Nothing might be more important in the Trump era than the realignment that’s taking place by education, particularly among white voters.
Almost nothing now is a better predictor of how white voters will vote than whether or not they have a college degree. White voters with college degrees had long been reliably Republican voters. But that has changed. Biden won them narrowly in 2020 after Trump won them in 2016.
Polling suggests Democrats’ advantage with them could be even wider with them in this election.
In 2016, Trump won white voters with degrees in five of the seven most closely watched states this year.
But in 2020, Biden won over that group in six of seven.
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The opposite trend is happening among white voters without college degrees. They are especially important in the Blue Wall states, where they are still a majority of the electorate. Democrats had advantages with blue-collar white voters, particularly in the Upper Midwest, but that’s changed, and they are a heavily pro-Trump group now.
Trump needs to drive up the margins with white, non-college voters to win. In 2020, Biden cut into Trump’s margins with the group in six of the seven states. The only exception was North Carolina, and Trump won that state.
Vice President Harris has made “losing by less” a key part of her campaign strategy. She’ll need to do it to win.
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