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.
Takeaways
- In recent decades political analysts have focused on race, gender and sexual identity, with less attention to social class, a long-standing cleavage in democratic polities.
- Contemporary analyses typically define class by education—whether the voter has a college degree or not. Academic survey organizations provide an alternative measure: what class voters believe they belong to.
- According to that alternative measure of class, that of self-identification, Democratic support among the White working class dropped precipitously in the late 1960s and changed little after that.
- In 2016 Donald Trump’s win was widely attributed to strong support among the White working class. Consequently, Trump should be regarded as a beneficiary of White working class defection from the Democratic Party rather than the cause.
