The Democrats' shifting coalition

So: what’s going on? Consistent with polling data and geographical voting patterns in special and primary elections, it appears to be the Democrats’ new best friends, white college graduates, who are answering the bell. While it’s not widely appreciated, it was really this voter group that delivered the 2020 election to the Democrats. As I noted last August:

Biden’s improvements in performance relative to Hillary Clinton in 2016—the improvements that enabled him to beat Donald Trump while Clinton lost—are almost entirely attributable to improved support among whites, especially white college-educated voters. That is, the proximate reason for Biden’s victory had little to do with the race-ethnic diversification trends highlighted by the Census.

According to Catalist data, on a national level white college voters moved over 8 margin points toward Biden in 2020 (based on the two party vote), greater than Biden’s gains among white noncollege voters (3 points) and starkly different from nonwhite voters who actually moved toward Trump.

In 2022, it appears that white college graduate voters are reporting for duty once again. These voters are less sensitive to economic problems and more likely to be moved by a social issue like abortion rights, which looms large in their world view. In short, they are the perfect voters for Democrats in the current environment.