A - Austria

I don't buy this whole analysis about how the Democratic Party and the Republicans split in America. Around here, it’s really just about old-school village ties—basically which small town people came from and which big cities they moved to. All this talk about education levels and stuff... honestly, it's nonsense. Voting is secret, so there's no way to track who actually voted for what, and I don't trust polls anyway.
Do you happen to have any data on the percentage of immigrant descendants in different US cities? That would be the most important metric to look at 😉.

Mark Harris66 said:I don't buy this whole analysis about how the Democratic Party and the Republicans split in America. Around here, it’s really just about old-school village ties—basically which small town people came from and which big cities they moved to. All this talk about education levels and stuff... honestly, it's nonsense. Voting is secret, so there's no way to track who actually voted for what, and I don't trust polls anyway.
Do you happen to have any data on the percentage of immigrant descendants in different US cities? That would be the most important metric to look at 😉.

I'm with you on that. Education doesn't really change the math much. Plus, I guess those folks graduating with philosophy degrees give off that vibe because they're loud and have plenty of time to get into activism and all that noise ☕ and maybe people who pick those majors are just naturally leaning toward the left wing 🤔
most of those college crowds end up running some sort of non-profit or environmental group or whatever else

Look, here’s the bottom line. 🙄 Most people living in major cities are actually descendants of immigrants. If you're an immigrant living in Washington, D.C., or if my own parents were newcomers when they arrived here—it's the same story everywhere. By their very nature, cities are built on and sustained by immigration.

As for ethnic makeup, you can only really track that in places where census data includes both citizenship and mother tongue. But even then, since voting is secret, there’s no way to link a specific ballot to a voter registry. You mentioned you aren't a fan of polling, but honestly, how else would we measure any of this besides through polls?

Those "midterm elections" are basically just massive, high-stakes polls that rarely miss the mark. I haven't heard anyone suggest we could get accurate data on vote distribution by gender, age, or education levels without using this kind of polling. Every serious political analyst and news outlet, whether they're based in Europe or the USA, treats this data as fact and reports on it accordingly.

For instance, nobody serious in the USA disputes the idea that women lean toward the Democratic Party while men favor the Republican Party. They don't argue that Black voters lean Democratic, or that Trump gets more support from the blue-collar, less educated crowd, or that Hillary had the older demographic while Sanders captured the younger one.

hiddengardener12 said:Look, here’s the bottom line. 🙄 Most people living in major cities are actually descendants of immigrants. If you're an immigrant living in Washington, D.C., or if my own parents were newcomers when they arrived here—it's the same story everywhere. By their very nature, cities are built on and sustained by immigration.

As for ethnic makeup, you can only really track that in places where census data includes both citizenship and mother tongue. But even then, since voting is secret, there’s no way to link a specific ballot to a voter registry. You mentioned you aren't a fan of polling, but honestly, how else would we measure any of this besides through polls?

Those "midterm elections" are basically just massive, high-stakes polls that rarely miss the mark. I haven't heard anyone suggest we could get accurate data on vote distribution by gender, age, or education levels without using this kind of polling. Every serious political analyst and news outlet, whether they're based in Europe or the USA, treats this data as fact and reports on it accordingly.

For instance, nobody serious in the USA disputes the idea that women lean toward the Democratic Party while men favor the Republican Party. They don't argue that Black voters lean Democratic, or that Trump gets more support from the blue-collar, less educated crowd, or that Hillary had the older demographic while Sanders captured the younger one.

In Canada and America, the only thing you can really measure is how many people come from the former republics, since those were the main players back in America. So, maybe Canada has the highest ratio relative to its population. For major cities, the majority ethnic group isn't usually counted unless there's some regional study looking at how different areas supported certain historical movements. I'm not sure what it's like in your neck of the woods, but here in America, things are pretty divided on that stuff. It feels like our politicians try to frame everything that way because, honestly, they don't really know how to handle anything else.

Look, in Canada, you didn't really have people openly backing the Nationalists movement. For the most part, if you weren't flying the symbol of the red star, you were shot once the war ended. Aside from those who managed to flee across the ocean to either the US or Australia, there were people like me—folks who spent decades hiding out in the Postojna or Škocjan Caves, only to suddenly emerge like ghosts around 1990. 😁

hiddengardener12 said:Look, in Canada, you didn't really have people openly backing the Nationalists movement. For the most part, if you weren't flying the symbol of the red star, you were shot once the war ended. Aside from those who managed to flee across the ocean to either the US or Australia, there were people like me—folks who spent decades hiding out in the Postojna or Škocjan Caves, only to suddenly emerge like ghosts around 1990. 😁

Yeah, I get that there aren't people supporting those old fascist movements when you have zero connection to that era, I'm talking about America, but I bet you still have a few of those Nazi puppet types hanging around somewhere.

