Will Trump's performance among working class voters be enough?

[Senator-elect Spark]

Trump will probably get the working class people that voted for Obama in 2012, and has the potential to create "Trump Democrats" in places like MI, PA, & OH, not to mention the peeling off of working class AAs. The Obama coalition (Young people, Hispanics, AAs, and Independents) will most likely not hold up for Hillary Clinton. Trump is ahead with Independent voters, and young people will most likely vote for a third party. African-American turnout probably will be lower in 2016, dropping to around 60% since Obama is not on the ticket. She won't generate much excitement for Hispanics to turnout for her, the only incentive for them would be to vote against Trump. That will hurt him in places like CO, AZ, & NV. FL does not have many Mexican Americans. Instead, it has Puerto Ricans which will go heavily D. He will lose with college-educated voters, Hispanics, AAs, & single women, he does have a chance to win married women. He can get some Bernie voters, but Hillary has consolidated most of his supporters (near 90%). He needs to target the Rust Belt which is the Industrial heartland in order to win the presidency, and will perform better along the Northeast than typical Republicans. In the end, his appeal to working class voters and outreach to minorities, specifically some African-Americans, will depend on his performance. Opinions are welcome.

[OwlRhetoric]

It's key to his strategy for sure. I don't know if it will be enough, but I hope so.

[Gass3268]

No

Minorities + College Educated Whites > White Working Class

[All Along The Watchtower]

I posted this on AAD and it seems relevant here so...yeah.

"I like how so many people seem to be under the impression that whites without Bachelor's degrees = the "white working class" and that there somehow aren't a lot of white college graduates (or even postgrads) who work modest-wage jobs and are far from economically secure. Did everyone suddenly forget about all of the college-educated young adults who supported Sanders? Or, as long as we're talking about more left-leaning/Democratic Party-voting working class whites, what about the younger, female (and male, to a significant extent), single, secular, urban, non-homeowner, LGBT, unionized, and/or public sector white voters who cannot reasonably described as anything less than "solidly liberal"? (and who are indeed, more often than not, considerably more left-wing than their more affluent middle and upper middle class counterparts whose influence within Democratic Party politics has increased substantially within the last few decades."

[Ljube]

Yes, it will. Their turnout will be massive.

[LLR]

Of course not. I agree with PR, though, in saying  that uneducated ≠ working class

But regardless of what you mean, Trump is losing and he will lose. West Virginia will not be enough.

[RINO Tom]

Romney won a large majority of White college grads.  Republicans in 2010 and 2014 won an even larger majority of them.  Trump is actively alienating reliably Republican voters in vote-rich areas to squeeze some extra support out of the few remaining WWC Democrats/Independents who'd actually still consider switching at this point, and it's a horrible strategy which will cost him the election.

Then again, Trump and his supporters don't care about winning, they care about MAKIN' A STATEMENT.  Congrats, you've made it.

[Ljube]

Romney won a large majority of White college grads.  Republicans in 2010 and 2014 won an even larger majority of them.  Trump is actively alienating reliably Republican voters in vote-rich areas to squeeze some extra support out of the few remaining WWC Democrats/Independents who'd actually still consider switching at this point, and it's a horrible strategy which will cost him the election.

Then again, Trump and his supporters don't care about winning, they care about MAKIN' A STATEMENT.  Congrats, you've made it.

I think you are wrong and the election results will prove me right.

[Virginiá]

Are you sure about those numbers for white working class / college educated? Cook did projections on this some time ago and even if those projects were off, your chart is way further off:

http://cookpolitical.com/story/8608



I'm not saying it is wrong, but the numbers are much different and I think those charts are underestimating the number of college educated whites. Does it include whites with only an associates as well? On the other hand, I've also seen reports that say white college educated voters would equal white non-college this year, so Cook may be overestimating somewhat here. At any rate, I still think your numbers are too low.

http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p20-578.pdf

The numbers fit better if you only count bachelor's or more, which I'm not sure is an entirely accurate representation of white college educated voters.

[Gustaf]

I'll just note that independents weren't a part of the Obama coalition since Romney won them.

To answer the question, I doubt it. Significant numbers of poor white voters are reasonably gonna vote Democrat due to economics either way and Republicans already do well in the demographic.

(I do think, btw, that this idea of Trump appealing to white working class is a little overblown. The converse of PR's post is that there are plenty of reasonably well off people who aren't well educated. This is especially true in the older generation. All studies I've seen indicate that Trump voters are pretty well off financially)

Ultimately it's difficult to see doubling down on a small minority of the electorate as a viable strategy while you alienate the large majority.

[Cruzcrew]

The problem with this is Trump is currently run in at least 10 points worse than Romney with college educated whites and there simply aren't enough working class whites out there who either didn't vote for Romney last time or didn't vote at all to make up for such a new deficit, let alone get that extra 4% he'd need to win the popular vote. He has to make new gains with college educated whites or minorities somehow in order to win.