Tuesday’s CNN poll shows Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump winning the support of about two-thirds of white registered voters without a college degree. I’m sure there are some Democratic strategists out there who are tempted to say in response, “So, what else is new?” After all, in 2012, President Obama lost the white, working-class vote by 26 points, while still being comfortably re-elected.
When looking at numbers like this, however, it’s important to remember that we vote for president by state, with most of the outcomes easily predicted before the election even takes place. The focus, therefore, is always on the dozen or so swing states that remain unpredictable. Here the story gets more interesting.
The demographics of the swing states vary, and candidates win by cobbling together unique coalitions of voters. In Ohio in 2012, for example, some white working-class voters, namely those who lived in union households, were an important part of the Obama coalition. In fact, a study by Peyton M. Craighill and Scott Clement showed that union households were largely responsible for holding down the margin of Obama’s overall loss of the white working-class vote in Ohio to only 14 points. Considering how close the election was in Ohio four years ago, this was significant. Obama narrowly won the key swing state.
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