A Washington Post article in early June makes an argument against the idea that trump was elected by winning a majority of struggling blue-collar white and working-class voters.
”There’s just one problem: this account is wrong. Trump voters were not mostly working-class people.”
Trump’s voters weren’t overwhelmingly poor. In the general election, like the primary, about two thirds of Trump supporters came from the better-off half of the economy….
In short, the narrative that attributes Trump’s victory to a “coalition of mostly blue-collar white and working-class voters” just doesn’t square with the 2016 election data. According to the election study, white non-Hispanic voters without college degrees making below the median household income made up only 25 percent of Trump voters. That’s a far cry from the working-class-fueled victory many journalists have imagined.
The article shows that false assumptions were made about non-college white trump voters being working class/blue collar.
A lack of a college degree doesn’t automatically mean a white voter is among the struggling blue-collar working class.
Many small business owners earning far more than the median income do not have college degrees.
This CNBC article references a survey that shows only 26% of small business owners hold 4-year college degrees.
Weigh this against a survey revealing 58.7% of small business owners supported trump.
Add in Nate Silver’s report during the primary showing trump voters earn an average $72,000 household income — far from rich but it’s also quite far from struggling to earn a living.
All of this chips away at the myth that a tidal wave of non-college, white working class/blue collar workers, who can’t make ends meet, carried trump to his slim electoral victory.
Yet, still, the myth lives on.