Or, "Why Nate Silver's Political #Analysis is terrible, n = 5383276899":
This idea (which I was admittedly guilty of supporting) that Trump did not have substantial support among (white) working class voters seems to have really gotten a boost from
this article by Silver.
A few things.
1) You'll notice that the data here is for median
household income. A married couple with husband and wife making $35k-$40k each = a household income between $70k and $80k. Doesn't seem
that impressive, especially when you consider that
2) Republicans in general (and Republican primary voters, I suspect,
in particular) are not only more likely to be white and have higher-than-the-median incomes, but are also more likely to be married and (at least, compared to white liberals) have children - which are very much relevant when discussing one's means and financial responsibilities...
3) Republican primary voters are better off than Democratic primary voters, both Democratic and Republican primary voters are better off than general election-only voters, voters in general are better off than non-voters...
4) Measuring someone's social class by their household income at a given point in time seems very...um, simplistic, to be charitable. Especially when we're talking about a very, very broad group of people in terms of income distribution, and with a lot of those people in the "vast middle" really not doing so well these days...
5) Compare Trump's voters to say, Rubio's voters, Kasich's voters, or even Cruz's voters. And compare the non-Trump Republican candidates' numbers among the more modestly educated (i.e. those who don't possess a four-year degree) with their numbers among the higher cohorts. I don't think I need to spell any more of this out.
tl; dr Trump did indeed, have (and has) an unusually (although not uniformly - something that we also must be mindful about) strong appeal among working class white voters
for a Republican candidate, in spite of the fact that - like all Republican candidates - his voters still skewed toward the white and the affluent.
PS: F**k Nate Silver.
