This piece shows some new polling suggesting that the GOP has become the party of the working class, blue collar worker. They have gained 12 points in that cohort during the Trump years. The vast majority are white blue collar workers, but it wasn’t just them:
But the blue-collar bump spreads into other voter groups for Republicans too, including groups that are often harder for the GOP to reach. Hispanic blue-collar voters have peeled off to the Republican Party in the past 10 years.
That 13-point gain is impressive, even bigger than the growth Republicans had with blue-collar whites, and it definitely might be seen as a bright spot for the party as it tries to find a way to make inroads with the fast-growing ethnic group. For years the assumption has been that the Democrats had an inside track to winning the Hispanic vote, but maybe that’s less true than had been believed, especially among blue-collar Hispanics.
And you can even see the Republicans’ blue-collar growth among African Americans, a voter demographic that has long been deeply problematic for the GOP.
To be clear, those numbers are still very small. But considering the struggles Republicans have had wooing Black voters, even a little positive movement is something for the party to welcome. Ultimately elections are all about margins, and losing a group by 7 points fewer than the last time could pay dividends in states where the vote is close.
Together these data points suggest that GOP has not only made substantial inroads with blue-collar voters, but that the party is increasingly reliant on blue-collar voters as a key, if not the key, component of its coalition.
Ok. So why did this happen?
Political strategists often debate about the best way to win voters: Are cultural or economic appeals better? These data suggest that economic appeals might offer the Republican Party the best way to broaden its appeal. That path, however, would likely mean a retooling on policy policy approaches to make them better resonate with blue-collar voters.
What weird way to look at this. It’s obvious that the appeal is cultural. Donald Trump the billionaire, who signed the biggest tax cuts for people like himself in US history, tried to repeal health care benefits and never produced anything better, rolled back safety regulations and put an entire platoon of plutocrats in charge of the government was not an economic populist. He was a demagogue who appealed to this cohort on cultural grounds almost exclusively.
If these people were motivated on the basis of economics they would obviously vote for Democrats, who offer a far friendlier (if sometimes imperfect) economic agenda. They switched to Trump because they like Trump’s shitheel personality and the fact that he was perfectly willing to call out “the elites” they hate. It’s not about money. It’s about culture.
And you know who understands that better than anyone? Donald Trump.