Economic Anxiety or Cultural Backlash: Which Is Key to Trump’s Support? (Morris P. Fiorina)

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Given that 85–90 percent of Trump’s (and Clinton’s) vote came from partisans—people who nearly always vote Republican or Democrat—claims like these applied to the behavior of a relatively small proportion of the electorate, although one residing disproportionately in states critical for the outcome.7 In particular, among other factors, the 2016 outcome hinged on support for Trump by White non-college-educated voters who had previously voted Democratic, as well as the surge in turnout of such people in the same areas.8 My impression is that commentators somewhat sympathetic to Trump’s supporters were more partial to economic explanations, whereas those dismayed and disgusted by Trump’s election favored the claim that his voters simply were “deplorables.”9 Any such association was far from perfect, however; note that all the preceding quotations are from commentators on the political left.

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