The Relentless Shrinking of Trump's Base

N.Y. Times, Oct. 22, 2020
- By Ford Fessenden and Lazaro Gamio

In 2016, Donald J. Trump confounded the polls in part by generating an unanticipated level of enthusiasm and turnout from a group that had grown increasingly apathetic about elections: white voters without college degrees.

But in 2020, Mr. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. face a drastically changed electorate. The cohort of non-college-educated white voters — who gave Mr. Trump just enough of a margin to win the election in 2016 — has been in a long-term decline, while both minority voters and white college-educated voters have steadily increased.

(snip)

Shifts in swing states
If Mr. Trump is to be successful turning out new voters, there are plenty in swing states, which remain bastions of the non-college-educated white vote. But most of these states have also been undergoing the same changes in the electorate as the country as a whole.

Even in battlegrounds, a decline in white voters without college degrees.
A graphic depicting the 40-year trajectory of the composition of the electorate -- divided by a) Minority voters, b) White voters with college degrees, and c) White voters with no college degrees -- shows that in each of the following states, the number of white voters without college degrees has been steadily declining (even since 2016), while the number of minority voters, as well as white voters with college degrees, has been trending upward: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Arizona. (Sorry - can't link to the graphics in this article.)

There's a lot more encouraging statistical information in the article -- well worth your time.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/22/us/politics/trump-voters-demographics.html

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3 replies	Author	Time	Post
The Relentless Shrinking of Trump's Base (Original post)	klook	Oct 2020	OP
This must be why they're bringing Tony somebody-or-other to the debate	EarlG	Oct 2020	#1
Ha! I remember him!	klook	Oct 2020	#3
Plus the polling companies have adjusted their sample balancing to account better for education. nt	Bernardo de La Paz	Oct 2020	#2