Mark Harris66 said:I don't buy this whole analysis about how the Democratic Party and the Republicans split in America. Around here, it’s really just about old-school village ties—basically which small town people came from and which big cities they moved to. All this talk about education levels and stuff... honestly, it's nonsense. Voting is secret, so there's no way to track who actually voted for what, and I don't trust polls anyway.
Do you happen to have any data on the percentage of immigrant descendants in different US cities? That would be the most important metric to look at 😉.

There's nothing to believe here. We're talking pretty hardcore mathematical modeling.

The whole "which side did your village take during the Civil War" factor—or basically whose side your dad or grandad fought on—is huge in America. There are actually studies on that, even if they're harder to pull off.

As for polls, most people just lean on exit polls—you know, right after the votes are cast using massive sample sizes. For half these analyses, you don't even need polls; you just need demographic data. We have hundreds of towns, cities, and neighborhoods where we know the exact education breakdown. You just look at those numbers, stack them up against the election results, and see if the correlation holds.

Every single source says the same thing: highly educated folks in both America and Austria tend to vote Democratic. The working class? They rarely vote for the parties claiming to represent them... 😛

Walter Hughes53 said:I'm with you on that. Education doesn't really change the math much. Plus, I guess those folks graduating with philosophy degrees give off that vibe because they're loud and have plenty of time to get into activism and all that noise ☕ and maybe people who pick those majors are just naturally leaning toward the left wing 🤔
most of those college crowds end up running some sort of non-profit or environmental group or whatever else

Every poll and study out there agrees. Take this, for example, current polling by electoral districts in America.

Look, if you're starting from the mindset that everyone is lying and you don't feel the need to prove it, fine—that's your call. But at that point, it's just pure faith. 🙄

Yeah, everyone’s lying, lonetrucker4. Why? Because voting is secret! Until they make it public, any talk about how a specific group is voting is just pure guesswork...

lonetrucker4 said:There's nothing to believe here. We're talking pretty hardcore mathematical modeling.

The whole "which side did your village take during the Civil War" factor—or basically whose side your dad or grandad fought on—is huge in America. There are actually studies on that, even if they're harder to pull off.

As for polls, most people just lean on exit polls—you know, right after the votes are cast using massive sample sizes. For half these analyses, you don't even need polls; you just need demographic data. We have hundreds of towns, cities, and neighborhoods where we know the exact education breakdown. You just look at those numbers, stack them up against the election results, and see if the correlation holds.

Every single source says the same thing: highly educated folks in both America and Austria tend to vote Democratic. The working class? They rarely vote for the parties claiming to represent them... 😛

Every poll and study out there agrees. Take this, for example, current polling by electoral districts in America.

Look, if you're starting from the mindset that everyone is lying and you don't feel the need to prove it, fine—that's your call. But at that point, it's just pure faith. 🙄

this part is questionable
If I had my book right here, I'd cite the source, maybe I'll hunt it down later, but usually, Republican Party voters just refuse to take part in polls.

lonetrucker4 said:There's nothing to believe here. We're talking pretty hardcore mathematical modeling.

The whole "which side did your village take during the Civil War" factor—or basically whose side your dad or grandad fought on—is huge in America. There are actually studies on that, even if they're harder to pull off.

As for polls, most people just lean on exit polls—you know, right after the votes are cast using massive sample sizes. For half these analyses, you don't even need polls; you just need demographic data. We have hundreds of towns, cities, and neighborhoods where we know the exact education breakdown. You just look at those numbers, stack them up against the election results, and see if the correlation holds.

Every single source says the same thing: highly educated folks in both America and Austria tend to vote Democratic. The working class? They rarely vote for the parties claiming to represent them... 😛

Every poll and study out there agrees. Take this, for example, current polling by electoral districts in America.

Look, if you're starting from the mindset that everyone is lying and you don't feel the need to prove it, fine—that's your call. But at that point, it's just pure faith. 🙄

I won't speak for America, but what you're saying about Austria just isn't right. In fact, the highly educated there tend to vote for the Republican Party more than the average person. Things might be shifting slightly regarding blue-collar workers, but the backbone of the Republican Party is really retirees. Sure, workers vote for them too, though that’s becoming a bit debatable now that populist vibes from the far-right are starting to seep into that demographic. You've got ethnic minorities and immigrants voting Republican as well, though even that's a bit of a messy generalization.

