White working-class Americans are not responsible for the election of President Trump, said a Vanderbilt researcher.
“We found that basically a third of his supporters come from the bottom half of the income distribution,” said Noam Lupu, associate professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. “It’s roughly the same as what (Mitt) Romney got in 2012. The Republican voter in this (2016) election was the typical Republican.”
Lupu and Nicolas Carnes, assistant professor at Duke University, used data from the American National Election Studies at the University of Michigan, which has conducted polls for every election since 1956. They also consulted data from NBC SurveyMonkey polls overseen by Josh Clinton, who holds the Abby and Jon Winkelried Chair at Vanderbilt.
Education was also tried as a class marker by Lupu and Carnes for their project.
“There is a relationship between education and support for Trump in the general election,” Lupu said. “People without a college degree or fewer years of education were more likely to vote for Trump. But that’s true across all income groups.”
That’s possible because many people who lack education have good incomes, Lupu said.
“There are people who don’t have college degrees, but maybe went into a family business or own a small business,” he said.
The results should hearten Democrats, Lupu said.
“One takeaway from the findings is that things are not as bad for the Democratic Party as they may seem,” he said. “And there shouldn’t be an assumption by Republican strategists that they have somehow locked in a constituency that they didn’t have before.”
Lupu and Carnes are working on a broader study to understand why so few working-class politicians are elected to office.
“Most of the representatives we elect are much more affluent than we are,” Lupu said.
The title and first line are conflicting. Working class and White working class are very different. Working class includes blacks, Asians, and other races. While Hispanics are sometimes classified as White race this is not consistent. Especially not consistent in political discussions. It is likely true that White working class did not elect Trump as all working class Americans are affected by key issue of illegal immigration.
Randy, what kind of nonsense are you spouting? Is that how you talk about your fellow Americans who voted differently from you?
I am a Democrat, and you had better believe we are ALL pro-American.
And David, if you think the opposition was so bad, why did Hillary not lose the popular vote in a landslide?
What the heck is this piece of yellow journalism doing in a “Science Blog?” Did the researcher poll the same people that predicted Hillary would win? That this fellow hasn’t figured out that polls are meaningless is a sad commentary on his academic qualifications……….which makes the conclusions of his paper worthless. White middle class working folks didn’t vote for Trump? The Democrats “should have hope”? The Democrats are Socialist/Communist losers who have been rejected by the majority Americans for their anti-American,pro-NWO anti-capitalist agenda.
What make Vanderbilt such a good authority on this piece of political jazz? It wasn’t that anybody likes Trump, its just that the opposition was even worse!