A new poll of over 23,000 registered voters shows the most highly educated people continue to lean heavily toward the Democratic presidential nominee, a trend that has continued for many election cycles. The Morning Consult poll shows Democrat Hillary Clinton receiving 51 percent support versus 34 percent for Republican Donald Trump among voters with post-graduate degrees. Clinton also enjoys a five point advantage among registered voters with a college degree.
The massive seventeen point difference reflects previous large gaps among post-graduates favoring Democratic presidential candidates in the past two presidential elections. According to Gallup polling, Democrat Barack Obama opened up an enormous gap in the group by besting Republicans John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 by 30 percent and 24 percent, respectively. This came after John Kerry only won the group by six points and Al Gore won with a ten point advantage, both against George W. Bush.
Gallup’s polling did not differentiate college grads and those that held post-graduate degrees in the elections prior to 2000.
The huge gap can also be found when looking at political party identification. Pew Research found:
Democrats lead by 22 points (57%-35%) in leaned party identification among adults with post-graduate degrees…The Democrats’ advantage is 35 points (64%-29%) among women with post-graduate degrees, but only eight points (50%-42%) among post-grad men.
The Pew data also shows Republicans had closed the gap to just two points in 2002 before the gap began to grow rather rapidly, hitting double-digits just two years later (52-41 in favor of Democrats).
While the number of people that hold post-graduate degrees is relatively small, they are a larger percentage of people who actually show up to the polls. In 2012, this group made up just under 11 percent of the population but was roughly 18 percent of the people who voted in that presidential election. The percentage of people with these degrees has expanded to 12 percent in 2015 so, we should expect a growth in the voting percentage as well. In short, while roughly 1 in 10 people have post-graduate degrees, 1 in 5 people who will likely vote in 2016 have them. Certainly good news for Hillary Clinton.
It doesn’t appear to be particularly surprising that the gap continues in this election cycle with post-graduate voters. Donald Trump has openly declared his love for his “poorly educated” supporters and his rhetoric has placed his campaign at a rather unflattering level compared to other presidential candidates of years past. Trump is strategically playing to his base and knows his path to winning is motivating white men to show up in droves on Election Day. Polls show he is currently crushing Clinton with white men without college degrees:
In six polls conducted this month, Mr. Trump leads among white registered voters without a degree by a margin of 58 percent to 30 percent…It’s a significant improvement over Mr. Romney in 2012, who led in pre-election polls by a 55-to-37 margin among this group.
And it appears Democrats will make little headway with this group as the debate over gun control has taken a prominent place in this year’s election.
Once again, the most educated will vote Blue and back Hillary Clinton in 2016, and will do so by a wide margin. The question, however, remains: will it be enough to offset Donald Trump’s gains among other groups?