In a detailed analysis of the geography of Donald Trump’s vote, Neil Irwin and Josh Katz of the New York Times recently wrote that geographic pockets of unhyphenated Americans — whites who define their ancestry to be “American” rather than a specific European heritage — “turn out to be the places Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has performed the strongest.” …
Understanding voting patterns in regions with concentrations of unhyphenated Americans helps explain the results of the 2008 election and other recent elections. And as Irwin and Katz correctly noted, these regions are distinct again this year; they are breaking toward Trump. …
But are whites’ feelings of “American” ancestry why they support Trump, or is it just that Trump does well generally among downscale and rural voters? To find out, we ran a model that tests them together, using election results and county-level census data on American ethnic identity, socioeconomic status, race, religion, immigrant status and age. CONT.
Brian Arbour (John Jay College) & Jeremy Teigen (Ramapo College), The Monkey Cage