Now that the midterm elections have been digested — and looked at up, down and sideways — some patterns that might dim President Trump’s re-election prospects have begun to emerge.

Catalist, a for-profit data firm founded in 2006 by the Democratic campaign strategists Harold Ickes and Laura Quinn, has become a go-to source of voter and donor information for liberal and progressive organizations.

During and after the 2018 elections, the firm conducted a study of the electorate to determine favorable and unfavorable developments important to its clients.

Catalist found that between 2014 and 2018 white voters aged 18 to 44 shifted sharply in favor of the Democrats. In 2014, whites 18 to 29 supported Democrat candidates by one percentage point; in 2018, these young white voters backed Democrats by 26 points, a substantial 25-point swing.

Whites 30 to 44 went from voting Republican by 21 points in 2014 to backing Democrats by 9 points in 2018, an even larger 30-point shift.

It goes without saying that the Republican Party depends on overwhelming white support to remain competitive.

In addition, the Catalist analysis found a 7-point drop in Republican support in rural communities, a key Trump base:

“Republican margins were substantially smaller (in rural areas), going from a 35-point advantage for Republicans in 2016 down to 28 points this year,” Yair Ghitza, chief scientist at Catalist, wrote in a summary of the study’s findings.

Young voters drove the drop in rural support for Republicans. Ghitza cited findings in the Catalist study showing “that young voters in rural areas voted for Democrats by much larger margins than in the past. Democrats lost 18-29 year olds in rural areas by 17 points in 2016, and that shifted to +8 this year, a 25-point shift.” Among rural voters 30 to 44, support for Republicans fell from 31 points in 2016 to 13 points in 2018.

Even keeping in mind that these numbers were produced by a Democratic firm, they signal unwelcome news for Trump.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/opinion/trump-democrats-midterms-southwest.html