John SidesRezensionen

I liked this book in many ways, though my feeling is it's a 3.5 star read, not really a 4 star. Reasons: turns out, people who voted for Trump had reservoirs of animus (or at least distrust, doubts, etc.) toward black people, Muslims, and immigrants, especially Latino immigrants. Surprise, surprise. But, in addition, it turns out they were *not* (primarily) motivated by economic concerns. There were two (large) contending theories about Trump's victory, and this book seems to shoot down the "it was *really* economic worries/trouble/despair/etc." contender.

But given that, it does seem like there are a few shaky points. One is that the book, several times, kind of reverses itself (at least in part, and possibly not at all if/once I reread it.) Case in point, 80% of the book builds up the conclusion that "Its race, stupid," but then the last chapter (and some content elsewhere) points that the partisan loyalty and the entirely predictable party-flip-after-two-terms mechanics also predict Trump's victory (or that, at least, his victory slots right into that, much the same statement.)

Perhaps this is due to there being three authors, with different chapters being written by different people (and hence different "voices", different phrasings and points being stressed, etc.) Or, the authors themselves don't quite buy the simple summary they themselves made on at least one podcast where I heard (all of them) interviewed.

Another shaky point is assumptions. At an early point in the book, the authors cite a paper that "plausibly" concludes (in their paraphrasing) that since voters didn't vote for more progressive economic policies, that they were not worried about economics. Fine, as far as it goes (and this makes sense with their findings that many Trump voters where economically liberal, conservative voters.) But how many conservatives do you know who, when asked by political scientists, call for more socialist/progressive economic policies? At least in the US, we just got off years of Tea Party activists calling for the opposite (because they believe e.g. less regulation and "free markets" will solve economic problems.)

And finally, I worry because of how much some of this all rests on just making calls. (What doesn't, at base, and especially in something as complex as political/social science, right? I know.) Example: a plot is shown with, if I remember correctly, different quartiles (or maybe it was quintiles) and when they recovered from the 2007-2009 economic crash. It shows income (or wealth, I should really find this plot again) the curve of each... quintile. Anyway, the point was that the second highest earning group had recovered something like 12 to 18 months before the election and, because people vote on their recent economic history and not their long-term history, economics was not a part of the election. But that seems crazy to me... and maybe I'm just wrong. But if I'm struggling for say 2007-2008 to 2015, and at 2015 I finally break even and then by 2016 I'm up 0.25% or something... I'm still thinking about it.

As weird as it might seem, I'd like to see more data and explanation here. But more sociological and/or anthropological data about this kind of stuff. I feel like political science is working at the edge of its expertise here.

Anyway, in some ways, these points are picking around the edges (see 3.5-star comment above, and a 4-star rating, thanks to Goodreads.) But as someone who thinks, "Of course it's about race and ethnicity and culture and religion; the US is an expanding experiment in heterogeneity and everyone seems to keep forgetting that that is WEIRD," and, "Uhh, duh, racists," I didn't come away as convinced as I feel I should have.

Given the rampant misinformation in the past few election cycles -- particularly 2020 and 2022 -- I've found this trilogy by John Sides to be a tonic of sorts.

Excellent statistics and details, laying out the facts of what happened and how (and why) Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020.

I really appreciate the way John Sides & his co-authors approach these books. Some may find them dry, but they are about as non-political as it gets, and they are stuffed full of important information, all back by data and statistics.

This book was especially interesting to me given the chaotic nature of it. I was one of the many people shocked by what happened in 2016, and it seems everyone under the sun has their own opinion of how it all transpired.

Through the data presented in this book though, it's clear what drove Trump supporters to the polls in November 2016 (hint: it wasn't economic anxiety as many like to claim), what motivated them (hint: often xenophobia and racism), and what actually was going on with the discrepancy between public polling and the final results.

All in all, if you're a political junkie like me, you'll find this interesting. I'm very interested in reading Sides's account of the 2020 election, which comes out next month.