In Austria, if you're highly educated, you're likely voting for the Republican Party if you lean conservative, or the Green party if you're more progressive. 😉

Go ask Sigmund Freud or someone if you don't believe me.

Walter Hughes53 said:this part is questionable
If I had my book right here, I'd cite the source, maybe I'll hunt it down later, but usually, Republican Party voters just refuse to take part in polls.

Just give me the book info, pretty sure I've read it. 😉

There's zero proof in the States that this "Shy torry" thing is a permanent fixture. It pops up once in a while, like everywhere else (like in the UK where the term actually came from back in the '90s and then again in 2015), but other times? Nothing. People went nuts talking about it after the 2014 presidential elections when the results totally tanked every single poll from the week before. But during the 2015 Congressional elections, nothing really shifted.

Even if that factor is real, the more education people get, the more they lean Democratic and ditch the Republican Party.

hiddengardener12 said:I won't speak for America, but what you're saying about Austria just isn't right. In fact, the highly educated there tend to vote for the Republican Party more than the average person. Things might be shifting slightly regarding blue-collar workers, but the backbone of the Republican Party is really retirees. Sure, workers vote for them too, though that’s becoming a bit debatable now that populist vibes from the far-right are starting to seep into that demographic. You've got ethnic minorities and immigrants voting Republican as well, though even that's a bit of a messy generalization.

In Austria, if you're highly educated, you're likely voting for the Republican Party if you lean conservative, or the Green party if you're more progressive. 😉

Go ask Sigmund Freud or someone if you don't believe me.

Why the air quotes around conservative and progressive? Those are just standard political labels—even the populists and the Greens use them for themselves.

Think you're onto something there—would love to see some actual data, probably exists somewhere, on how the voting shook out in the first round of the presidential election versus the last parliamentary ones? Would be pretty interesting.

Haven't really dug into the math, truth be told, so I probably overstepped with my assumptions. All I saw was that highly educated voters in the runoff went what, over 80% for VdB? So I figured the smart crowd is inevitably more left-leaning. But then again, a huge chunk of the usual Republican Party voters swung for VdB too, so we don't have enough info to call it.

So, for the folks who actually know their way around Austria: I’d love a deep dive into how people actually define an "immigrant" versus just having "immigrant roots."

It feels obvious to me that these aren't just one big uniform group, especially that second category. I once met an Austrian guy with a last name that sounded totally foreign—can't remember the exact spelling, just that it followed German rules. Turns out his ancestor was an officer in the AU military back in the old Military frontier days, married a German woman (or someone else, honestly, who knows), and now his fourth-generation descendant carries that name. He’s got zero connection to America or Mexico.

There are tons of people living in Austria who stayed put after the AU collapsed and have all sorts of mixed heritage. After a hundred years, calling them "immigrant roots" feels pretty pointless to me.

Then you've got the immigrants from Germany, or the displaced folks from various Eastern countries who were kicked out after WWII and settled in Austria... and then finally, the ones who moved there as guest workers in recent decades and eventually picked up citizenship. How many of those are we even talking about?

So, yeah, can someone give me some actual clarity on what counts as "immigrants" vs. "immigrant roots"?

lonetrucker4 said:Just give me the book info, pretty sure I've read it. 😉

There's zero proof in the States that this "Shy torry" thing is a permanent fixture. It pops up once in a while, like everywhere else (like in the UK where the term actually came from back in the '90s and then again in 2015), but other times? Nothing. People went nuts talking about it after the 2014 presidential elections when the results totally tanked every single poll from the week before. But during the 2015 Congressional elections, nothing really shifted.

Even if that factor is real, the more education people get, the more they lean Democratic and ditch the Republican Party.

Just give me the book info, pretty sure I've read it. 😉

There's zero proof in the States that this "Shy torry" thing is a permanent fixture. It pops up once in a while, like everywhere else (like in the UK where the term actually came from back in the '90s and then again in 2015), but other times? Nothing. People went nuts talking about it after the 2014 presidential elections when the results totally tanked every single poll from the week before. But during the 2015 Congressional elections, nothing really shifted.

