Fascinating and helpful analysis as always, Darrell. One quibble: Oakland does have local news thanks to Oaklandside. In a typical month, Oaklandside has about 250,000 users, so lots of Oaklanders get their news from it. Berkeleyside has had 15 years to build its audience. Oaklandside has done a lot in less than five years.
Of course Oakland deserves more. We're working on it!
All in all seems like good evidence that 2024 was a bad election year for incumbents and that vibes are more important than policy specifics, or maybe better put "the vibes of your policies" are more important than policy specifics.
A "tougher" DA wouldn't solve crime issues, but it reminds me of what I've read about malpractice suits, which is that bedside manner predicts the likelihood of being sued better than medical outcomes.
Couple other thoughts:
"Unlike the nation’s rightward shift in the presidential election, you cannot blame Price’s recall on poor turnout." Isn't high turnout associated with shifts to the right in our current MAGA-era political era? Progressives seem to do better in off-cycle years like 2018, 2022.
My other thought is on the regressions. It seems like you primarily looked at changes in population versus recall support. But I would have thought changes should be regressed to changes (Price's margin in 2022 vs her margin in 2024), or levels to levels (% racial groups in most recent year vs recall vote in 2024). I didn't really understand the rational for mixing changes and levels.
I'd also be curious if the racial coefficients would diminish if you could control for homeownership, education, density or what percent of voters are recent immigrations. I suspect that conditioned on those factors, various ethnic/racial gaps would mostly go away.
Reminds me of the George Lakoff piece about Trump from before his first term. Its not about racial demographics but nurture vs respect for authority family values.
The DA and reform effort discussion is literally about effective policy to reduce crime and whether or not harsher punishment is the go to answer whenever crime is up. Whether or not Price ever actually got to have that larger conversation about asking if we can examine that assumption is neither here nor there, the perception was that she was already instituting a "soft on crime" approach. This conversation fits so, so, well into the framing suggested by the esteemed professor.
Fascinating and helpful analysis as always, Darrell. One quibble: Oakland does have local news thanks to Oaklandside. In a typical month, Oaklandside has about 250,000 users, so lots of Oaklanders get their news from it. Berkeleyside has had 15 years to build its audience. Oaklandside has done a lot in less than five years.
Of course Oakland deserves more. We're working on it!
All in all seems like good evidence that 2024 was a bad election year for incumbents and that vibes are more important than policy specifics, or maybe better put "the vibes of your policies" are more important than policy specifics.
A "tougher" DA wouldn't solve crime issues, but it reminds me of what I've read about malpractice suits, which is that bedside manner predicts the likelihood of being sued better than medical outcomes.
Couple other thoughts:
"Unlike the nation’s rightward shift in the presidential election, you cannot blame Price’s recall on poor turnout." Isn't high turnout associated with shifts to the right in our current MAGA-era political era? Progressives seem to do better in off-cycle years like 2018, 2022.
My other thought is on the regressions. It seems like you primarily looked at changes in population versus recall support. But I would have thought changes should be regressed to changes (Price's margin in 2022 vs her margin in 2024), or levels to levels (% racial groups in most recent year vs recall vote in 2024). I didn't really understand the rational for mixing changes and levels.
I'd also be curious if the racial coefficients would diminish if you could control for homeownership, education, density or what percent of voters are recent immigrations. I suspect that conditioned on those factors, various ethnic/racial gaps would mostly go away.
Reminds me of the George Lakoff piece about Trump from before his first term. Its not about racial demographics but nurture vs respect for authority family values.
The DA and reform effort discussion is literally about effective policy to reduce crime and whether or not harsher punishment is the go to answer whenever crime is up. Whether or not Price ever actually got to have that larger conversation about asking if we can examine that assumption is neither here nor there, the perception was that she was already instituting a "soft on crime" approach. This conversation fits so, so, well into the framing suggested by the esteemed professor.
https://george-lakoff.com/2016/07/23/understanding-trump-2