In 2016, Donald J. Trump confounded the polls in part by generating an unanticipated level of
enthusiasm and turnout from a group that had grown increasingly apathetic about elections: white voters without college degrees.
But in 2020,
Mr. Trump and
Joseph R. Biden Jr. face a drastically changed electorate. The cohort of non-college-educated white voters — who gave Mr. Trump just enough of a margin to
win the election in 2016 — has been in a long-term decline, while both minority voters and white college-educated voters have steadily increased.
The decline, a demographic glacier driven largely by aging, has continued since 2016. The number of voting-age white Americans without college degrees has dropped by more than five million in the past four years, while the number of minority voters and college-educated white voters has collectively increased by more than 13 million in the same period. In key swing states, the changes far outstrip Mr. Trump’s narrow 2016 margins.
His
campaign leaders are betting that a two-year grass-roots mobilization that has yielded significant voter registration gains will overcome the demographic disadvantage and the polls, again.
“As a clear show of support for the president’s policies, Americans are registering as Republican with a Republican president in office,” said Samantha Zager, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign. “And those significant voter registration gains prove President Trump is expanding his base and will win four more years in the White House as a result.”
Certainly, these white non-college-educated voters continue to show enthusiasm for Mr. Trump and Republicans — not just in
approval polls that have been remarkably stable for four years, but also at the ballot box in 2018.
Two years ago, even without the president on the ballot, white voters without college degrees turned out in numbers not seen in a midterm election in decades.