Even if that factor is real, the more education people get, the more they lean Democratic and ditch the Republican Party.
You can't actually prove that educated voters lean toward the Democratic Party while others favor the Republicans. Voting is private, after all. Honestly, maybe the "educated" ones are the very people staying home—I personally know plenty who either skip the polls entirely or always vote for some third-party option. I don't buy the polls... The only way I'd believe those stats is if we could actually see exactly how every single person voted and had data built directly from that.

lonetrucker4 said:So, for the folks who actually know their way around Austria: I’d love a deep dive into how people actually define an "immigrant" versus just having "immigrant roots."

It feels obvious to me that these aren't just one big uniform group, especially that second category. I once met an Austrian guy with a last name that sounded totally foreign—can't remember the exact spelling, just that it followed German rules. Turns out his ancestor was an officer in the AU military back in the old Military frontier days, married a German woman (or someone else, honestly, who knows), and now his fourth-generation descendant carries that name. He’s got zero connection to America or Mexico.

There are tons of people living in Austria who stayed put after the AU collapsed and have all sorts of mixed heritage. After a hundred years, calling them "immigrant roots" feels pretty pointless to me.

Then you've got the immigrants from Germany, or the displaced folks from various Eastern countries who were kicked out after WWII and settled in Austria... and then finally, the ones who moved there as guest workers in recent decades and eventually picked up citizenship. How many of those are we even talking about?

So, yeah, can someone give me some actual clarity on what counts as "immigrants" vs. "immigrant roots"?

I guess it isn't even that much about Austria specifically. Most countries pretty much stick to those UN definitions found in the "Recommendations for the 2010 censuses of population and housing." They define "People with immigrant backgrounds" (1st and 2nd generation) as people whose both parents were born outside of Austria. I know, it’s probably not the most accurate way to look at it since you could have people who are 100% Austrian just because their parents happened to be born abroad, but hey, a definition is a definition, I suppose.

The whole idea of "not having German as a mother tongue" has been turned into such a political talking point too, especially when people bring up kids who don't have German as their mother tongue. I think there's a pretty good summary of this right here (in German):
I guess this might be worth a look, maybe? It seems like an interesting read about how people with immigrant backgrounds are being counted in Austria.
I guess those kids probably don't speak much German at home most of the time.

I guess statistics can be a bit manipulated and stretched around sometimes, but I think it's pretty accurate that about 10% of kids here don't speak German. There are certain neighborhoods where that number hits 50%, maybe even over 90%, while in other spots, it's basically zero.

It seems pretty obvious to me that those groups aren't exactly homogeneous, especially that second one, I guess.

Yeah, I guess those groups aren't exactly uniform, but there's definitely some overlap there too.
Like I mentioned before, I guess Alexander Van der Bellen counts as a 2nd generation person with immigrant backgrounds.

I guess there are quite a few people living in Austria who stayed after the collapse of the Austro-Canadian Empire and have all sorts of roots. After a hundred years, maybe it doesn't even make sense to talk about "people with immigrant backgrounds" anymore.

Take me, for example, maybe you too. My grandparents were born back in the Austro-Canadian Empire, which I guess makes me an unofficial follower of the country I actually live in and hold citizenship for now. I was born in America, and I spent more than 15 years growing up in Washington, D.C. Usually, the whole "People with immigrant backgrounds" thing goes back to the 1st and 2nd generation, so by the third, it doesn't really count anymore. That's how it's always worked, I suppose, but who knows how people will view the generations moving to Austria a hundred years from now. Since most countries don't even last more than a few generations anyway, this might all become irrelevant. Plus, I kind of feel like national states—at least the ones we used to know—are mostly just an illusion.

Maschek on the elections. 🤣

lonetrucker4 said:Just give me the book info, pretty sure I've read it. 😉

There's zero proof in the States that this "Shy torry" thing is a permanent fixture. It pops up once in a while, like everywhere else (like in the UK where the term actually came from back in the '90s and then again in 2015), but other times? Nothing. People went nuts talking about it after the 2014 presidential elections when the results totally tanked every single poll from the week before. But during the 2015 Congressional elections, nothing really shifted.

Even if that factor is real, the more education people get, the more they lean Democratic and ditch the Republican Party.

Just give me the book info, pretty sure I've read it. 😉

There's zero proof in the States that this "Shy torry" thing is a permanent fixture. It pops up once in a while, like everywhere else (like in the UK where the term actually came from back in the '90s and then again in 2015), but other times? Nothing. People went nuts talking about it after the 2014 presidential elections when the results totally tanked every single poll from the week before. But during the 2015 Congressional elections, nothing really shifted.

