Demographics is Destiny

A Plea For Progressives to Quit Disparaging White Male Voters

Let’s play a game. Five Questions. I want you to think on each of these before answering. I’ve placed the answer to each question in the footnotes. Do not look at the answers until you’ve answered all five questions. Ready, let’s begin:

• What percentage of the overall vote in 2020 were non-hispanic whites? ¹

• Much has been made about how well Biden did with whites with college degrees. Next question, what percentage of Biden’s total vote were whites with college degrees and how much bigger was it than the percentage within Trump’s coalition of whites with college degrees?²

• Biden won with 306 Electoral Votes in 2020 and Hillary lost in 2016 with 227. What was the difference in percentage of the white vote between 2020 and 2016?³

• We’ve heard a lot about the gender gap as well. Question #4: How much bigger was Hillary’s gender gap (% women voters-% male voters) than Biden’s?⁴

• OK, Last question. Looking only at white women, how much better did Hillary do as a percentage than Biden did? ⁵

OK. Pencils down. How did you do? Surprised about anything? Consultants and media can put so much focus on certain growing demographics and mild swings they blow out of proportion that it can distort your sense of what the actual percentages are. Yes, female and younger voters are ascendant. Yes, voting percentages of POC are increasing while non-hispanic white votes are decreasing in percentage. However, when you take a step back, some important facts are still evident:

• Roughly 3/4 of the electorate are still white voters. They skew Republican, but Democrats have to still get roughly 42% or better to be competitive.⁶ They represent a majority vote in most every state, and substantial majorities in midwest and plains states.

• Women vote slightly more than men, and there is a gender gap of about 10-12 pts overall (and 5-6 pts among white women) where women favor Democrats. However, larger gender gaps are more indicative of a collapse of male voting percentage than they are an increase of women’s vote percentages. Every time since 2000, when the white women’s gender gap was greater than 7 pts, the Democrat lost. Likewise, when Democrats have failed to capture 45% of the total men’s vote, they’ve lost.

• The Democratic vote is much more diverse than the Republican one. Nonetheless, 3/5 of Democratic voters are white, and roughly 25-30% of that coalition are white males.

I want to say that again so it sinks in. Over one quarter of the Democratic Coalition to win the White House comes from white male voters. These are not all “misogynistic bros” as so many on the ;eft label. Some of these are college educated or students. Some are labor and union workers, teachers, police officers and former military. They coach youth sports. They are entrepreneurs and civic workers. Some are seniors living on Social Security and Medicare. They’re good-hearted, moral people who want to contribute and make their communities better. The important thing to remember though is that they vote Democratic, they helped Joe Biden get elected and their numbers are substantial. It’s a bigger contingent than the number of black voters voting for Democrats.

Which is why I personally find it frustrating listening to many progressives, liberals, talking heads, MSNBC and the Democratic Party apparatus. They’re missing the boat. Somehow, they point to white males, see nothing but a proxy for MAGA and label them the enemy. The level of condescension to this group is harsh and endemic. The party should be REACHING OUT MORE to this group instead of shunning. To increase the percentage of this group a mere 3 percentage points from 2020 ensures the White House and a governing Congress for the a generation. A 3 pt decline puts Donald Trump in the White House again. They ARE your swing demographic that needs to be targeted and courted. So the disdain and ridicule they receive online and among their Democratic peers is counterproductive in every way.

Some anecdotal items⁷ I have heard from white male Democratic voters the last several years which brings me pause:

• “I have a Master’s Degree in Public Administration, have worked in city govermnent all my life (as a City Manager and Deputy City Manager) and was going to run for city council where we just moved and contacted the local Democratic Party. I was told not to bother, they already had a candidate. It was someone who had no experience at all but checked a number of typical liberal boxes. That person lost badly. The next election I ran without party help and won. F**k them.”

• “I tried to get active in my local party. For the most part it was just liberals quoting what they watched on Morning Joe or Maddow and praying Trump would get indicted someday. When an opening for Treasurer occured, I inquired about it and was turned away because the bylaws stipulated half of the officers had to be someone identifying as the opposite gender as me. The vacancy remained open for over 6 months.”

• “There was a big fight within the county party last year. The practical, hard working officers who worked hard every election season organizing knocking doors, putting out signs, signing up new voters were forced out by a bunch of younger liberals who started showing up at the meetings, focused more on identity issues and held meetings just to sit on their phones, talk about what someone said on Twitter and TikTok and offer snide remarks pissing off pretty much everyone. People stopped going. The county party shriveled up and I’m not even sure who goes to the meetings now. Last election Dems lost most every precinct by sizeable margins and I barely saw signs for the Dem candidates.”

• “I was removed from sitting at the Democratic Party booth (I had done it every year and signed up like I always did) at the county fair because they thought I was a Republican. When I told them I wasn’t, and that I was a life long union Democrat, the woman said she still didn’t feel comfortable having me sit in the booth and asked me to leave.”

