a key reason Biden won Georgia is that Trump almost uniformly dove off a cliff in 2020 with voters near major military installations and Georgia (especially outside of metro Atlanta) is full of them
Lot of people on here seem to assume that the US military is basically as bad as US police when it comes to “being totally dominated by frothing MAGA freaks.”
This is absolutely NOT the case.
I know military voters aren’t a monolith, but I wonder, broadly, how their support for Biden has been affected by his handling of Israel/Gaza, Ukraine, the Afghanistan withdrawal, & of his choice to keep our military out of foreign wars/combat.
I’ve had this discussion many times with students who are active military: They were, across the board, horrified and disgusted by Trump’s desire to use troops against protesters - but also, and rightfully, quick to add that democracy is in great peril if it has to rely on soldiers defying orders.
That’s not been my experience, with the military folks in my family/circle. Especially those who have previously been on deployments. (They care a lot about domestic issues, but definitely don’t have “zero” thoughts on foreign policy/wars.)
My experience is the exact opposite. Enlisted by and large don’t think about foreign policy at all it’s just part of the job. Officers is a bit more mixed but it’s still not priority.
One issue is that it’s very difficult to poll active duty service members accurately. Young and very transient. Focus on precinct results is better but you have to wait until Election Day for numbers there.
active duty military have sub-50% participation even in presidential years. absentee voters generally don't, because it's a pain in the ass and it's unclear how (or even if) your vote is counted
beyond that, their voting patterns are not closely studied, because you'd have to get permission from DOD. nobody at all wants the president to make a phone call to the secretary of defense because of something they approved
