Donald Trump is the Republican candidate. Yes, I know — I still get goosebumps when I doubt the billionaire real estate tycoon who destroyed his rivals by tapping into a vein of the electorate that has been hurting for years: the white working class. You can see it in articles and blogs from across the political spectrum about the collapse of this demographic group that often feels the country has abandoned them. Hanna Rosin, who has contributed to publications including The Atlantic, The Washington Post and Slate, he even wrote a book titled The End of Men and the Rise of Womenwhich details how men have failed to adapt to the fresh reality: that the strength of America’s manufacturing sector is fleeting, and that factory work, which was a gateway to middle-class life, is brisk closing (via Money):
The fate of these blue-collar workers is now the center of attention in the country. The 2016 presidential election awakened their political power and changed the course of the campaign.
Their anger — which has drawn millions to the polls, especially on the Republican side — has prompted candidates to focus on manufacturing, trade and other issues critical to this slice of America. Four years ago, GOP candidate Mitt Romney ignored the 47% of Americans who don’t pay taxes. Now front-runner Donald Trump is proclaiming that he loves the “low-educated.”
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It’s tough to make a living in Scioto County these days. All but one of the shoe factories that employed thousands have disappeared. Most of the steel mills that supported middle-class families have closed. The railroad service yards that once hauled Kentucky coal and paid well have shrunk.
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Some Haverhill workers were earning $35 an hour, “which is an unbeatable rate in this region,” said Luanne Valentine, who oversees the OhioMeansJobs center in Scioto County, home to about 77,000 people.
One major problem: Many residents lack the education or training to cope in today’s economy. Only 14.4% have a college degree, compared with 25.6% statewide and 29.3% nationwide.
A generation ago, Scioto residents didn’t have to go to college to earn a decent living.
“Thirty to 40 years ago, there was a man working in a shoe factory. His wife didn’t work. They were able to raise two children,” said Steve Sturgill, executive director of Community Action, which provides workforce and social services to local residents. “That’s not the case today.”
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A family of four in Scioto County could live a comfortable, middle-class life earning $25 an hour, Sturgill said, but to earn that much, both parents typically have to work.
In low, these are the people the media supposedly says are drawn to Trump. I have no doubt that a significant portion of these people are pro-Trump; his victories in West Virginia and Indiana, strongholds of power plant workers and coal miners, are evidence of that. But are they working class? Not really—in fact, many of them are wealthier than most might suspect. The median household income of a Trump supporter is $72,000 (via FiveThirtyEight):
Donald Trump’s candidacy has been portrayed in the press as a “working class” revolt against Republican elites. There’s a grain of truth to this: Republican voters, especially Trump supporters, are unhappy with the direction of the economy. Trump voters have lower incomes than John Kasich or Marco Rubio supporters. And things have gotten so bad for the Republican “establishment” that the party may be facing an existential crisis.
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The median household income of a Trump voter in the primary is about $72,000, based on estimates from exit polls and Census Bureau data. That’s lower than the $91,000 median for Kasich voters. But it’s well above the national median household income of about $56,000. It’s also higher than the median income of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters, which is about $61,000 for both.
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The median income of Trump voters exceeded the overall state median in all 23 states, sometimes by a diminutive margin (as in New Hampshire or Missouri) but sometimes by a gigantic margin. In Florida, for example, the median household income of Trump voters was about $70,000, compared with $48,000 for the state as a whole. The differences tend to be larger in states with significant nonwhite populations, because black and Latino voters are overwhelmingly Democratic and tend to have lower incomes. In South Carolina, for example, the median household income of a Trump supporter was $72,000, while the median for a Clinton supporter was $39,000.
Ted Cruz voters have a similar median income to Trump supporters—about $73,000. Kasich supporters have a very high median income, $91,000, which exceeds $100,000 in several states. Rubio voters, not included in the table above, followed a similar pattern for Kasich voters, whose median income is $88,000.
