Former President Donald Trump is making new inroads with voters who traditionally have supported Democratic candidates, and it’s harming Vice President Kamala Harris’ chances at winning the November election. CNN’s Harry Enten provided more data on this phenomenon on Monday as he dissected some new poll results suggesting that union members and trade school graduates—both white and nonwhite—have become a core group inside Trump’s coalition.
“CNN: Sometimes there are data points that just jump off the screen and should set off sirens. Alright, this is union households, this is the Democratic margin in the presidential election. It ain’t what it used to be,” Enten began during the segment. “You go back to 1992, Bill Clinton won that union vote by 30 points. Hillary Clinton only won it by 12 points back in 2016. That was the lowest mark for a Democrat since 1984, Mondale versus Reagan.
“But look at where Kamala Harris is today. She is only leading by nine points. That would be the worst Democratic performance in a generation. Ten points off the mark of Joe Biden, who, of course, won four years ago as sort of that union guy, ‘Union Joe,’ right? He won by 19 points. She’s ten points off his mark and the worst in a generation if this, in fact, holds,” Enten continued.
He added:
Folks who use their hands. I think a lot of people often conflate the union vote with those who use their hands. Mike Rowe, of course, has been arguing more people should go to trade schools, more people should get a vocational degree. Look at this margin. This, to me — oh boy, does this tell you about the state of our politics now versus back in the early 1990s. The margin among vocational and trade school grads in pre-election polling: Bill Clinton was leading that vote over George H.W. Bush by seven points. Look at where Donald Trump is today over Kamala Harris — a 31-point advantage.
When I think people think of the working class, they think of people who use their hands. And we know that Donald Trump has been going after that vote, and he is in a very, very strong position—more so perhaps than with any other bloc. The folks who go to trade school, vocations—that has moved from being a core Democratic group to now being a core group of Donald Trump’s massive amount of support among the working class.
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“We’ve been noting on this program that Donald Trump seems to be having some real impact among voters of color, getting into that traditional Democratic support. And I was very interested to see this because we’re talking about the working class, right? So this is the margin among non-college graduates,” Enten went on.
“Alright, the voters of color — you go back four years ago, look at that: Joe Biden won that group by 45 points. Look at where Kamala Harris’s support is today. She’s leading amongst that group, but that lead is down 17 points, to just 28 points. And I will note that the margin among voters of color who actually graduate from college has only changed by about 5.5 points compared to four years ago,” he said.
“The reason Donald Trump is doing so well amongst voters of color is because he has really gained ground with a lot of voters that he didn’t previously have, among those who didn’t graduate college,” Enten explained. “This is part of a larger trend that we’re seeing throughout our politics, in which Republicans—specifically Donald Trump—are doing very, very well among working-class voters, whether they’re in unions, went to trade school, or are voters of color.”
He concluded: “The fact is, Donald Trump seems to have gone into a hotbed of traditional Democratic support and made a lot of movement in ways I don’t think a lot of people would have thought possible when he went down that escalator just back in 2015.”
Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.