An infographic on the front page of Tuesday’s Financial Times informs us that “just 3 percent of [Trump or Clinton] voters expect their spouse or partner” will vote for a different presidential candidate than they will.
On the face of it, this would seem to be good news for Donald Trump. A plethora of news stories have suggested that in the wake of the release of the “locker room talk” video, Republican women have been abandoning their party’s nominee in droves. But this bit of information (gleaned from Pew survey data) suggests the opposite. Thanks to decades of assortative mating and the country’s ongoing Big Sort, most Republicans are married to other Republicans. If only 3 percent of these households are splitting their tickets, Trump should clean up among GOP-leaning ladies.
There are, however, a couple of other possibilities. Perhaps Americans aren’t discussing politics with their spouses, so these people are simply mistaken about who their partner is supporting. Or, maybe many Americans are in fact lying to their significant other about who they’ll vote for. In that case, the news may not be good for Donald Trump—or for marriage in America.
