Interesting survey of Trump voters.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

https://www.voterstudygroup.org/reports/2016-elections/the-five-types-trump-voters
(snip)
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Introduction

The surprising rise of Donald Trump in the Republican primaries and his victory in the November 2016 presidential election defied predictions of pundits and pollsters alike. Elections observers have sought a straightforward explanation for Trump’s success, such as Rust-Belt anxieties, the plight of the white working class, racism, nativism, nationalism, authoritarianism, collective narcissism, Americanism, and so forth. Many also acknowledge that a combination of these factors may have been key.

Throughout most of the debate, however, there has been a tendency to think of Trump voters as a homogenous bloc with similar tastes and motivations. Articles with titles such as “There is No Such Thing as a Good Trump Voter” give rise to the impression that most Trump voters are driven by the same motivations and policy priorities.(i) Furthermore, the presumption has been that since Trump has belabored the immigration issue his voters must also share his immigration concerns.

Political science research has tended to use regression analysis to identify which dispositions best predict voting for Trump. These models inherently assume each Trump voter places equal weight on each policy issue measured. For example, if a model finds that immigration anxieties are highly predictive of a Trump vote, many assume this means all Trump voters are equally highly anxious about immigration. It may be, however, that some are concerned about immigration, while others are not. These models cannot distinguish between the two possibilities.

There is reason to believe that Trump voters did cast their November ballots for different reasons. The 17 candidates who competed for the Republican primary nomination remind us that when Republican primary voters had other options, many chose someone other than Trump. In the early primaries held during February and March, Trump garnered only about a third (36 percent) while a majority (64 percent) of Republican primary voters cast their ballots for Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, or one of the other candidates.(1),(ii) If Trump embodied the core values and views of the Republican Party, why didn’t he win a strong majority of their votes in the early primaries?

Trump brought home most of these other Republican voters in November, garnering about 94 percent of the Republican primary voters and 79 percent of all Republicans surveyed.

But it raises questions about the composition of the Trump vote. Should it be viewed as a homogenous bloc, or perhaps more correctly as a coalition? Do Trump voters share the same set of concerns, anxieties, and motivations, or perhaps did these voters pull the lever for Trump for different reasons?

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It's a fairly long study full of information. Here's some of the more interesting aspects of it for me:

(1) The groups most likely to be loyal to the Republicans are the "free market" and globalist types who are more focused on the economic differences between the parties -- e.g., the ones who have faith that capitalism results in fair outcomes, that government regulations aren't helpful, etc. That indicates to me that trying to appeal to them, in a neoliberal way, is pretty pointless. They like those policies when Democrats fight for them, but they'll still remain loyal to the Republicans when it's time to vote.

(2) The groups who have supported Democrats in the past, and still vote for them sometimes, are the ones who expressed the more xenophobic attitudes about race and immigration. They're also more likely to support government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, believe that climate change is real, think that the wealthy have too much influence, etc.

I still think the best approach is to pursue non-voters through messaging and registration efforts, but it's still fascinating to me that, among Trump voters, the ones who appear to be most likely to support Democrats in the future are the voters who expressed the most concern about illegal immigration and other matters related to race or culture.

Side note:
BLM is still active, obviously, but what happened to the regular coverage of their protests in the media? Are the protests somehow less "disruptive" now, or are people still blocking traffic and the like? Was it given more coverage before the election to persuade some Democrats to vote for somebody like Trump?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

1. I forgot to mention...

... that the survey also indicates that the Trump voters who expressed more xenophobic, anti-globalist views also expressed much more desire for more compromise in Washington!

It was the economic conservatives -- the anti-regulation and"free market" groups -- who want no compromise with Democrats. Mitch McConnell comes to mind for me.

It kind of surprised me because I would've guessed it was the group most fearful about race and cultural differences that would be the most obstinate.

I encourage people to read the study! It's full of data and graphs over a wide range of topics.

[underpants]

2. The huge Repub field made this possible

I think he won a couple of the first primaries with 20% of the vote.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

3. I agree. The other candidates divided up Republican voters who were...

... less concerned about illegal immigrants and economic globalization.

Since those economically conservative voters are the least likely to ever support a Democrat, Trump got most of their votes in the general election as well.

[FigTree]

4. There are two blocks.

The deplorables, bottom of the barrel, lumpen proletariat, who will go for whoever the current Hitler is no matter what. About 25%. The same number as everywhere else in the world.
The other block is made up of racists with various degrees of awareness, conviction and affiliations. About 20 to 25%.
Period.