Did Donald Trump really energize the white working class? Did Trump really infuriate the Hispanic vote? Did Hillary Clinton really win over the college-educated white vote?
These are the three questions for Election Day. They can be measured this way:
1) GOP vote of whites with no college degree compared to 2012 and past years.
2) Hispanics as a portion of the electorate (this is a function of both turnout and demographic shift) and Democratic percentage of Hispanic vote this year compared to past years.
3) What share of college-educated whites vote Republican.
Trump’s claims of electability were anchored in the Ross Perot/Pat Buchanan populist idea of turning out the “Missing White Voter,” the “Forgotten Man.” I expect some increased turnout among this population, but I don’t know how much.
Trump’s main political sin was lumping all Central and South American immigrants in with rapists, and generally exclusionary language. A liberal hope is that this can motivate Hispanics to vote against him. Early voting anecdotes backed up this suspicion. We’ll learn tonight if added Democratic Hispanic voters can drown out the rise of the working-class white voters.
Finally, I think Trump has turned off a lot of college-educated whites. He’s done this through his lewdness, his willingness to peddle conspiracy theories, his misogyny, and his tolerance of racism. This isn’t a turnout question as much as it is a swing-vote question. White-bread voters have been swing voters, trending slightly Dem-ward for decades. This election could see a huge swing.
To see if these trends are happening, exit polls won’t be sufficient. That’s why I’ll be following some precincts and counties that reflect these demographics. Stay tuned.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
