Polling-data: Most Trump-voters were not working-class. They were from the economic upper half.

[DetlefK]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/05/its-time-to-bust-the-myth-most-trump-voters-were-not-working-class/?utm_term=.4409e1ac7e25

For example, a March 2016 NBC survey that we analyzed showed that only a third of Trump supporters had household incomes at or below the national median of about $50,000. Another third made $50,000 to $100,000, and another third made $100,000 or more and that was true even when we limited the analysis to only non-Hispanic whites. If being working class means being in the bottom half of the income distribution, the vast majority of Trump supporters during the primaries were not working class.

...

And, second, although more than 70 percent of Trump supporters didn’t have college degrees, when we looked at the NBC polling data, we noticed something the pundits left out: during the primaries, about 70 percent of all Republicans didn’t have college degrees, close to the national average (71 percent according to the 2013 Census).

...

Among people who said they voted for Trump in the general election, 35 percent had household incomes under $50,000 per year (the figure was also 35 percent among non-Hispanic whites), almost exactly the percentage in NBC’s March 2016 survey. Trump’s voters weren’t overwhelmingly poor. In the general election, like the primary, about two thirds of Trump supporters came from the better-off half of the economy.

But, again, what about education? Many analysts have argued that the partisan divide between more and less educated people is bigger than ever. During the general election, 69 percent of Trump voters in the election study didn’t have college degrees. Isn’t that evidence that the working class made up most of Trump’s base?




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The key to Trump's victory was not that mystical creature, "the forgotten white worker".

[sharedvalues]

1. Wow! This turns the prescription for action on its head.

[uncle ray]

2. a household income of 100k is hardly rich. nt.

[BeekeeperInVermont]

3. Especially in some parts of the country,

but even in those places, 100K isn't really poor, either. At least not poor in the way that Trump supporters have often been pictured.

If this article is indeed true, maybe the vitriol by some on the left towards low-wage, white working class voters (rural or otherwise) in the wake of the election might just be misdirected.