Most political non-fiction, particularly when dealing with US elections, tends to be skewed by the author's biases. Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's books, Game Change and Game Change: 2012, which I read back in 2020, prove this. Even the best books that dissect elections and their implications, like Jared Yates Sexton The People Are Going To Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore, succumb to this.

It was a breath of fresh air, then, to find The Gamble. Decidedly non-partisan, this book dedicates itself to dissecting the statistical data available during and in the wake of the 2012 election. It offers insights into what aided Obama, what hurt Romney, and what actually led to Obama's win.

While some may find it dry for that reason, I adored it. Not only did I learn a lot about election statistics and fundamentals, but the information had facts and figures to back it up (seriously; the appendix is 100 pages long, or thereabouts).

Despite the 2012 election being a decade ago, this was still a valuable read and one I recommend to those who are interested in political science.

Years after every election you can guarantee there will be book after book dissecting it and plotting out each factoid about how and why it went the way it did. By the time those books come out, there is more sunlight on the details inside the campaigns, but also many readers have long since forgotten about it and they’ve moved to more current affairs. So these two authors, Sides and Vavreck, decided to see if they could write a book like this, but compile it concurrently while the election was actually happening. This would enable them to release it while the event was still fresh in the minds of the readers and be able to look at the event using an in-person viewpoint instead of the through the more objectified lens of history. Their efforts resulted in this new book, The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election.

Sides and Vavreck took every moment along the long, hard slog of the 2012 campaign and broke it down into what we heard from the media (on both sides of the political spectrum) and what the polling data told us at the same time. They also dive into those things not laid out to the public in either cases, the missing details which can sometimes have incredibly dramatic effects on the context in which those presupposed facts get taken in. They back all this up with tons and tons of data points, resulting in enough charts to make Ezra Klein weep with joy.

One of the main thrusts in the book is the overused and misunderstood term “game-changer”:

"All told, Murphy found that the term “game-changer” had been mentioned almost twenty thousand times in the ten months before the election. It was, according to one reporter, the single worst cliché of the campaign"

This shines some light on how the political reporting establishment works to keep us all tied up and tuned into each nightly report and every breaking news blog post by declaring these innocuous, superfluous moments as huge turning points for the campaign. Even the infamous “47%” video for Romney actually moved the polling data very little in the end. It actually just cemented those people who were already for or against him and made those undecideds who were leaning to either side retreat back to their former choice.

The authors also debate the idea that if all these gaffes, political slip-ups and outright mistakes meant nothing then maybe the whole campaign cycle is also meaningless in the end. They suppose that might be true, but only in both sides of the contest agreed not to campaign at all. If one side goes full-bore and the other does nothing, the polls and voting behavior of the country will certainly swing towards the more active campaign. So in the end, especially in the 2012 version, both sides must campaign in equal amounts with equal pressure and equal money to cancel each other out. If an equilibrium like that is reached, then the authors claim the fundamentals of every election in history will likely decide the winner (where the economy is, direction of the unemployment numbers, among a few others.)

The Gamble breaks down the entire election cycle into tiny, graphed out bits to show the how it really works and what really matters in those frazzled days and nights. Not a book necessarily for the casual reader, but for the political wonks and data junkies out there, this will fill your cup nicely.

The toxic partisan vitriol unleashed in 2016 campaign now threatens to fracture one of the greatest nations ; how the people were coerced to view every issue through a racial prism of hate , “us vs them” view ; not just by the candidates but also by the media , driving the national discourse to a new low of anti - intellectualism never seen before on such a platform .

This is one of the best books on this subject which tries to reconcile with the conclusion using multiple polling research data to rationalize one of the most bizarre spectacles in modern day politics , not so surprising this playbook is now being used in other multi-cultural / multi-ethnic counties ie. India & EU which is going through a similar ideological crisis .
As Senator Lindsey Graham sums it up best “ America is an idea ; not a race “.