This is a design project based on the article by Bloomberg News, “The Nine Types of Voters Who Will Decide 2020.”
Everyone’s vote is important, but thanks to the Electoral College, some votes in America matter more than others’. In election years past, we often heard about a key bloc that candidates needed to win over — think Soccer Moms in the 1990s and Nascar Dads in the 2000s. Now, in an increasingly diverse (yet polarized) country slogging through both a pandemic and an economic crisis, whose votes do Donald Trump and Joe Biden need most? Pollsters and analysts helped us identify nine groups who will likely determine the outcome of 2020.
The people profiled here don’t necessarily represent large swaths of the electorate. As in 2016, a razor-thin margin — even a fraction of 1% — in a few swing states counts for more than a wall of blue in California or of red in Oklahoma. In the battleground state of Florida, for instance, Puerto Ricans who moved to the state following Hurricane Maria may have outsize importance. In other swing states, “Double Haters” — voters who are cool on both main candidates — could be pivotal, but only if they turn out. And will the votes of “Shy Trumpers” cancel out the votes of “Swinging Seniors” who say they’ll desert the president for Biden?
Despite the range of opinions expressed by these voters, one shared by many is that neither of the major parties speaks for them. “I’m a Republican mostly in the fiscal sense. I align more closely with the Democratic philosophy on social issues,” says Robin Schelstraete, a voter in Nebraska. “It’s always a struggle for me to vote, because I feel like there isn’t a party that I’m 100% in line with.” Many also said they craved a sense of national unity. “The thing that concerns me most right now are the divisions that exist, the extremes,” says Don Phillips, a retiree who lives in Florida and North Carolina. “We just can’t get together and get anything done. If this pandemic can’t unite us, I don’t know what can.” (from Bloomberg News)
