Not to pick on them, I’m just curious as to people’s guesses as to why according to this poll, comparing it to the 2016 exit polls, both college educated men and women are moving to the left for the 2020 election and non-college women are also moving to the left, but non-college men are not.
Compare that to the 2016 exit polls.
Comparing the Dem vs GOP margin of the vote of 2016 vs 2020:
White college grad women +26% for the dems
White college grad men +19% for the dems
White non college grad women +33% for the dems
White non college grad men almost no change
White women w/o college went from 34% for the dem in 2016 to 49% for the dem in 2020. White men w/o college went from 23% to 22%.
Meanwhile white men with college went from 39% for the Dem in 2016 to 49% in 2020.
So what makes white men w/o college an outlier? I can understand women moving to the left with all the anti-abortion laws, but those were happening before 2016 too. White men w/o college are the only group that supports Trump more.
But you’d assume some of those college educated white men and white women voted Trump due to identity politics, as well as some of the non-college white women.
So all 4 demographic groups have voters motivated by identity politics, But only white men without college aren’t moving away from Trump
I’d guess that it’s because the conditions that led them to vote for Trump in 2016 are still in place and haven’t changed. If a non-college-educated white man felt that his status as a white man was imperiled by liberalism or foreign immigration, those conditions are still there - nothing has happened between 2016-2019 to make such a person feel less threatened by liberalism or non-white immigration. If he’s still watching the same news networks - Fox, Breitbart, etc - or perhaps CNN, MSNBC, etc. - little has changed on those networks that should change his opinion. Chances are, he’s still doing the same work, earning the same pay as before. Nobody has adequately convinced him why he should *not *vote Trump.
But aren’t high school educated women also prone to these forms of identity politics? Identity politics isn’t restricted to white men w/o college, they are just one of the demographics who subscribe to it most.
High school educated white women and college educated white men moved to the left. Lots of college educated white men feel their status is under threat, as do a lot of high school educated white women.
Lots of high school educated white women get their news from fox and brietbart.
The education gap among white men is now 50 points towards the dems, It has narrowed to 27 points among white women. It was 34 points for both genders in 2016. The education gap grew among white men and shrank among white women.
There are college grads driving trucks; there are college grads who are unemployed. The strong correlation is with education (or something education is a proxy for), NOT with income or occupation. Contrary to what you might expect, the D-R split is about the same at different income levels.
And I doubt if the key difference with the college degree is recollections from an economics class. I’ll guess that it’s more about mental outlook or mode of cognition. (But I will not try to develop this argument further in this thread.)
Many who usually stayed home on election day came out to vote for Trump enthusiastically. The same thing would have happened in 2008. It wasn’t economic conditions that motivated these new voters; it was their own emotional or cognitional character.
It’s well known that women tend to have very different characters of emotion and cognition and even brain physiology from men.
With the increasing prevalence of vote-by-mail and thus the loss of ballot secrecy, many wives are under pressure to vote as their husbands vote (or vice versa). Have there been any efforts to quantify that effect?
White men aren’t worried about their crotch being grabbed, white women are.
Yes, that’s a bit crude of a way to put it, but the Trump administration and Republican party have restricted abortion, access to women’s health services, made medical coverage more difficult for lower income women, quite a few Republican types are the “keep women in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant” type, Trump is disrespectful to women, especially women who disagree with him, and so on. These things matter more to women (of any color or income) than to white men without college.
I think those that went to college had more experience with people from diverse backgrounds, both at college and in the white collar workplace. More familiarity translates to less fear and less hatred, so the Republican incitements of racial hatred don’t resonate as well with the college educated.
The NC election results reinforce that Trumpism continues to resonate with a rural base and is losing more and more elsewhere. The bit beyond that in this poll is the non-college white women. Are they less overweighted to rural?
Can you elaborate on this? Multiple Democratic candidates are talking about issues that would improve the lives of working class people without higher degrees. Modernizing the minimum wage and reforming healthcare are examples.
Trump panders to non-college educated white men by pitting them against minorities, immigrants, and overeducated “elites”. He also promises them pipe dreams like bringing back coal. You’re right that no Dems are trying to reach them using these particular strategies, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying to reach them at all, come on.
Armchair psychology: Men are more stubborn than women when it comes to admitting they’re wrong. Men who voted for Trump in 2016 are more likely to stand by (and repeat) that decision, while many women may have decided they’ve had enough of the buffoon.
I’m not sure what drives the change with the college-educated white men and women, other than that college education tends to make people shift left (or be more amenable to being persuaded left) and women have more reason to vote D than R in general.
But with the non-college-educated white men, it’s what **DSeid **said: There’s no viable alternative candidate for them. No serious Republican primary challenger has emerged. And which Democrat would align more closely with their views than Trump? Even the most moderate D in the race, Biden, is still further from their views than Trump.
This only makes sense if non-college educated white men are uniquely and inherently unable to see that Trump is bad for them. What about Biden or Sanders makes them less “viable” to them than Trump?
This begs the question. How do you know Trump is bad for non-college-educated white men, or why should or would non-college-educated white men (NCEWM, I think we need an acronymn by this point,) feel that he is?
The same way I know he’s bad for the country as a whole?
But specific to NCEWM (thanks for the idea), you’d think they would be concerned about the increase in manufacturing job layoffs, which certainly isn’t being helped by our current trade war.
A better question is how has Trump been good for NCEWM?
He’s been good for people who place a high value on angering liberals and hurting immigrants and migrants. I think we’re learning that a significant number of white people in America value these things very, very highly.
The layoffs do sound like something that NCEWM shouldn’t be happy about. But there are other, less tangible factors that make NCEWM go for Trump. Identity politics, an opposition to feminism, opposition to Islam, dislike of illegal immigration, cultural resentment, etc. etc.
It seems that one big assumption of many Democrats (not you, necessarily, but many D’s) is that voters are only motivated by facts and practical things, and not emotions. Many Democrats were baffled as to why Trump won (“How come? Hillary has far more experience, knowledge and competence…”) or why rural Americans “vote against their own interests.” They’re only looking at practical things and not at the psychological factors; humans aren’t robots. A NCEWM may very well say, “Trump might not be good for my job or income right now, but I dislike the liberals/SJWs/feminists/LGBT/coastal elites/Hollywood/MSM so much that I’m willing to screw myself over a little bit if they get screwed over more.” Feelings play a huge deal in politics.
WTF?