In advance of the Crucial© California Primary, a spate of polls (polls always come out in spates) are coming out telling you how you feel and what you believe.
These polls measure the usual things, like whether Hillary Clinton will beat Sen. Bernie Sanders, or Donald Trump will defeat science, reason, the original intent of the Founding Fathers and linear thought. Those races are rated too close to call.
We also have a U.S. Senate race, congressional races and the usual spate (I am really liking this word) of down-ballot races, such as Yuba County Water District Division 2 director (and please, if you are the incumbent Yuba County Water District Division 2 director, don’t email me describing how vital your job is to the future of democracy. I know it’s vital, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it).
I don’t want a spate of emails. Or a flood.
In polling, there is something called a “crosstab,” or a cross-tabulation, which breaks down a result by demographic group. These fascinate me, not because I am clearly a person who is easily fascinated by things, such as words like “spate,” but also because the crosstabs tell the whole story about what’s going to happen and why in an election.
For example, Trump has, in his words, very, very bad, tremendously bad, unbelievably bad crosstabs.
I was just flipping through some of the crosstabs in California, and I see that in a fall matchup, Trump is leading Clinton 67 to 33 percent among White Men Aged 80-85 Who Think Things Were Really Good in 1955 Except for the Constant Threat of Nuclear War, No Cardiac Bypass Surgery and Segregated Lunch Counters.
Clinton, in contrast, leads Trump 78 to 22 percent among White Women Aged 55-65 Who Are So Very Tired of Listening to Their Husband on the Sofa Complaining Bitterly About Their Left Knee.
When we examine the crosstabs in the Democratic primary race, Sanders leads Clinton 56 to 44 percent among Male Millenials Aged 21-25 Who Have a Tattoo of a Religious Symbol of Some Kind But They Can’t Remember What It Signifies. No surprise there.
Sanders also clobbers Clinton 86 to 14 percent among Females Aged 70-75 Who Are Almost Positive They Attended Woodstock.
Going to the spate (yes!) of races further down the ballot, the crosstabs for the U.S. Senate race are intriguing. We have Attorney General Kamala Harris, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a spate (gotcha) of former California GOP chairmen, a Republican named “Jerry Laws” (coincidence?) and Silicon Valley magnate Ron Unz, who accidentally filed for the U.S. Senate race in California instead of the one on Venus.
Among Venusians Aged 456-460, Unz leads by a whopping 79 to 21 percent over “Jerry Laws.”
The former GOP chairmen jockeying for position are leading the other candidates among Other California Former GOP Chairmen Aged 55-65 by a small 51 to 49 percent margin. As former California GOP chairmen make up 67 percent of the California GOP electorate, it’s anyone’s guess who will win.
Harris is having a tough time (57 to 43 percent) against Sanchez among California Women 45-55 Who Think It’s Time for Even More California Women to Be U.S. Senators.
Sanchez leads 58 to 42 percent among Men 35-40 Who Think National Security Issues Are Kind of Sexy, but trails Harris 60 to 40 percent among Men Who Like The Word “Spate.”
Harris and Sanchez are virtually tied among Men Who Like Saying the Name “Unz.”
Sanders and Clinton supporters also broke evenly among Men Who Like Saying the Name “Unz,” but Sanders leads among Men Who Just Can’t Seem to Finish Graduate School or Even Wear a Clean T-shirt.
Don’t get me started on Misogynists Aged 60-70.
I can’t take another spate of email love.
Jack Ohman: 916-321-1911, johman@sacbee.com, @JACKOHMAN
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