Tuesday, October 30, 2018

The Democrats' Culture Divide

Energized liberals, largely college-educated or beyond, have been voting in a new breed of activist Democrat-and voting out more established candidates with strong support among the party's largely minority, immigrant, Hispanic, African-American and non-college-educated base.

Energized liberals have been voting in a new breed of Democrat-and voting out more established candidates with strong support among the party's largely minority base.

According to the Pew Research Center, in 1994, voters with college degrees favored Republicans over Democrats 54 to 39; by 2017, those numbers were exactly reversed.

In 2017, David Winston, a Republican pollster, did a study of the American electorate for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, an organization of more than two dozen scholars and analysts that researches the views of voters, and he identified five distinct groupings of voters based on their policy priorities.

The left might re-litigate the 2016 Democratic presidential primary until the end of time, but one thing we do know for certain is that Bernie Sanders kept the race competitive by overwhelmingly winning younger voters, while Hillary Clinton's strength was with older voters and voters of color.

Up to a limit, social scientists say, upper-income voters will stick with Democrats even at some cost to their bank accounts.

Much as evangelical Christians voted against their economic interest to get a Supreme Court that would ban abortion, well-off Democrats will support higher taxes if it means voting for candidates who protect abortion rights, the environment and civil liberties.


https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/30/democratic-party-culture-divide-wars-working-class-blue-collar-221913

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