Sure, let’s just go ahead and institute a poll tax as well, has the same effect. You really do not see the closing of polling stations and early voting locations as an issue? Then you will never understand what it’s like being a minority in this nation.

I do believe my heritage and my race makes me a minority in this country. i think we only make up about 12% of the population

per us census bureau quick facts gallia county ohio
median household income $42,113
per capita income $22,588
persons in poverty 22.1%
population estimate 29,898
board of elections says 19,000 registered voters
trump 10,289
biden 2,911
jorgenson 126
hawkins 32

two or more races make up 1.9%

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/galliacountyohio

White voters with lower incomes and lower levels of educational attainment make up trump's base. The numbers point that out.

But i am not a white voter and my household makes well above the county average.

i by no means make what the wealthy people in my county make but as a household we are probably in the top 30% or so in county. Me and my wife both have college degrees.

The facts simply don't support your opinion.

On a national level, low income voters voted for Biden by a 12 point margin. White voters with college degrees, on the other hand, supported Trump by a 3 point margin. That's down from 14 points in 2016. Trump. Voters with a household income greater than 100k voted for Trump by 12 points. Those are facts.

Also, you've clearly never been to San Francisco.

And didn't we figure out 4 years ago that pre election polls and exit polling data did not reflect the actual vote total? And i think i just saw a story on CNN yesterday that says according to exit polling data and the numbers figured that that the data can not be considered accurate.

Look i have no idea how rich people or poor people voted on a national level. Because i only live one place and i know how i voted and i know how other people around country i network with told me they voted. But i really have no idea how they marked their ballot.

The data is available and exists. I get it doesn't support what you thought prior, but it's actual data. Earlier in this thread, you accused others of ignoring facts in favor of believing what the news tells them. There are facts available here, if you're interested in learning them. Just a Google away.

The worldly view of the Appalachian voter. Because my community feels this way and I see this in my little world, the rest of America must be the same! I really need a facepalm emoji.

So that data that you are using is from exit polls. The same exit polls that said trump won 53% of white women 4 years ago. But goes on to say after evaluating the election results he really only won 47% of white women in 2016. But goes on to say that in 2020 trump won 55% of women but when we look at all results. It is probably going to closer to 45% of white women.

Would this be the same polling data that says hey we know this isn't right. Because if you take all the first time voters and who they said they voted for and take all the people that claim they voted for trump in 2016 and voted for someone else this time. There numbers suggest Biden would have about 84 million votes and Trump 65 million votes.

Would this be the same exit polls that in 2016 came out and said they were wrong about the number of lower income people that voted for trump because if there numbers were correct. he could of not won Michigan, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin if there percentages were correct.

So you are absolutely correct there is data out there. But if Edison research says we know this data cant be correct that either are weighting percentages are wrong or people lied to us what good is the data. And it is there data>>>>>

well if you read the articles when you google the exit polls from the same company that conducted the exit polls and it says this data has very little credibility and cannot be correct based on actual election results. Pretty much says we do not know.

And your right i have no hard credible evidence to provide. i can tell you the company i work for has over 5000 locations in the united states over half of them in major metropolitan areas. that in a online poll on our internal internet there were over 25000 respondents and 52% of the people said they were going to vote for trump. most of these people would fall in the under 50K a year section of wages.

But i in no way consider these facts. i have no idea if these people actually voted or not and because probably 10% of the people or more that responded may be in the 100K range and that could of skewed the results.

And i guess maybe i didn't make my point as clear as i think. Because i believe a lot of poor and low income people that make under 50K a year voted for Biden my point was i have no freaking idea why they would do that.

since i got out of navy in 1992 my house hold income has ranged from about 32K to now about 95K. I really see very little that democratic policies have done for me in the last 30 years.

I have not had a job that paid for my medical insurance since i left the navy and finished my degree. I was in a much better place before the affordable care act was passed i actually had insurance me and my family could afford to use. Now i pay outrageous premiums to have insurance that i can afford to use.

I get the people that got extended medicare benefits that it helped but we could of expanded medicare without destroying the open market for health insurance.
in 2008 or 2009 i had a choice of 13 different insurance companies and 100 different plans. I have had nothing close to this choice since affordable care act.

When i get ahead a little bit and i have some money i can invest then democrats want to tax any capital gains i may make at a higher rate. I feel democratic policies have tried to keep me from getting ahead.

i understand that people think companies got a huge tax break under trump i got about 1500 a year better off after the tax cuts. That was good for me.

So i get you are a liberal and you think Democratic policies our better but someone who works with low wage earners every day and have advanced above that the republican party is who has had our backs not democrats.

that is why i don't know why poor or black people vote for democrats or that is the impression that they do. I don't understand voting for things that hold me back.

SVAC--I appreciate your level-headed discussion about all of this. I don't mean this as an inflammatory comment, but really just a way to listen to the other side: What do you feel the Republican party as it is now has done for you or is looking to do for you? You mentioned that the Democratic Party has left you, so I am just curious about the flipside.

It is unclear to me how you work for a company that large, and they don't offer you health insurance. Are you an independent contractor? Could you explain further? I work in an adjacent industry, understand healthcare policy well, and I can't see how your company isn't in direct violation of the Affordable Care Act.

The policy discussion's probably not even worth having. I suspect we're miles apart, if only because I don't actually believe Republicans or Democrats are even in much of a position to determine if you can "get ahead" these days.

Things like capital gains taxes matter a little, but only on the margins. To me, the only way the government can help people "get ahead" is to ensure that the baseline social safety net is strong enough that it empowers entrepreneurship and risk taking. I support Democratic social policy because they're further down the road towards universal healthcare, universal basic income, and providing basic social services like childcare such that Americans aren't forced to work jobs that do nothing but provide them health insurance and keep them from being homeless. The bottom falls out on so many Americans, that our economy incentivises safety over ingenuity. A robust social safety net would, in my opinion, empower people to pursue bigger ambitions, because failure doesn't mean bankruptcy from medical bills.

But America is so far from that, that neither party will get us there. So ultimately, the policies we debate -- capital gains, income tax, the ACA -- have marginal impacts, and don't really move the needle in any substantial way. We see incremental improvement here or there, but nothing structural is close to real change, and add a result, Presidents rarely have any real reason to claim credit for the economy, one way or another. I've run a business -- a compliance heavy one, under a Democratic administration and under a Republican one. I only noticed a difference Uber Trump, and only because of his sheer incompetence around Covid. Had we had a run of the mill GOP President, one actually capable of being the chief executive of the federal government, I'd have noticed no difference at all. At least economically.

Just my opinion though.