The good folks at Catalist, the Democratic-oriented data analytics firm have dropped their 2020 national analysis of demographic voting trends in the 2020 election. It’s a cornucopia of interesting findings, even if their report at times seems to gloss over disturbing trends in favor of findings that support advocacy group talking points about the election results. But no matter! This is great data, the best we have so far, and can be trusted despite the left-leaning provenance of the analysis. In terms of the numbers, their methodology is sound and as objective as these things can be.
So, here are ten more things we now know about the 2020 election, based on the Catalist data (all figures cited here based on the two-party vote):
1. Shifts toward the Democrats in 2020 relative to 2016 were almost exclusively among white voters (5.4 point margin shift). This was not just among white college voters (around 8 points) but also among white working class voters (around 3 points) as well.
2. White working class (noncollege) voters were still 44 percent of all voters in 2020, compared to just 28 percent among white college voters.
3. White noncollege voters actually made up a larger share of Biden’s coalition (32 percent) than white college voters (29 percent).
4. Large suburban shifts toward the Democrats in 2020 have been generally portrayed as shifts produced by white college and professional voters. Yet white noncollege voters are almost three-fifths of white voters in suburban areas and they shifted over 5 points toward Biden.
5. Among whites, men consistently outperformed women in terms of shifts toward the Democrats in 2020. Among white college voters, men shifted 11 points toward Biden compared to 6 points among women. Among working class whites, men moved toward Biden by around 7 points, while women barely moved at all (.2 points).
6. With the exception of those of “other race” (2 percent) of voters, all nonwhite groups moved against the Democrats. Latinos had an amazingly large 16 point margin shift toward Trump. Black voters also moved 7 points toward Trump and Asian voters (AAPI) moved just under a point in his direction.
7. Among Latinos, while Cubans had by far the largest shifts toward Trump (26 points), those of Mexican origin also had a 12 point shift and even Puerto Ricans moved toward Trump by 18 points.
8. Latino shifts toward Trump were by no means confined to Florida (28 points) and Texas (18 points) but also included states like Nevada (16 points), Pennsylvania (12 points), Arizona (10 points) and Georgia (8 points).
9. Among nonwhites, shifts toward Trump were larger among women than men. Nonwhite women moved toward the Republicans by 12 points compared to 7 points among men.
10. Working class nonwhites moved more sharply toward Trump than college nonwhites (12 points vs. 7 points). And working class nonwhite women moved more toward Trump (14 points) than working class nonwhite men (9 points).
There is much food for thought here for Democrats as they move forward to a challenging 2022 election and the eventual struggle to re-elect Joe Biden in 2024.