But veterans are not a monolithic group. And polls of veterans may be overrepresented by older veterans who tend to be more conservative. Younger veterans do not necessarily vote the same way, nor do current active-duty service members.
As for currently serving active-duty service members, the most recent polling I can find is from 2020, which showed that Trump was viewed unfavorably by half of the military service members polled (including 42% who had a “very unfavorable” view)—far more than those who had a favorable view—and that Biden had a 4% projected margin over Trump in the election.
Frankly, with the way that Trump treats veterans and denigrates military service, I really don’t understand how the majority of veterans can support him and the Republican Party today.
Vets use to skew Republican as for an fairly long time they were the party of the Hawks. This lasted until Trump. In the 1930s they were more isolationist, but not really any vets left from then. We’re running low on WWII and Korean War vets now.
So Republicans at least appeared to be Pro-Military. Love him or hate him, Reagan was actually very pro-Military and did a very large peace-time buildup and morale improve during his time. I don’t believe Papa Bush did anything to hurt this and might have improved it even more.
Why today’s Vet support Trump might have more to do with their perception of his opponents. I don’t believe Clinton or Harris did well with vets. I thought Biden was better received though.
Demographics of the services: US Army is 56% Non-Hispanic White & 84% Male, Trump does well with this demographic.
US Navy: it looks like the Navy is only 37% Non-Hispanic White & 78% Male. So the Navy is not really his demographic.
US Marines: is 75.5% Non-Hispanic White & 90.6% Male, so really the Trump demographic.
US Air Force: is 70% Non-Hispanic White & 76% Male, Trump does well with this demographic.
I would strongly suspect Trump has fairly strong support with the Army & Marines, I suspected that before checking the demographics.
I would wonder if the skew is partly simply also from where troops often originate from. IIRC, Southern states, especially Georgia, often have significantly higher enlistment rates than other states. One would expect the South to lean Republican.
My hypothesis is that the enlisted tend to skew Republican and the officers Democratic, based mostly on the fact that officers are more educated.
ETA: I also have the hypothesis that this likely translates to those officers of higher ranks skewing more Democratic. The generals are probably more D than the colonels, who are in turn more D than the lieutenants. Again no hard numbers, just my impression.
My own personal experience as an Army “brat” for most of my childhood was that most military service members did generally tend to support the GOP. Growing up in the 1970s, Congress was controlled by the Democrats, and they always seemed to want to cut military budgets—which affected pay and benefits. Despite my father being an Army physician and stepfather being a commissioned officer as well, we grew up in near-poverty—or at least lower middle-class. Enlisted folks were in even worse shape—especially those with families—with many of them on food stamps.
Then Reagan came along, promising to improve pay and benefits, and our family’s standard of living increased markedly.
Reagan also did indeed conduct a large build-up of the military, including aiming for a “600-ship Navy.” This resulted in a lot of opportunities for me when I joined Navy ROTC in college.
George H.W. Bush (a decorated WWII veteran) continued Reagan’s policies for a while, and did a really good job in the first Gulf War by putting together a coalition and keeping the war limited in scope by defending Kuwait and not invading Iraq. But then, as the Cold War ended in 1991 (right as I graduated from college), there were sharp reductions in force strength.
This TIME article is from 13 years ago, so I have no idea if it’s still accurate. But it quotes a sergeant who says that officers actually are more conservative than the enlisted.
This veteran/retiree is left of moderate. When I was active, I only recall a couple of political discussions in my 20+ years. Most of the enlisted folks had no interest in what went on in Washington and I suspect few of them even voted. Can’t speak to today’s military.
The notion that conservatives are selfish people is one of the most stupidest statements I have ever heard.
Selfish people don’t work in inner cities. Selfish people don’t fight in wars, run into burning buildings.
First responders tend to be Republican-leaning. It’s why they tend to commemorate 9/11 with more emotion. Now, that does not mean that all of them are Republican. But they tend to be Republican-leaning, especially White and Latino men.
Right, traditionally officers have tended to be more conservative than enlisted—likely because the enlisted ranks have tended to be more racially and ethnically diverse than the officer corps, with a higher representation of Black and Hispanic service members in the enlisted ranks and a lower representation among officers.
But in recent years with respect to presidential politics, I’m also of the opinion that support for Trump has a strong inverse correlation with educational achievement, and officers tend to be more educated than enlisted.
Also, “opposing Trump” does not necessarily = “liberal.” I would imagine many officers are anti-Trump conservatives, the Reagan Conservatives, who hold conservative views on most political issues but can see that Trump is bad for the military, not good.
This. My above statements are definitely about the present day. If the question was about which group supported JFK or Richard Nixon back in 1960, then yeah, it makes sense the enlisted would have favored Kennedy and the officers Nixon. But my guess is that has shifted a lot in the last 10 years.
Hence why veterans tend to be Republican-leaning. The 1960s was the turning point for America, not the times we live in today.
Republicans are seen as bigots because of the embrace of the Southern strategy.
While Democrats are seen as antimilitary because of the Vietnam protests. The image has seared with a lot of generations. Bill Clinton was reviled in the military in the 90s.
For some reason, Barack and Michelle Obama was liked in the military. Surprising since a lot of white military members join the police force and stop and frisk minorities in inner cities with glee.
Biden was liked in the military as well because he has a history of working with them and his son served.
You’re making some broad brush strokes here that don’t hold water, in my opinion.
One of the reasons I stopped supporting the Republicans was the fact that starting in the ‘90s with Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform group, it became apparent to me that Republican had no real governing principles other than cutting taxes—in all cases, and especially for the rich. Times are bad, cut taxes. Times are good, cut taxes. Also no interest in paying off the national debt even when times are good. The presence of the national debt was used solely as a cudgel to reduce spending on everything but the military.
Reagan demonized government, and the Republicans that followed him took this to an extreme.
I don’t like fraud, waste, and abuse any more than anyone else, but at some point you start cutting programs to the bone that help people’s health, the environment, the poor and disabled, or that fund research that have historically created far more returns than they cost the taxpayer.
Anybody whose mantra is to avoid paying taxes above all else can only be described as selfish—especially if they are rich and can easily afford to help make things better for those less well off.
Finally, I’m a veteran and a volunteer leader with Scouts. I leaned conservative once but not today. I think modern conservatism is basically an excuse to justify selfishness.