How has Donald Trump won the support of so many working-class people? Can Democrats ever win back their support? For the last decade now, American electoral politics has revolved around these questions. Opinions on the answers abound.
Some argue support for Trump derives from workers who have been left behind by a changing economy. Others claim it is mainly the result of working-class Americans feeling fed up with political elites who seem to ignore people like them. Others argue that the problem is far more intractable because Trump has courted the love of many workers by speaking to the hate they feel toward immigrants, minority groups, and “woke” cultural change.
The truth is, all of the above help explain working-class Trumpism to some degree — but not equally, and not for everyone. In order to effectively win some workers back to the progressive side, it is necessary to understand the nuances of support for Trump.
To begin, it is important to grasp the nature of working-class support for Trump. It comes disproportionately from workers who are without a college degree, who have lower incomes, and who work blue-collar jobs. These workers are shifting away from Democrats and toward Donald Trump. In 2012, Barack Obama won 51 percent of noncollege voters. Hillary Clinton won 49 percent in 2016. Joe Biden won 48 percent in 2020. Kamala Harris won just 45 percent in 2024. Examining lower-income voters reveals an even more dramatic decline: Biden won them by 19 points; Harris won them by just 1. (A similar trend shows up among manual laborers from 2012 to 2020, but we are still waiting for analyses of how they voted in 2024.) Why are these workers in particular abandoning Democrats for Trump?
It makes sense to first rule out simple…
Auteur: Christopher Altamura
