Hoover Institution
10/22/2024 | Press release | Archived content
The White Working Class
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.
About the Author
Morris Fiorina is a professor of political science at Stanford University and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution. He has written or edited fourteen books, most recently Who Governs? Emergency Powers in the Time of COVID. An elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, Fiorina has received career achievement awards from two sections of the American Political Science Association.
An Era of Unstable Majorities Continues
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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