America’s Political Realignment Is Real. Trump assembled a coalition unlike any Nominee

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If Donald Trump is elected president in November, he will have assembled a coalition unlike any Republican nominee in my lifetime.

For decades, GOP success has depended on support from college-educated white voters in the suburbs and non-college-educated white voters in manufacturing centers and rural areas. Republican candidates tried to maximize turnout among this electoral base, while adding a majority of independent voters to the GOP column. Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and the two Bushes used this strategy to great effect. Donald Trump did, too.

In 2016, at least. In 2020, according to the Fox News voter analysis, Trump lost white college-educated voters by seven points and independent voters by 15 points. Joe Biden became president. Republicans did better in 2022, but they still lost white college-educated voters by one point and independents by five points.

One might assume, then, that a Trump-led Republican Party will continue to struggle for as long as it repels college-educated white voters and independents.

Yet Donald Trump isn’t struggling. On the contrary: He’s been leading President Biden for months. Independents have returned to Trump’s column.

Trump’s gains among non-college-educated, non-white voters have compensated for his continued problems with college-educated white voters.

The realignment isn’t just real. It’s accelerating.
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My colleague at the American Enterprise Institute Ruy Teixeira, as well as GOP pollster Patrick Ruffini, have storehouses of data that show Democrats losing non-college-educated minority voters — Hispanic voters in particular — to Republicans. Each new survey confirms their findings. The evidence is overwhelming.

AEI researcher Nate Moore investigated Trump’s growing favorability rating and found that the former president is more popular now than at any point since he left office. The source of this newfound popularity is minority voters. “While his support has ticked up among white and black Americans, the share of Hispanic Americans who have a favorable view of Trump has doubled over the last year from around 20 percent to 40 percent.”

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John Burn-Murdoch, chief data reporter for the Financial Times, analyzed election surveys going back to the 1950s. He found that the Democrats’ advantage among non-white voters is at its lowest point since JFK was president.

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