• “I quit voting Democrat because there was no longer a place for me in the party. I won’t vote for Republicans for a number of reasons, but the Dems don’t want me so they have lost my vote.”

All of these make me cringe; turning away people who want to contribute and help your cause is counterproductive in the extreme. But its this last one that makes me worry about the Democratic Party the most. I’ve heard this before. It was 2016 and Hillary was the nominee. A large contingent of progressives alienated the mens vote to the point of a mere 41%, the lowest Democratic percentage for men this century. I heard it again during the primaries throughout 2019 and into 2020, before Biden won South Carolina and the party rallied around him. The worst thing Democrats can do in 2024 is give white Democratic leaning men in Arizona, or Georgia, or Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania a reason to stay home. Don’t believe it can happen? Here’s American Enterprise Institute’s Ruy Teixeira:

In 2020, Trump carried the overall working class vote by 4 points. In 2022, Republicans carried the nationwide House vote by 13 points. If Trump replicated that 2022 margin in 2024, he would be very hard to beat. Absent a countervailing Democratic improvement in the college vote… Trump would likely carry Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, and even Pennsylvania and Michigan

Democratic messaging has to be inclusive of white males if Dems want to win. They have to provide a place for them within the party and coalition. The messaging doesn’t have to be⁸ “We’re for angry white guys” like the GOP is, but there has to be some level of inclusion, appreciation, acceptance. You can promote diversity, gender equality, racial equality and appeal to the issues that white males care about; jobs, family, housing, education, and fundamental fairness. You can give women and POC an equal opportunity so long as it still remains an equal opportunity for everyone else too. It is not a zero sum game, but it often feels that Dem messaging conveys that. If the only messaging coming out of the party neglects this group, you will continue to see eroding percentages (of a large group), depressed turnout, and sadly, predictable electoral collapses. They may not vote for Trump or Republicans, but they won’t vote for a group that doesn’t want them either.

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PurpleAmerica’s Recommended Stories

I’m a fan of Richard Reeves, the Brookings Institute fellow who wrote the book, “Of Boys and Men.” He articulates many of these fraught issues better than I can. Long story short, it is not a “zero sum” game, we can work for everyone to flourish. We can convince men to be primary caregivers while the wife works, or get into vocations largely dominated by women (such as teaching or nursing). We can promote girls AND BOYS to get into STEM. Here’s a quick video I would recommend.

On another topic, but one many can agree with since the Covid shutdown, is that we are losing close friendships. Here is his take on those as well.

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PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

When it came to demographics, Barack Obama really was a bit of an electoral unicorn. He’s the only two term President to get a majority of the vote in both elections since Ronald Reagan. In 2012, he managed to get an all time Democratic low of 39% of the white vote and still win. How? He was able to increase African-American turnout to 13% of the overall vote, and of that got a whopping 97% of the African-Amercan vote. Lastly, he was able to keep 40% of the white voters without college degrees voting Democrat, the last Dem to get that demographic over 40%. He also managed to get 70% of the Hispanic vote. It was enough to keep Florida, Virginia, Arizona and the rust belt, and 332 Electoral Votes.

Biden’s percentages went back down to what were typical for Democrats before Obama

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Footnotes and Parting Thoughts

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1. The overall white percentage of the vote was 72%. This broke down to 44% as whites without college degrees and 28% whites with college degrees. This is also a slight decrease from 2016 when it was 74% and 2012 when it was 75%.

2. Looking at Biden’s coalition, 29% of his total vote were whites with college degrees. This is only 2 points better than Trump’s 27% of his coalition being whites with college degrees. The large part of Trump coalition though was whites without college degrees; that was 58% of his coalition compared to just 32% of Biden’s.

3. In 2020, Biden received 44% of the white vote. In 2016, Hillary received 41%. The difference was only 3 pts. Note also, that this was offset by losses in the black (from 93% to 90%) and hispanic (71 to 63%) votes for Biden. However, those two groups make up much smaller portions of the electorate, 12 and 10% respectively. The 3% increase is largely attributable to a 4 pt bump in whites with college degrees, as the non-college degree percentage stayed largely the same.

4. One point. Hillary received 54% of the women’s vote, 41% of the men’s for a 13 pt gap. Biden did better with women, receiving 57% of their vote, and 45% of the men’s for a 12 pt gap.

5. Trick question. Biden got 44% of the white women vote, Hillary only got 43%.

6. The exception to this was Barack Obama in 2012, who managed to get a putrid 39% of the white vote but still win on account of his huge percentages in the black, latin and asian votes, something no Democrat has duplicated since.

7. These are all paraphrased, but I have heard personally on each of these issues, and one of them specifically occured to me.

8. And shouldnt be