These findings are bound to encourage those who believe Democrats should focus on energizing college-educated whites and minorities, who are growing in the electorate (the latter much faster than the former). But the electoral calculation for Democrats may not be that simple. For one thing, working-class whites receded last November only partly because of their waning share of the eligible voting population. They also declined because turnout in 2018, compared with 2014, surged among minorities and college-educated whites, two groups who broke mostly against Trump and the GOP, according to network exit polls. Turnout also increased among working-class whites in comparison with the previous midterm, but not as much.
If Trump mobilizes enough of his white working-class base to narrow that turnout gap in 2020, those voters may recover somewhat as a share of the total vote. Tellingly, McDonald calculates that eligible nonvoters in 2018 split exactly in half—between whites without a college degree on one side, and minorities and college-educated whites combined on the other. That leaves essentially identical pools of nonvoters for each side to target next year.
“When we get to 2020, it does seem like Trump has a little bit of opportunity for upward movement in his core constituency,” McDonald says. “But on the other side of that, we’re likely going to see much higher levels of turnout among the Democratic coalition, younger people and persons of color, compared to 2016.”
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