Election objectors' districts are getting less white, lag in income and education, have higher 'deaths of despair'

New York Times graph; for a larger version, click on it.

"A shrinking white share of the population is a hallmark of the congressional districts held by the House Republicans who voted to challenge [Donald] Trump’s defeat, a New York Times analysis found — a pattern political scientists say shows how white fear of losing status shaped the movement to keep him in power," Michael Keller and David Kirkpatrick report for the Times.

In the districts represented by Republicans who voted to uphold objections to two states' electoral votes for Joe Biden, "The portion of white residents dropped about 35 percent more over the last three decades in those districts than in territory represented by other Republicans, the analysis found, and constituents also lagged behind in income and education. Rates of so-called deaths of despair, such as suicide, drug overdose and alcohol-related liver failure, were notably higher as well. . . . Certain districts primarily reflect either the racial or socioeconomic characteristics. But the typical objector district shows both — a fact demographers said was striking."

The 3,885-word Times story includes a few examples, including two adjoining districts in Central Appalachia that are among the nation's poorest: Kentucky's 5th, the nation's most rural and one of the least college-educated in the nation, represented by Harold Rogers, and Virginia's 9th, represented by Morgan Griffith. Of the latter, the reporters write, "Residents, roughly 90 percent of them white, gripe that the educated elites of the Northern Virginia suburbs think that 'the state stops at Roanoke.' They take umbrage at what they consider condescension from outsiders who view their communities as poverty-stricken, and they bemoan Ph.D. pollution' from the big local university, Virginia Tech. After a long history of broken government promises, many said in interviews they had lost faith in the political process and public institutions — in almost everyone but Mr. Trump, who they said championed their cause."

In Christiansburg, near Virginia Tech, restaurant owner Marie March told the Times that she embodied “the mind-set of the Trump MAGA voter. You feel like you’re the underdog and you don’t get a fair shake, so you look for people that are going to shake it up. We don’t feel like we’ve had a voice” in disputing the election results. Griffith wouldn't talk to the Times, but Frank Kilgore, a lawyer-lobbyist and local historian who identifies as an independent, said “Morgan heard it more and more from his base,” and local Republican leaders “said they thought it was stolen, too,” which suggested he might get a primary challenge if he voted to accept the results. "Constituents circulated a petition demanding that he fight Mr. Trump’s loss," the Times reports.