Market Research Foundation

Evidence of a marked Asian shift away from the Democratic Party is beginning to emerge at the same time as Asians substantially increase their voter participation. With the right approach, Republicans have a sizeable opportunity to build inroads with Asian voters, particularly Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Korean Americans who show more conservative tendencies. Asian voters saw a ten-percentage point increase in voter turnout between 2016 and 2020 and are now the fastest growing racial demographic in the US. While Asians have overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates in recent years, that trend appears to be reversing. According to exit polls, President Biden underperformed Hillary Clinton with Asian Americans by four percentage points nationwide in 2020, while Trump gained 7 points compared to 2016. Clinton won 65% of the Asian vote in 2016 but Biden won 61%. Trump won 27% of Asian voters in 2016, but bumped his percentage up to 34% in 2020. “Clinton won...

“Contrary to what pundits have been saying, Youngkin did not “save” the GOP from Trump, but Trump set in motion significant shifts toward the Republican Party, and Youngkin was able to build off them.” Republican newcomer Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the November 2nd Governor’s race can be largely attributed to massive voter turnout in Trump friendly rural regions, lower Black turnout for Democrats, and moderate gains with suburbanites and college educated whites. As MRF noted in our post-election analysis, in the 61 localities where Trump won over 60% of the vote in 2020, the average turnout rate on November 2nd was 57.3%, compared to 39.4% for the 2013 Governor’s race. Of the thirty-eight localities with voter turnout rates over 60%, Youngkin won all but two. The remaining thirty-six localities went to Youngkin. Trump also won all but four in 2020. New analysis of Fairfax County precinct-level shifts away from the 2017 Democratic...

Republican newcomer Glenn Youngkin beat former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe in Tuesday’s Virginia Governor race by over 79,000 votes as of this writing, with absentee votes still being counted through Friday. Although polling in the last few weeks of October showed Youngkin catching up to McAuliffe after trailing him for much of the election, the bulk of pre-election polls favored McAuliffe. Tuesday’s race saw record high voter turnout levels that far surpassed the 2013 Governor’s race between McAuliffe and GOP candidate Ken Cuccinelli, and a huge showing in rural regions that turned out for Trump in 2020. The marginal increase in the 89 jurisdictions the GOP won in 2013 and again in 2021 totals 269,500 votes. Meanwhile, the Democrat marginal increase in Northern Virginia was just 127,235 votes. Youngkin’s surprise victory can be attributed to four factors: Unprecedented turnout rates in Trump regions – in the 61 localities where Trump won over...

Last week, Market Research Foundation analyzed the significant impact Non-college Whites could have this November if President Trump continues to add new voters to the rolls. An often-neglected segment when discussing low-propensity and non-college voters is young people: first time voters, college students, and disenchanted Millennials living at home with parents represent millions of potential voters – many of whom lean conservative and mistrust the Democrat Party. Millennials Living-At-Home Lean Right According to the Pew Research Center, a record 26.6 million 18-to-29-year-olds are now living with their parents, the highest number since the Great Depression. While the coronavirus and ensuing economic downturn is no doubt contributing to this, the number of young adults living with parents has been crawling upward since the early 2000’s. The share of young Whites forced to return home to live with their parents since March is growing significantly, and Pew estimates Whites accounted for about two-thirds (68%)...

What economic, social, political, technological, and lifestyle factors shape and modify the views of a generation? In their carefully researched book Pendulum: How Past Generations Shape Our Present and Predict Our Future, marketing innovators Roy H. Williams and Michael R. Drew document the variables that manifest unique sets of values and opinions based on generational experiences. The authors propose the pendulum hypothesis, that members of a generation adopt specific, fairly predictable values, as a result of the world events they experience at various ages. These clusters of values tend to shift like a pendulum at roughly 40-year intervals between a preference for more individualistic, ideological, and at their worst, impractical views, and more collectivist, pragmatic, and cautious views. Williams and Drew’s book, released in 2012, seems to foreshadow such political movements as Brexit, the United Kingdom’s swift rejection of a multicultural vision of Europe years in the making, and President...