The Democrats’ Last Line of Defense Crumbles: Trump Makes Gains Among Working-Class Voters
Despite President Biden’s efforts to court working-class voters, Donald Trump made significant gains among union members without a college degree in the recent presidential election. According to exit polls and the AP VoteCast survey, Trump ran up large margins among White voters without a college degree who belong to labor unions, and also improved among unionized non-White workers without advanced education.
Labor unions, which have traditionally been a strong vehicle for Democrats to reach blue-collar voters, were unable to prevent Trump’s gains. Even organized labor, with its ability to communicate with members intensively and begin from a position of greater trust, could not arrest the drift toward Trump among workers without a college degree.
The results highlight the magnitude of the challenge Democrats face in regaining ground with the broader universe of working-class voters who don’t belong to unions. Trump’s success with non-college union members and working-class voters more broadly came despite the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to recover these voters, including a systematic strategy to bolster unions and workers.
The exit polls found that Harris lost ground among union households, winning by only 8 percentage points, compared to Biden’s 16-point advantage in 2020. Harris also lost ground among union members without a college degree, with Trump performing better among this group than among college-educated union members.
The results underscore the continued impact of educational polarization within union ranks, which has reconfigured the broader electorate since Trump’s emergence as the GOP’s leader in 2016. Trump performed strongly among unionized non-college workers, winning by 62% to 36% among White voters without a college degree in union households.
Union officials acknowledge that Trump ran very strongly among private sector union members, while Harris led more comfortably among those in the public sector. The results also suggest that the economy was a major factor in Trump’s success, with concern about inflation and cultural change also playing a significant role.
The challenge for Democrats is to find a way to reconnect with working-class voters who have been drifting away from the party. Biden’s efforts to promote unions and create non-college jobs were seen as positive, but his failure to acknowledge the pain of inflation and the cost of living may have hurt his ability to connect with these voters. Harris’s shift in emphasis toward acknowledging the pain of inflation was seen as valuable, but came too late to change the outcome.
For union leaders and Democratic elected officials, addressing the reasons for Trump’s gains with working-class voters is a top priority. The education divide in support for Harris and Trump reflects a larger divergence, with Democrats running better among voters who rely on conventional news sources for their information. Addressing this divide will require a deeper understanding of the ways in which voters access and trust information.
