The road to a sustainable Democratic majority—nationally, locally, and in the states—must include much higher Democratic performance with white working-class voters (those without a four-year degree). Nearly every group in the progressive infrastructure is busy figuring out how Democrats can get back to the level of support they reached with […] Read more »
Are Demographics Really Destiny for the GOP?
Despite President Trump’s magnetic appeal for working-class whites, those fiercely contested voters continued their long-term decline as a share of the national electorate in 2016, a new analysis of recent Census Bureau data shows. That continued erosion underscores the gamble Trump is taking by aligning the GOP ever more closely […] Read more »
Trump’s Cuts to SNAP and Social Security Would Hit the Rust Belt Hard
In the key Rustbelt states that tipped the 2016 election to President Trump, blue-collar white voters at the core of his constituency represent a majority of those receiving benefits from the federal income-support programs he has targeted for large cutbacks in his budget, according a new analysis conducted for The […] Read more »
White Racial Resentment Before, During Obama Years
… Our recent analysis of several indicators of racial resentment before and during the Obama administration provides evidence that racial resentment decreased among the majority of white Americans during Obama’s presidency. Republicans were the only political group who did not decrease in racial resentment — but they did not increase significantly […] Read more »
Cultural Displacement—Not Economic Hardship—More Predictive of White Working-Class Support for Trump
White working-class voters who reported feelings of cultural dislocation or favored deportation of illegal immigrants were more than three times more likely to support Trump, according to new analysis of a fall PRRI/The Atlantic survey released today. The influence of economic factors is both less powerful and more complex. CONT. […] Read more »
Why did Trump win? More whites — and fewer blacks — actually voted.
Why did Trump win — and Clinton lose — the 2016 U.S. presidential election? That’s been debated widely, to understate the case. Nominees include each campaign’s ground game, messaging, FBI Director James B. Comey’s last-minute letter to Congress, and defections from the “Obama coalition.” Here, we offer new data to […] Read more »