… Rather than a European right-wing party, the current contest for the Republican nomination has produced a unique American phenomenon: Donald J. Trump. … The dynamic interaction of three current trends — voter anger over immigration, over offshoring and robotization, and over damage wrought by the economic meltdown of 2008 […] Read more »
New Poll May Show a Three-Way GOP Fight
The size and shape of the Republican presidential field is still shifting, but the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll suggests the remaining candidates are fighting to fill three GOP primary “lanes” – one for establishment supporters, one for social conservatives and one for the white working-class. CONT. Dante Chinni, […] Read more »
Charting Trump’s rise in the decline of the middle class
For anyone trying to understand the emergence of Donald Trump as a force in this pre-election year, the Pew Research Center this past week provided some valuable insight. There’s little doubt that what has happened to America’s middle class has helped to create the climate that has fueled Trump’s sudden […] Read more »
Trump’s Appeal Highest Among Blue-Collar Men
Donald Trump has an unusually strong appeal to blue-collar male Republicans, a group among whom his image is much more positive than among GOP men with a college degree or among Republican women regardless of their education. Ted Cruz also skews slightly more positively among blue-collar male Republicans, while Ben […] Read more »
The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground
After more than four decades of serving as the nation’s economic majority, the American middle class is now matched in number by those in the economic tiers above and below it. In early 2015, 120.8 million adults were in middle-income households, compared with 121.3 million in lower- and upper-income households […] Read more »
The Polls May Be Underestimating Trump’s Support
Donald Trump’s persistent lead in the GOP presidential-preference polls has been a great source of confusion for the chattering classes. But Trump is actually just the latest manifestation of a more global trend: Data suggests the appeal of anti-immigrant policies to working-class voters is much deeper than most American elites […] Read more »