For at least the last two election cycles, Republicans have suffered a presidential empathy gap. Exit polls from 2008 found that among voters who identified “cares about people” as the quality they found most important in a candidate, 74 percent voted for Barack Obama and just 24 percent for John McCain.
In 2012, Obama expanded that 50-point gap to 63 points. GOP nominee Mitt Romney trounced Obama among voters who valued a candidate who “shares my values,” is a “strong leader” and has “a vision for the future.” But Obama won the empathy vote 81-18 percent. For all of Romney’s strengths, he just couldn’t convince people that he cared about them.
This year, Donald Trump narrowed the Republican empathy gap. Trump won 35 percent of the 15 percent of voters who listed “cares about me” as the most important quality. Clinton won 58 percent.
How to explain Trump’s improved performance? Part of it no doubt has to do with Hillary Clinton’s deficiencies. Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, had a special ability to convince Americans hurt by recession that he could “feel their pain.”
Then there was Obama, who wrote in The Audacity of Hope that a “sense of empathy is at the heart of my moral code.” And for eight years, Obama talked constantly about having empathy for various groups — gays, illegal immigrants, the poor, etc. Clinton just can’t connect with people in the same way.
But part of it may have to do with Trump’s ability to evince compassion. This may seem ironic, since he has been portrayed as, and on many occasions proved himself to be, a cruel and uncompassionate man. But Trump has also shown quite a bit of empathy for certain groups, particularly the “poorly educated” working class.
The thing about empathy is that sometimes it can seem like a zero-sum game: When you’re focused on empathizing with one group it often comes at the expense of another.
For example, a politician might cite empathy as his motivation for supporting the legalization of undocumented immigrants. But that empathy might come at the expense of others, say American workers who are put out of jobs by illegal immigrants or legal immigrants who followed the law and waited years before becoming legal.
Empathy for the young unwed mother who wants an abortion might come at the expense of empathy of the child who is killed in that act.
True empathy requires considering how policies affect all people. That Trump narrowed the empathy gap reflects that he is speaking for people who for a long time have been without a champion, and who appreciate finally having found one.
Daniel Allott is deputy commentary editor for the Washington Examiner
