2018 Could Be The Year Of The Angry White College Graduate

[McGovernForPrez]

Interesting 538 article https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2018-could-be-the-year-of-the-angry-white-college-graduate/

[Strudelcutie4427]

Could be, but at the same time their influence is thinned due to self packing themselves into urban areas and especially gentrified areas

[McGovernForPrez]

Could be, but at the same time their influence is thinned due to self packing themselves into urban areas and especially gentrified areas

That refers to the democratic coalition in general, not college educated whites. College educated whites are found in plenty of electorally relevant places, and even when they aren't their influence is stronger because they turnout at a higher rate.

[Virginiá]

From article:

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[Virginiá]

Could be, but at the same time their influence is thinned due to self packing themselves into urban areas and especially gentrified areas

The article actually addressed this. I quoted it in the post before this. It's not quite as detrimental as it sounds due to the expected drop-off from Trump supporters, whose demographic is already prone to voting less reliably in midterms. A surge in white college graduates with a swing to Democrats, combined with a drop-off from GOP-leaning WWCs would compound the GOP's 2018 problems.

[Bismarck]

Eh i don't think it's guaranteed that college educated whites will vote democrat. They voted for their R senators and representatives in 2016, and even narrowly for Trump. I know the article shows his high level of disapproval among this group, and it no doubt is true, but this group also has a strong aversión to democrats.

[Green Line]

Who are they angry at though?

[McGovernForPrez]

Eh i don't think it's guaranteed that college educated whites will vote democrat. They voted for their R senators and representatives in 2016, and even narrowly for Trump. I know the article shows his high level of disapproval among this group, and it no doubt is true, but this group also has a strong aversión to democrats.

Regardless they're a much more favorable demographic to democrats than they were in 2010 or 2014. The article sights massive disapproval ratings amongst college educated whites for Trump. Even if it's just a 5 or 10 point swing it'll still make a huge difference in districts where they're concentrated.

[BuckeyeNut]

Packing also doesn't matter when one is talking about Senate and Gubernatorial elections. So even if college educated whites are packed into cities like other Democratic voters, it doesn't much matter.

[Jeppe]

Wouldn't there a lot of white college graduates in the suburbs too? The millenial ones might be clustered in the cities, but the older ones aren't.

[MasterJedi]

You'll still have the problem of most Bernie Bros not showing up because they don't understand how the system works, and somehow make it out to be that the Midterms were "stolen" from them somehow.

[RINO Tom]

The question will be whether or not enough college-educated White voters will seem satisfied with their Republican Congresspeople being, well, "not Trump."  When Republican politicians are regularly denouncing Trump's outbursts and ideas publicly, it begs the question if that will be enough to satisfy these voters who usually leaned Republican but don't like Trump ... it remains to be seen in 2018, but it was enough in 2016.

[Gass3268]

The question will be whether or not enough college-educated White voters will seem satisfied with their Republican Congresspeople being, well, "not Trump."  When Republican politicians are regularly denouncing Trump's outbursts and ideas publicly, it begs the question if that will be enough to satisfy these voters who usually leaned Republican but don't like Trump ... it remains to be seen in 2018, but it was enough in 2016.

Many people thought they were voting for a Republican Congress to counter a President Hillary Clinton. I could see them wanting the opposite to counter Trump in 2018.

[Webnicz]

Wouldn't there a lot of white college graduates in the suburbs too? The millenial ones might be clustered in the cities, but the older ones aren't.

Remember, Millennials are getting older. Many of them have settled down and have moved to the suburbs to start families. The oldest millennials are getting close to 40. By 2018 there will already be a handful of batches of College graduates from Generation Z

[NOVA Green]

I think one of the difficulties here is trying to extrapolate US-SEN/ US-REP / GOV voting patterns from '16 solely on the basis of the '16 GE PRES results, let alone forecasting '18 at a statewide level is problematic at best, especially since we can't even compare detailed data-sets for '18 elections to test the idea....

Intuitively, one could certainly see a strong argument for an extremely large and varied segment of the population, that has increasingly become essentially virtually a "Swing Group" that has been increasingly moving Democratic at the Presidential level, that also had one of the highest percentages of 3rd Party support in '16, where his weak 48% vote in '16 would likely be much worse in '20, assuming his support levels would at least mirror the drops in his National FAV/UNFAV and Approval numbers....

Still translating disapproval and opposition to Trump at the ballot-box in statewide and down-ballot Federal Elections is certainly not a given, however I have no doubt that if there is a "Wave Election" in '18, this demographic, will certainly have played a significant role.