A continuation of the Hoover Institution’s Unstable Majorities series from the 2016 election season, the first half of this essay series leads up to the November 2024 elections with general discussions of the past and present political situation, of particular interest to students and professionals in the fields of political science and political journalism. The second half continues post-election with analyses focused specifically on the 2024 elections, addressed to a wider audience. The series begins by looking back at the issues raised in 2016 that continue today.
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What About Affective Polarization?
Political commentators agree that immigration was an important issue in the 2016 elections. But in a puzzling feature among the electorate, and contrary to expectations, Trump support was strongest in rural areas where few immigrants lived. Analysis of two surveys with different questions shows that alongside immigration, the issue of gun control was equally important to voter choice, providing a partial explanation of Trump’s strength in immigrant-scarce rural areas.
Once More Unto the Breach: Is America Polarized?
Political commentators assert that American politics has become highly polarized: most people fall on the extremes and the middle has vanished. A close examination of public opinion data, however, uncovers little or no evidence of such claims. But the data show that Republicans have become more conservative and Democrats more liberal. These changes balance, leaving the overall voter distribution unchanged but the moderate middle without a home in either party.
Economic Anxiety or Cultural Backlash: Which Is Key to Trump’s Support?
After the 2016 elections, many journalists, pundits, and academics asserted that support for Donald Trump reflected not economic concerns but pathologies like racism and misogyny. Many of the empirical analyses that purportedly justified such conclusions are subject to methodological questions that received less critical examination than they should have. Given the anticipated close election involving Trump and a woman of color in 2024, these problems should be recognized so analysts do not repeat them.
Donald Trump’s election in 2016 was due in part to strong support from White working-class voters in key states. Most analyses measure social class by whether the voter has a college degree. This essay uses an alternative measure—what class voters believe they belong to. Defined this way, the White working class began moving away from the Democratic Party in the late 1960s. Trump was the beneficiary of this long-term change.
Did Gun Control Ruin Hillary Clinton’s Best Shot at the Presidency?
Political commentators agree that immigration was an important issue in the 2016 elections. But in a puzzling feature among the electorate, and contrary to expectations, Trump support was strongest in rural areas where few immigrants lived. Analysis of two surveys with different questions shows that alongside immigration, the issue of gun control was equally important to voter choice, providing a partial explanation of Trump’s strength in immigrant-scarce rural areas.