Many of the differences reflect the fact that Republican voters are generally wealthier than Democratic voters, and that wealthier Americans are more likely to vote, especially in primaries. But while Republican turnout is up significantly from four years ago, there is no sign of particularly high turnout among “working class” or lower-income Republicans. On average, in states with exit polls both this year and Republican campaign four years agoThis year, 29 percent of Republican voters had household incomes below $50,000, up from 31 percent in 2012.
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Only 12 percent of Trump voters have incomes below $30,000, if we take into account that Clinton has more votes than Trump in totalThis means that about twice as many low-income voters have voted for Clinton this year as for Trump.
But let’s look at that $72,000 figure again. Trump’s core supporters may be peppered with working-class voters, but he seems to be attracting desired middle class. So in a sense, Trump could be competing with the same class that Democrats love to portray to the masses as the people they are sworn to protect from Republicans, Wall Street, and special interests, despite the fact that the latter two groups are just as (if not more) committed to the Democrats than the GOP.
So Trump could be fighting Clinton for the title of “middle/working class hero.” We all know that coal miners probably don’t like Clinton. Rust Belt states hate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was signed under President Bill Clinton, although the criticism that it was a job killer is exaggerated. Nevertheless, these voters’ perception of NAFTA is the opposite — and that’s not changing. Hillary was for the agreement before she decided to oppose it. She also changed her mind about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is also opposed by most in the Democratic Party, including labor unions.
Former Obama green jobs czar and unabashed leftist Van Jones said the Rust Belt could be prime territory for Trump, as its states remain in the blue wall “by a thread.” If Trump can expand and win Michigan, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, he will become president. Right now, aside from Michigan, Trump is running neck and neck with Hillary in those key swing states.
From here, anything can happen. Trump has proven to be a master at controlling the media. He has had it all around him since the beginning of his campaign, earning $2 billion in free media. Hillary either heads to the bunker or ignores it entirely, which can be a fatal mistake. Trump’s fans are die-hards, never abandoning him for his outrageous behavior. He also makes no apologies for anything, and he will be observable to the masses and the news media. At a time when stories from the 2016 campaign are key, even those that are consists entirely of anonymous sourcesTrump will always have some rally or event within reach that will give him the opportunity to repeatedly attack Clinton.
Jones and former Democratic strategist (and Clinton adviser) Paul Begala know there’s a highway Trump can take to victory in November—and it centers on the Rust Belt. The longer Democrats remain divided, the more time he has to soften up the opposition. The cycle is unpredictable. So far, media stories that would have ended most campaigns have bounced off him like Old Ironsides. He’s the real Teflon Don.
So while Trump’s core support may be more solidly middle-class, that’s still no disadvantage for him. In fact, it may be an advantage. Middle-class and rural voters are ill and tired. They are the first remnants of that faceless and impersonal wave of American populism that Salena Zito of Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has written about this for the past few years. Again, in this volatile political season, Trump, as she puts it, could be the beginning of a fresh era of populism or a terrifying right-wing identity policy version:
Trump’s ideology-free message appeals to them because they believe that both the far right and the far left have given them nothing in return for the support they have given them over the years.
In 2006, they were fed up with George W. Bush’s incompetence in Iraq and Republican overspending in Congress and threw away their majorities; in 2008, they voted for Obama in record numbers because they saw John McCain as an extension of Bush.
Two years later, they were horrified by the abuses of power by Democrats in power in the White House and Congress and threw them out; they threw out even more in 2014. To people here, Trump is not just some billionaire; he is someone who has been in their living rooms every week for more than a decade. His promise of American renewal and anti-establishment populism resonates despite his success, not because of it.
The voters who delivered the first truly populist election since 1896 are the same people the mainstream media likes to portray as less educated, less affluent, less likely to vote than their urban cousins—and yet, for the first time in generations, they have taken center stage and stunned cosmopolitan America.
Is Trump the End of Populism in American Politics? Will He and His Movement Be Voted Out in November?
Or is it possible that, regardless of the outcome, Trump is just the beginning of a fresh, anti-elite politics that threatens to destroy the foundations of both political parties?
Of course, this could simply devolve into some white working-class identity politics, another opponent of “inclusivity,” another of the many “victim” groups that have arisen in the Obama era.
This could be a really fascinating ride.