Even if that factor is real, the more education people get, the more they lean Democratic and ditch the Republican Party.
Don't have the book on me right now, but I'll find that study on the Green Party once I dig through my stuff. 😉

Mark Harris66 said:Just give me the book info, pretty sure I've read it. 😉

There's zero proof in the States that this "Shy torry" thing is a permanent fixture. It pops up once in a while, like everywhere else (like in the UK where the term actually came from back in the '90s and then again in 2015), but other times? Nothing. People went nuts talking about it after the 2014 presidential elections when the results totally tanked every single poll from the week before. But during the 2015 Congressional elections, nothing really shifted.

Even if that factor is real, the more education people get, the more they lean Democratic and ditch the Republican Party.

You can't actually prove that educated voters lean toward the Democratic Party while others favor the Republicans. Voting is private, after all. Honestly, maybe the "educated" ones are the very people staying home—I personally know plenty who either skip the polls entirely or always vote for some third-party option. I don't buy the polls... The only way I'd believe those stats is if we could actually see exactly how every single person voted and had data built directly from that.
You can't actually prove that educated voters lean toward the Democratic Party while others favor the Republicans. Voting is private, after all. Honestly, maybe the "educated" ones are the very people staying home—I personally know plenty who either skip the polls entirely or always vote for some third-party option. I don't buy the polls... The only way I'd believe those stats is if we could actually see exactly how every single person voted and had data built directly from that.
You can't actually prove that educated voters lean toward the Democratic Party while others favor the Republicans. Voting is private, after all. Honestly, maybe the "educated" ones are the very people staying home—I personally know plenty who either skip the polls entirely or always vote for some third-party option. I don't buy the polls... The only way I'd believe those stats is if we could actually see exactly how every single person voted and had data built directly from that.
You can't actually prove that educated voters lean toward the Democratic Party while others favor the Republicans. Voting is private, after all. Honestly, maybe the "educated" ones are the very people staying home—I personally know plenty who either skip the polls entirely or always vote for some third-party option. I don't buy the polls... The only way I'd believe those stats is if we could actually see exactly how every single person voted and had data built directly from that.
You can't actually prove that educated voters lean toward the Democratic Party while others favor the Republicans. Voting is private, after all. Honestly, maybe the "educated" ones are the very people staying home—I personally know plenty who either skip the polls entirely or always vote for some third-party option. I don't buy the polls... The only way I'd believe those stats is if we could actually see exactly how every single person voted and had data built directly from that.
You can't actually prove that educated voters lean toward the Democratic Party while others favor the Republicans. Voting is private, after all. Honestly, maybe the "educated" ones are the very people staying home—I personally know plenty who either skip the polls entirely or always vote for some third-party option. I don't buy the polls... The only way I'd believe those stats is if we could actually see exactly how every single person voted and had data built directly from that.
You can't actually prove that educated voters lean toward the Democratic Party while others favor the Republicans. Voting is private, after all. Honestly, maybe the "educated" ones are the very people staying home—I personally know plenty who either skip the polls entirely or always vote for some third-party option. I don't buy the polls... The only way I'd believe those stats is if we could actually see exactly how every single person voted and had data built directly from that.
I mean, I trust polls to a certain point, sure, even with the margins of error, but I gotta hand it to them—they actually called the election results pretty well. 🙏

So what's this about a recount? A supplemental one?

The Interior Minister just announced an investigation into five voting districts in Austria over postal vote irregularities in the close-run presidential election.

http://www.euronews.com/2016/05/26/a...rregularities/

Sophia Ramos5 said:So what's this about a recount? A supplemental one?

The Interior Minister just announced an investigation into five voting districts in Austria over postal vote irregularities in the close-run presidential election.

http://www.euronews.com/2016/05/26/a...rregularities/

They're looking into some specific errors—some pretty big ones, actually—but I guess nothing that would change who won. The main mess was in Milwaukee, where they started counting on Sunday, and apparently, the person who gave the okay wasn't even authorized to do that. Then the commission, which included a member from the Republican Party, signed off on the report... so it looks like they all kind of messed up together. Still, there isn't really any proof that the actual votes were tampered with.

I mean, we probably won't see final results until this is all sorted out.

Sophia Ramos5 said:So what's this about a recount? A supplemental one?

The Interior Minister just announced an investigation into five voting districts in Austria over postal vote irregularities in the close-run presidential election.

http://www.euronews.com/2016/05/26/a...rregularities/

Wait, is that actually possible in a place as hyper-organized as Austria? 🤣