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Hence St. Patrick's day parades and White House ceremonials are one of the most important days on the US Political calendar. The English "special relationship" with the USA, on the other hand, is more of an elite and ideological thing, and thus doesn't have as much heft at the polling booths. During the Troubles, UK Diplomats regularly expressed frustration with their inability to prevent Gerry Adams et al fund-raising in the USA, and even having access to the White House.
I don't know enough about US political demographics to be definitive, but I suspect the Irish American vote was pivotal in enabling Trump win key swing States. His current net approval ratings in states he carried in 2016 are Pennsylvania (-7), Wisconsin (-13), Michigan (-12), Iowa (-12), North Carolina (-4), and Florida (0). Many of these states also have heavy concentrations of Americans claiming Irish roots:
In total 36M Americans claim Irish ancestry compared to 27M who claim English, but the English are predominately not located in Swing states. Index of Frank's Diaries
Morning Consult interactive map of survey responses (2017-2019), published with Business Insider [!], "Trump's approval rating is underwater in 8 major 2020 battleground states, and it's a troubling sign for his reelection prospects"
Let me put some useless, self-aggrandizing historicism in perspective. When, I was young and attending a venerable private day-school in Grosse Pointe Shores, MI, my 6th grade Social Studies teacher (for we now observed classroom periods in prep for high school) assigned his class of 22 personal genealogy. We were to report an oral narrative, family portraiture, and authentic or imaginary heraldic shield.
More or less, on the due date, one in 3 claimed origin by Mayflower transport and 2 in 3 descendance from Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, wholly or in part, combined at least one Cherokee antecedent. The whole junior high school cohort numbered about 300, of which I was one of 4 who fit neither pattern for reasons that should be crystal fucking clear.
I bear this in mind to this day in order to reiterate. In the decades since I'm hardly surprised to find at least two in any room, claiming a union of pilgrims with Irish and Cherokee grannies for their totems. In the absence of contradictory narratives (which the "central registry" stores), US people change wardrobe by phase of the moon and wind velocity. Which is to say, where the "Irish" are isn't on a map of this federal-republic or Andrew Jackson's grisly militias, 1812-1845 Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
In the US HH income and wealth "influences" candidates. State electoral administration proscribes "voter patterns". (When's the last time Irish-Americans litigated voting rights as a class?) HH income and wealth predicts voter preference for a candidate regardless of party affiliation or country of origin. That trait is only captured by Census and Dept. of State instruments from noncitizens/"lawfully" resident aliens. They cannot vote.
That "ancestry" map appears quite the exploit of expanded "race or ethnicity" queries first introduced to C2000 self-reporting. There's no telling if this source/"estimate" is original or derivative work product. It's been scrubbed. Rlly?
19,094,109 Americans are found mostly in the South East (people select this ancestry either as a political statement or because their pre-American [?!] ancestry is uncertain).
Self-perception of moribund "nationality", e.g. Scotch-Irish, among US persons of European persuasion is dubious. That was demonstrated quite dramatically by a 23&Me DNA population report, iirc, 2014, 2015. I shared a true story to demo: immigrant entry in the US is the basis of political status. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
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