in Nevada, or young Black voters in Georgia) and trace how that group's political impact is shaped by each of the three filters. What interventions at each filter stage could maximize that group's electoral participation?

9. Education × Race Interaction The chapter notes that the education realignment is most pronounced among white voters, and that education has different political meanings for different racial groups. Analyze this interaction: how does the relationship between education and partisan voting differ for white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian American voters? Why might the same level of educational attainment produce different political behavior across racial groups?

10. Applying the Gender Gap to Garza-Whitfield Using data from this chapter, construct a demographic analysis of the gender gap's likely effect on the Garza-Whitfield race. Consider: - What is the expected magnitude of the gender gap in this state? - How does the gap interact with education, age, and marital status? - How should Nadia's campaign think about messaging to college-educated women versus non-college women in the suburbs? Write your analysis in 400-500 words.

11. Subgroup Analysis Reliability The chapter warns that exit poll subgroup analysis for small groups is statistically unreliable. A post-election analysis claims that Asian American support for the Democratic Senate candidate in a large state dropped from 69% to 58% between two elections. The exit poll had approximately 14,000 respondents, and Asian Americans make up 8% of the state's population. a. Calculate the approximate number of Asian American respondents in the exit poll. b. Calculate the margin of error for the Asian American subsample at 95% confidence (use the formula: MOE = 1.96 × √(p(1-p)/n), where p = 0.58 and n = the number of Asian American respondents). c. Given your calculation, is the apparent 11-point drop statistically significant? What would you need to see to be confident this is a real shift?

12. Constructing a Demographic Segmentation Nadia Osei's campaign demographic segmentation divides the Garza-Whitfield state electorate into four tiers: base, soft support, persuadables, and unlikely converts. Using the demographic data from this chapter, create your own version of this segmentation for a different real or hypothetical competitive Senate state of your choosing. For each tier, specify: - Which demographic groups belong in this tier - Their estimated Democratic vote share - Their estimated turnout probability - The implied campaign strategy for each tier

13. Religious Change and Electoral Consequences The chapter discusses the growth of religious "nones" and the ongoing alignment of white evangelical Protestants with the Republican Party. Analyze these two trends together: if nones grow and white evangelical voting age population as a share of the total electorate declines, what are the cumulative implications for the partisan composition of the electorate over the next 20 years? What caveats should you attach to this projection?

Advanced Tier

14. Designing Better Demographic Categories The chapter argues that standard demographic categories used in political surveys (binary gender, Hispanic/Latino as a unified category, the race classifications from the U.S. Census) obscure important within-group variation and can marginalize smaller groups. Design an improved demographic taxonomy for a national political survey. Your taxonomy should: a. Specify how you would measure race and ethnicity with greater granularity b. Propose an approach to gender that captures non-binary identities without making the survey unworkably long c. Explain how you would handle mixed-race respondents d. Assess the tradeoffs between granularity (more accurate representation) and statistical power (smaller subgroups have larger sampling error)

15. Quantitative Demographic Projection Using publicly available data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission's election administration data for a state of your choosing: a. Calculate the racial/ethnic composition of the citizen voting-age population (CVAP) b. Compare CVAP composition to the composition of registered voters c. Compare registered voter composition to the composition of actual voters in the most recent election (using exit polls or post-election surveys) d. Calculate the turnout gap for each demographic group (how much does their share of the actual electorate differ from their share of CVAP?) e. Write a 400-500 word interpretation of what your findings imply about representational equity in this state's elections.

16. The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Targeting The chapter notes a self-fulfilling prophecy: communities that are not targeted have lower turnout, confirming campaigns' priors that they're not worth targeting. Design a research project that could test whether this self-fulfilling prophecy actually operates in practice. Your research design should include (a) a clear hypothesis, (b) a treatment and control condition, (c) a specific outcome measure, (d) a method for establishing causal identification, and (e) a discussion of ethical concerns about conducting field experiments in real communities.

17. Comparing Exit Polls to Post-Election Surveys The chapter warns about the unreliability of exit poll subgroup estimates. Find the exit poll data and at least one post-election survey (e.g., Pew Research Center's validated voter survey) for a recent election. For at least three demographic subgroups, compare the exit poll estimates to the post-election survey estimates. Write a 400-500 word analysis of: - Where do the two sources agree and disagree? - What methodological differences might explain discrepancies? - Which source do you find more credible for each subgroup, and why?

18. ODA's Equity Analysis Adaeze Nwosu argues that communities not targeted by campaigns have lower turnout, creating a cycle of exclusion. But Nadia Osei argues that a campaign has to allocate scarce resources strategically to win, and that targeting communities most likely to deliver votes is a rational strategy. Write a 600-800 word analysis that: a. Presents the strongest version of Nadia's strategic argument b. Presents the strongest version of Adaeze's equity argument c. Identifies specific types of evidence that would help adjudicate between them d. Proposes a practical campaign approach that takes both perspectives seriously without being unrealistically idealistic