And this time around, despite the overall white share of the electorate dropping by 2 percentage points, that was enough for Trump. While whites made up roughly 70 percent of the national electorate, more than 85 percent of Trump’s voters were white. That was very helpful in the Midwest states he flipped: Iowa (90 percent white), Ohio (80 percent white), Pennsylvania (81 percent white) and Wisconsin (86 percent white). Michigan, where Trump is currently ahead, is 75 percent white.
By contrast, only about 55 percent of Clinton’s voters were white.
That dynamic is not sustainable down the road or for other Republicans, some GOP operatives fret, noting that the share of the white vote is consistently shrinking each cycle. But the motivation to address that problem, they fear, is gone, overtaken by reveling in last week’s victories.
“The demographics of the country are very clear, and this worked this time, but is it a long-term winning strategy, setting aside rightness or wrongness?” asked one veteran conservative who helped lead the Never Trump movement. “No. I can’t imagine that. So there’s going to have to be an adjustment in that. Sooner or later, the Republican Party, if it’s going to be viable, it has to be more inclusive.”
But, the source noted, “when you win, it’s hard to argue with that.”
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