Episode 73 – Trump and the white working class, with Noam Lupu

I’m joined today by Noam Lupu, associate professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. Noam has published a terrific new paper with Nicholas Carnes on the white working class and the 2016 presidential election.

We are going to be talking about four widespread claim made by pundits, commentators, public intellectuals and academics related to Trumps alleged appeal to white working class voters. Do these claims hold up to empirical scrutiny?

Is it true:

1. that most Trump voters were white working-class Amercians?
2. that most white working-class voters supported Trump?
3. that unusually large numbers of white working-class voters switched from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016?
4. that white working-class voters were pivotal to Trump’s victory in several swing states?

Spoiler alert: it turns out that much of this myth-building around Trumps unique appeal to white working class Americans is not really rooted in reality.

Follow Noam on Twitter: @NoamLupu

Background reading:

• The White Working Class and the 2016 Election
• What’s the matter with What’s the matter with Kansas?
• Check out these past episodes on electoral politics and the working class with Rob Ford on the 2019 UK General Election and Tarik Abou-Chadi on the crisis of social democratic parties.

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Music: ‘Pollution‘ by Dexter Britain (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)