The commentariat has made much of the “diploma divide” and the purported propensity of college graduates to vote for Democrats. Most of their disquisitions suggest that Republicans are by definition intellectually stunted. Ironically, serious analyses of voter behavior suggest the divide is shrinking. A Pew Research analysis of the last two midterms shows the Democrat-Republican share of college educated voters had narrowed to 52-47, a far smaller gap than in 2018. More evidence that a shift is underway involves former President Trump’s recent Iowa caucus victory, in which he dramatically outperformed his 2016 showing among college educated voters.
The “diploma divide” ain’t what is was, and never has been.
Newsweek reported, “Trump won the caucuses, the first official vote of the 2024 presidential nomination process, by garnering more than 50 percent of the votes, with exit polls showing he won support from the majority of college-educated voters who cast a ballot.” In 2016, Trump received the nod from slightly more than 2 out of 10 Iowa caucus voters. Last week he increased that ratio by more than 76 percent. According to the New York Times, Trump won a majority of the precincts “where more than 40 percent of the population has a college education.” Michael Bender got the thankless job of describing Trump’s resurgence among these college educated Republicans to the Gray Lady’s gobsmacked readers:
Even as Mr. Trump dominates Republican primary polls ahead of the Iowa caucuses on Monday, it was only a year ago that he trailed Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in some surveys — a deficit due largely to the former president’s weakness among college-educated voters. Mr. DeSantis’s advisers viewed the party’s educational divide as a potential launching point … Then came Mr. Trump’s resurgence, in which he rallied every corner of the party, including the white working class. But few cross-sections of Republicans rebounded as much as college-educated conservatives, a review of state and national polls during the past 14 months shows.
And the polls do indeed suggest that the Iowa surge in college educated Trump voters is not a fluke. As Bender points out, a recent Suffolk University/USA Today poll found that 60 percent of Republicans with a college degree support Trump. Other surveys have produced similar results, including a Fox News poll that shows 57 percent of college graduates support him. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to any experienced and objective political observer. Historically, voters with college degrees have leaned heavily Republican. As Manhattan Institute analyst Zack Goldman explains, the increase in college educated Democrats is a recent phenomenon that reflects complex demographic changes in the Democratic coalition:
In the last 15 years, the Democratic Party coalition has undergone a dramatic demographic change. The white share of the party has declined significantly. But at the same time, the whites who have remained in (or have newly aligned with) the Democratic Party are far more likely to be college educated [usually defined as over 25 with at least a Bachelor’s degree] than in the past. In 2020, for the first time on record, the college-educated white share (27.3%) of Democrats exceeded that of non-college-educated whites (25.2%). The largest Democratic majority is now made up of non-college-educated nonwhites (32.8%) and college-educated whites (27.3%).
According the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of the population with Bachelor’s degrees or higher has not risen much since 2020: “In 2020, 37.5% of people age 25 or older had at least a bachelor’s degree, and in 2022, 37.7% had a bachelor’s degree, but the difference is not statistically significant. Thus, the “highly educated” Democratic coalition about which we have heard so much is largely “the stuff on which dreams are made of,” to coin a phrase. Yet, the Pew analysis noted above does suggest that some college educated Republicans have been sitting out recent elections. This may have been an artifact of candidate quality in the midterms, discomfort with the GOP’s shift toward populism or Trump’s style. (READ MORE: The Democrats Can’t Disgorge Biden)
Whatever it was, the Iowa results may well signal that these voters have had about all they can stand of the Biden administration’s irresponsible domestic agenda and increasingly dangerous foreign policy. Combined with the President’s ever more obvious cognitive decline and the stench of corruption that emanates from the White House, college educated Republicans may yearn for those halcyon days when mean tweets constituted their worst problems. These voters aren’t dumb enough to believe the ridiculous claim that “Bidenomics” has improved the economy or that arresting one’s political opponents is somehow good for democracy. They know enough about history to understand that Trump is not Hitler.
Tomorrow provides the former President another chance to attract the GOP’s college educated voters. New Hampshire is not much like Iowa, other than the subfreezing temperatures and knee deep snow. Voters will cast ballots in a primary rather than stand around in a caucus, Trump’s lead is narrower, and the Democrats will meddle by switching registrations to vote for his remaining opponent — former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has dropped out, endorsed Trump, and described Haley’s policy agenda as “warmed-over corporatism.” This will help Trump with college educated voters, many of whom supported DeSantis. The “diploma divide” ain’t what is was, and never has been.
https://spectator.org/college-grads-for-trump/
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