5 ms·

Sounds right. I'm in a major university town in SE Michigan. In recent years, apartment rents rose by ~4X the "official" gov't rate of inflation. Supposedly,

Sounds right. I'm in a major university town in SE Michigan. In recent years, apartment rents rose by ~4X the "official" gov't rate of inflation. Supposedly, the townies and students are diehard Democratic liberals. But especially around campus, voting statistics show Trump getting many more votes last November (and Harris many fewer) than the stereotypes would suggest.

JKCalhoun 2y ago
Are you sure the Socialist party candidate didn't siphon off Harris voters?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bell-cot 2y ago
  In the official results, the vote totals for all the 3rd party candidates add up to ~2%. And Green Party is the by-far largest piece of that.
  - JKCalhoun 2y ago
    That was for all of Michigan though, not Ann Arbor.
    - bell-cot 2y ago
      (No - I was looking at the Washtenaw Co. totals.) Here are the official precinct-by-precinct vote counts, in Ann Arbor: https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov2024/indexprecinctreport.html https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov... While you can find a precinct where the Greens got 3.5%, there are 52 precincts, and that number is an obvious outlier. There are far more where the Greens didn't even get 1%. Interestingly, looking back at the County-wide results, the down-ticket Green candidates did much better than their Presidential candidate. That would suggest Green voters splitting their tickets - to vote against (presumably) Trump.
      - JKCalhoun 2y ago
        Thanks, I was unable to find the precinct data — but the 2% aligned closely with state totals.
radlad 2y ago
So, having grown up in Ann Arbor, it's pretty clear that's the city you're talking about. Ann Arbor has had a big issue with NIMBY-ism preventing new developments for decades, and that's nothing new. Additionally, the entire city council and mayor are registered "Democrats" but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are progressive - or even if they are, that they care about housing as a primary issue. 70% of voters in Washtenaw County voted for Harris: https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov2024/index.jsp https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov... Compare that to 72% of voters who voted for Biden in 2020. I don't see much of a discrepancy: https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov2020/index.jsp https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov...
- bell-cot 2y ago
  Un-rounded, county-wide, it was a ~1.5% drop in votes for the Dem presidential candidate (from 2020 to 2024). Along with that, the voter turn-out dropped by ~2.2%, in a heavily Democratic County. Nationally, the Dem's went from Biden's 2020 51.3% of the popular vote, to Harris' 2024 48.3%. Darn close to what you'd get by extrapolating the county numbers. (I agree with your comments on A2's local issues - but from coverage of the RealPage scandal, NIMBY-ism elsewhere, etc., I suspect we're not too unusual that way. And rather large quantities of high-rise rental housing have been going up around campus and downtown A2 in the past decade.)
  - radlad 2y ago
    I just want to point out that 51.3% - 48.3% = 3%, which is twice the difference that appeared in Washtenaw County (1.5%.) I wouldn't consider that to be equivalent myself, though I'm not sure what it tells us exactly.
    - bell-cot 2y ago
      A 2.2% lower turnout, in a county where the Dem's get 71% of the votes, will disproportionately hurt them. Simplistic version - -2.2% * 71% = -1.6% (D), vs. -2.2% * 29% = -0.6% (R) - for a 1% "net gain" for the Republicans. Whether one says that 1.5% + 1% is 3%-ish, or assumes (plausibly) that turnout went up a bit in counties which lean heavily Republican, or something else - the extrapolation is fairly well in line with the delta in the national popular vote.
psytrancefan 2y ago
The inflation rate is an index over a huge number of datasets. If a single stock I own that is in the S&P 500 has a bad year while the S&P 500 index still goes up it doesn't mean the index is wrong or useless. It means you don't understand the calculation method and purpose of the index.

JKCalhoun 2y ago

Are you sure the Socialist party candidate didn't siphon off Harris voters?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bell-cot 2y ago
In the official results, the vote totals for all the 3rd party candidates add up to ~2%. And Green Party is the by-far largest piece of that.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  That was for all of Michigan though, not Ann Arbor.
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    (No - I was looking at the Washtenaw Co. totals.) Here are the official precinct-by-precinct vote counts, in Ann Arbor: https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov2024/indexprecinctreport.html https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov... While you can find a precinct where the Greens got 3.5%, there are 52 precincts, and that number is an obvious outlier. There are far more where the Greens didn't even get 1%. Interestingly, looking back at the County-wide results, the down-ticket Green candidates did much better than their Presidential candidate. That would suggest Green voters splitting their tickets - to vote against (presumably) Trump.
    - JKCalhoun 2y ago
      Thanks, I was unable to find the precinct data — but the 2% aligned closely with state totals.

radlad 2y ago

So, having grown up in Ann Arbor, it's pretty clear that's the city you're talking about. Ann Arbor has had a big issue with NIMBY-ism preventing new developments for decades, and that's nothing new. Additionally, the entire city council and mayor are registered "Democrats" but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are progressive - or even if they are, that they care about housing as a primary issue. 70% of voters in Washtenaw County voted for Harris: https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov2024/index.jsp https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov... Compare that to 72% of voters who voted for Biden in 2020. I don't see much of a discrepancy: https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov2020/index.jsp https://electionresults.ewashtenaw.org/electionreporting/nov...

bell-cot 2y ago
Un-rounded, county-wide, it was a ~1.5% drop in votes for the Dem presidential candidate (from 2020 to 2024). Along with that, the voter turn-out dropped by ~2.2%, in a heavily Democratic County. Nationally, the Dem's went from Biden's 2020 51.3% of the popular vote, to Harris' 2024 48.3%. Darn close to what you'd get by extrapolating the county numbers. (I agree with your comments on A2's local issues - but from coverage of the RealPage scandal, NIMBY-ism elsewhere, etc., I suspect we're not too unusual that way. And rather large quantities of high-rise rental housing have been going up around campus and downtown A2 in the past decade.)
- radlad 2y ago
  I just want to point out that 51.3% - 48.3% = 3%, which is twice the difference that appeared in Washtenaw County (1.5%.) I wouldn't consider that to be equivalent myself, though I'm not sure what it tells us exactly.
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    A 2.2% lower turnout, in a county where the Dem's get 71% of the votes, will disproportionately hurt them. Simplistic version - -2.2% * 71% = -1.6% (D), vs. -2.2% * 29% = -0.6% (R) - for a 1% "net gain" for the Republicans. Whether one says that 1.5% + 1% is 3%-ish, or assumes (plausibly) that turnout went up a bit in counties which lean heavily Republican, or something else - the extrapolation is fairly well in line with the delta in the national popular vote.

psytrancefan 2y ago

The inflation rate is an index over a huge number of datasets. If a single stock I own that is in the S&P 500 has a bad year while the S&P 500 index still goes up it doesn't mean the index is wrong or useless. It means you don't understand the calculation method and purpose of the index.