Weird Places to Watch: TN, FL, NY, and IL
I am thinking about all the lunacy that is about to unfold on Super Tuesday and beyond. Here is a brief but not exhaustive list of weird things to think about if and when some of these votes get close. I’ll do more posts like this as I think about more.
TENNESSEE IS BIGGER AND MORE DIVERSE THAN YOU THINK.
I fully expect, at a minimum, that East Tennessee will vote wildly differently from Middle and Western Tennessee. Knoxville is the center of East Tennessee, is a college town, and is 75 percent white. Also it was the most pro-Bernie part of the state last go-round and seceded from the rest of the state during the Civil War. Totally different kingdom. Miners, labor movements, and depressing Appalachian ballads coming out of the trees. Dolly Parton is basically the God Queen here.
Nashville, in Middle Tennessee, is 63 percent white and basically a refugee camp for high-paid professionals fleeing New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.’s housing markets. Taylor Swift is the Queen Bee.
Memphis, in West Tennessee, is technically a bigger metro population but is only 29 percent white — and 69 percent black. It’s pretty much the Deep South. Forget Elvis, Three Six Mafia is the alpha dawg in modern M-Town pop-culture.
The rest of Tennessee is full of rural white people who might actually vote for Mayor Pete.
Watch Davidson County (Nashville) and Knox County (Knoxville) on election night. See if they track with Shelby County (Memphis). If they don’t, sound the alarm.
And can we talk about how this state punches way above its weight in pop-culture?
— I don’t have a position in TN yet but like Biden.
MACHINE STATES PROBABLY WON’T FIT INTO YOUR BORING DEMOGRAPHIC MODELS
From what I can tell people are basically yapping the most about how Bernie Sanders is crushing with Hispanics, Joe Biden is winning with old people and black people, and Mayor Pete is just the dream candidate for rural whites and everyone who owns a Peleton bike.
I have been saying for a bit that I think these metrics are going to be fake news-adjacent when the primary moves to New York and Illinois, where there are just giant political machines and patronage systems in place that will reward any candidate other Bernie Sanders if he/she is strong enough. If Joe Biden or Michael Bloomberg deliver on Super Tuesday, then they will be frontrunners in these states. But if their performances are more boner-killing than Star Wars: A Solo Story then count them out. That version of events will make Illinois and New York into a replay of Nevada, where the bigshot bosses lose their grip on members and the whole election gets sloppier than a prison riot.
— I am long Biden @ 7 cents in IL and short Bernie at 61 cents
— I am short Bernie @ 46 cents in NY
THE LATINO POPULATION IN FLORIDA IS CONSERVATIVE. KINDA.
Florida is a hell hole for Bernie Sanders because his strongest source of support in other states — Latinos — skews way more conservative there than in most other regions. This is due to the fact that lots of people in Florida are Cubans and Venezuelans who have actually had their sh*t wrecked by socialists like Fidel Castro. For lots of Floridians, socialism is what you call it when strangers shoot your family and burry them in a mass grave. It is not a trendy thing they have in Sweden that gives white people free health care and Ace of Base albums.
Therefore there are just way fewer Latinos who are going to take a flyer on Bernie Sanders due to the fact that he still says good stuff about Fidel Castro.
The good news for Bernie Bros is that Florida is a closed primary, so the 26 percent of Cubanos who are Independents cannot vote in the Dem Primary. The other bad news is FL is the 5th oldest state in the country. Also good luck getting AOC to stump about Israel’s “occupation” of Palestine with the massive Jewish population there. Oh and I dare you to tell me that the college kids at UF and Florida State, where Tim Tebow and Jameis Winston are absolute legends, want to vote for a 78-year-old socialist who does not not how to party.
— I am long Biden @ 67 cents in FL. Wish I had bought more and sooner.
KEENDAWG.
