Question: Are white people without college degrees economically populist but culturally conservative, and have Democrats lost ground with them because they're voting more on cultural issues these days?
Of course, you probably all read that and think, "Um, duh?" But there is actually some issue-based polling data that, at least at first glance, might indicate otherwise.
An ABC/WaPo poll from from last December asked whether each party is in touch with the concerns of most Americans. Non-college whites split 46 Yes - 49 No for the Republicans and 18 Yes - 78 No for the Democrats. But when actually asked a question about how much students should be taught about racism in schools, we see what appears to be a more consistent pattern by gender than by education. It also shows that teaching about racism in schools is not, in fact, an unpopular position among whites. (Though perhaps we could wonder to what extent people are self-consciously giving the “right” answer and/or whether people have differing definitions of “a great deal” or “a good amount.”)
Here’s the breakdown:
White men, no college degree: 59% a great deal/good amount - 39% not so much or not at all
White women, no college degree: 65-30
White men, college degree: 55-41
White women, college degree: 68-38
So the least likely to support teaching about racism in schools are white men with college degrees. On the other hand, non-college whites *are* more likely than college whites to say they’re concerned that Biden will do too much to increase the size and role of government (this is a 72-27 majority position among non-college whites, while college whites split 54-45).
Here are some crosstabs from a Civiqs/Daily Kos poll, on a question about whether prohibiting gender-affirming medical care for youth is helping or hurting. While college respondents were a little more likely to say "hurting" than non-college respondents (both overall and among whites only), they're literally or nearly equal on the "helping" percentage. But the differences by party ID and race outweigh any difference by education level.
ANSWER |
White |
BLACK |
HISPANIC |
DEMOCRATS |
REPUBLICANS |
INDEPENDENTS |
NON-COLLEGE WHITES |
COLLEGE WHITES |
Helping |
41 |
17 |
21 |
7 |
66 |
39 |
41 |
41 |
HURTING |
43 |
61 |
66 |
82 |
14 |
41 |
41 |
46 |
Here's a Gallup poll on the attitudes towards global warming, which, if not exactly a cultural issue, does sometimes get stereotyped as being more of an "elite" concern. But if you look at all the different ways that Gallup breaks down the data, the differences by education level are actually pretty small compared to the differences by race and party identification. In fact, people with no college education are a little more concerned about global warming than those with some college but no 4-year degree.
CATEGORIES |
WORRY A GREAT DEAL OR FAIR AMOUNT |
YES, WILL POSE SERIOUS RISK |
CAUSED BY POLLUTION / HUMAN ACTIVITIES |
No College |
66 |
45 |
62 |
SOME COLLEGE |
61 |
39 |
62 |
COLLEGE GRAD ONLY |
65 |
46 |
70 |
POSTGRAD |
71 |
51 |
72 |
DEMOCRATS |
91 |
65 |
88 |
INDEPENDENTS |
67 |
47 |
68 |
REPUBLICANS |
32 |
15 |
35 |
WHITE |
57 |
34 |
60 |
BLACK |
81 |
59 |
72 |
HISPANIC |
84 |
70 |
79 |
(Unfortunately it doesn't break down the education levels by race, so I suppose it's possible that non-college whites are in fact noticeably less concerned but that their attitudes are balanced out by higher concern among non-college Blacks and Hispanics.)
Now, there *is* one biggie where I found (from a quick comb-through of Gallup's website) that opinions seem to differ heavily by education level: immigration. Hispanics are a little more likely than whites or Blacks to say that immigration should be increased, but the bigger differences are by education and party ID - see below. Though I would note that if you look at the "increase" number by education, the difference between people with postgrad degrees and college degrees is actually about the same as the difference between people with college degrees and high school or less.
CATEGORY |
INCREASED |
PRESENT LEVEL |
DECREASED |
HISPANIC |
42 |
33 |
25 |
WHITE |
30 |
33 |
35 |
BLACK |
32 |
41 |
26 |
DEMOCRATS |
50 |
37 |
12 |
INDEPENDENTS |
34 |
36 |
29 |
REPUBLICANS |
10 |
31 |
57 |
POSTGRAD |
50 |
23 |
27 |
COLLEGE GRAD |
37 |
39 |
24 |
SOME COLLEGE |
31 |
34 |
31 |
HIGH SCH. OR LESS |
25 |
38 |
35 |
Finally, here's a CNN poll asking about Biden's handling of the various issues. The approval/disapproval split on the economy for whites without college degrees is 21-78, combined to 39-61 for whites with college degrees. On immigration, the split is 26-74 and 37-62. While all those numbers are awful, whites without college degrees are actually more likely to say they approve of Biden's handling of immigration than they are to say they approve of him on the economy. Maybe this partly just reflects the dip in Biden’s numbers on the economy and the economic approval numbers will eventually revert to a higher percentage for both groups, but it’s still not what I expected to find.
What does all this mean? Honestly, hell if I know. And if you were to walk up to me and say that Democrats should move to the right on the economy and that they'll win more non-college whites by doing that, I'd still probably say, "You're nuts." Frankly, as an economic left-populist and a cultural moderate myself, I’m not sure I’d want the Democrats to do that even if I thought it *could* work. But this does seem to suggest several possibilities:
(a) Polls don't always capture people's cultural views in a way that actually reflects how cultural issues influence their voting decisions. As I mentioned above, it’s possible that certain respondents may be giving what they think is the “right” answer rather than their actual views. Or maybe they have a skewed perception of how these issues are playing out, such that a moderate or liberal view still doesn’t lead them to vote Democratic.
(b) There’s a perception of Democrats and liberals on cultural issues as being too extreme and “woke,” such that even people with moderate stances think that the Republicans are closer to their own views. “Dems suck at messaging” seems to be a popular sentiment in progressive circles, so that would be somewhat in line with this possibility.
(c) The conservative cultural backlash has gotten louder but not necessarily more widespread. Granted, this still could be a very big problem for Democrats, if cultural conservatives are more motivated to turn out — and to vote Republican — than Democratic base voters and Dem-leaning swing voters are.
(d) The economic populist/culturally conservative non-college whites are disproportionately unlikely to answer polls compared to non-college whites with other views. Which...maybe? I mean, this is 21st century American politics, so who’s to rule anything out?
Thoughts?