White Voters Without A Degree Remained Staunchly Republican In 2018

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Since the election, we’ve made it our mission here at FiveThirtyEight to uncover the variables that best explain why things shook out the way they did. We’ve already shown you the strong correlation between partisanship and U.S. House results. We have also pointed out how Republicans won a huge share of rural seats, while Democrats won every single urban seat and many, many suburban seats. Today, we’re taking a look at how well educational attainment predicted the 2018 House results, especially among non-Hispanic white voters.

In 2016, educational divides emerged as one of the top explanations of voters’ choices: White voters without a bachelor’s degree made up the Republican base, while a coalition of nonwhite voters and white college graduates formed the Democratic base. The 2018 midterms seemed to continue what we saw in 2016: Districts with bigger black populations, Hispanic populations or college-educated non-Hispanic white populations tended to vote more Democratic, while non-college-educated white voters remained strongly loyal to the GOP. We found a clear negative relationship (R = -0.72) between the Democratic margin of victory in a district and the share of the district’s population age 25 or older who are non-Hispanic white and lack a bachelor’s degree — a group that pundits often call the “white working class.”



As we noted, this trend was already evident in 2016. Indeed, a district’s share of non-Hispanic whites without a bachelor’s degree was slightly more predictive of how it voted in the 2016 presidential election than in the 2018 U.S. House election: The correlation coefficient between Hillary Clinton’s vote margin and the percentage of the district that was white people without a bachelor’s degree was -0.79 in 2016, compared with -0.72 in 2018.



However, the relationship was less pronounced in the 2012 presidential election — the correlation was weaker (R = -0.64) and the partisan gulf was smaller between districts that had a high percentage of white voters without a degree and districts where that percentage was lower.2 Put another way, the new demographic coalitions in the Democratic and Republican parties had not yet fully coalesced.



https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/white-voters-without-a-degree-remained-staunchly-republican-in-2018/

[AJT]

1. "I love the uneducated"

[CTyankee]

2. What is the reason for this? I can't figure it out entirely. Why would these people want

a blowhard with lots of money (and brags about it) appeal to these voters?
Any polls done on why?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. Fox and Limbaugh

[CTyankee]

5. Yeah, that makes sense...that and class envy...

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. conditioning propaganda

The propaganda machine has been ceaseless and relentless for decades, with Limbaugh preceding Fox and Friends. People who get all their news via AM radio and Fox are not going to believe any other source. That's part of the cult indoctrination -- every day has an implicit or explicit warning about what the others won't tell you.

It makes sense, to me, that susceptibility to that programming decreases with education, exposure to diversity, or economic standard of living. I don't have numbers to back up that guess, though.

[Yavin4]

4. Listen to Chris Hayes' podcast, "Why is this Happening"

In particular these two episodes:

1. White Identity politics with Michael Tesler
2. Our Real Estate Obsession with Giorgio Angelini

Link: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/msnbc/why-is-this-happening

In sum, what Trump voters really want is big government spending only on them, no one else. After WWII, the FHA engaged in racist, discriminatory practices which created a White middle class but left African Americans in poverty. That's what they want in a nutshell. That's what MAGA is all about. Big government for me, not for thee.

[Wellstone ruled]

12. Best description yet.

the last paragraph tells the real story. One only has to live with or in that identified group to truly see how it came about. They truly believe the MAGA crap.

[djg21]

6. Dumbfucks and racists.

Needn’t say more.

[Blue_true]

8. They see the con artist as successful.

I have had those people do repairs on machinery or deliver machinery. They are hard working and generally living hand to mouth. They always complain about people living off the government, yet when challenged, they can't come up with any concrete cases wher that is true.

[DesertDawg]

9. You have to go to the root

Of that demographics issues to understand the reasoning. The White American middle and lower middle class supporting the Orange Goblin have the same issues as everyone else in America: They are overworked. Their paychecks are shrinking. Their jobs are leaving the country. They are losing what little they have.

In 2012 the GOP reached their peak of arrogance, running Mitt Romney who epitomizes the phrase "Fortunate Son." They ran one of the people responsible for Americas problems including lower and middle White Americas problems. It failed and they had to go back to the drawing board. They realized they needed a hook to get people back on board. So, they hired Drumpf.

These people support him out of desperation. They wanted answers for why America is how it is outside of "muh taxes need cut." Drumpf arrived and promised he would bring their jobs back, better than before. Would bring back high wages, and introduce low cost healthcare. Would bring back warehousing, coal and construction. You know, the type of jobs White Americans without College Education go into. He put a face on the reason why and deflected the anger from Wal Street to the Latino landscapers and janitors making $5 an hour with zero power for anything in America.

Like I said, it worked and they are desperately clinging to their hope that Drumpf will take on Wall St, bring back medium wage labor jobs and kick out the foreigners with funny last names. Most I have spoken with KNOW he is a liar and piece of shit, they just refuse to admit he deceived them and the jobs and money aren't coming back.

[rickford66]

10. A college degree essentially improves the ability to think.

And after that most of us realize how little we know. The Dunning-Kruger Effect says it all.

[violetpastille]

11. A college degree is most useful for most Americans as a way

of getting out of their towns and involved with other kinds of people and other kinds of ideas than they ones they have been brought up with.


Living abroad for a good amount of time, best done in a non-Western country is even BETTER at teaching Americans that we are not the center and the answer and the all and the everything.