The Unexpected Ethnic Problems of the 2024 Election

Photo by LaserGuided, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

If you’ve been reading me for long, you have probably heard me say that the United States is undergoing a political realignment. If you’ve been paying attention at all, you’ll notice that today the two parties are quite different from the versions of themselves that existed a decade ago.

A new piece of evidence for this theory is emerging in polling data for the presidential election. You may have heard about Donald Trump making inroads with black voters, particularly black males, but that’s only half the story. One reason that the race remains tight despite Trump’s gains with minorities is that Kamala Harris has made corresponding gains with white voters.

Back in 2020, Joe Biden maintained a 92-8 margin over Trump among black voters, but one of the electoral bright spots for Trump was a surge in support among black men. Biden still won about 80 percent of black men, but this overwhelming win was still down from Obama-era levels. This pattern seems set to repeat this year with polls showing that as many as a quarter of black men may support Trump.

Similarly, Harris is also at a low point among Hispanic voters. New York Times analysis shows that Harris is polling at a lower level among Hispanics than both the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 and the Joe Biden campaign in 2020.

As Vox points out, Trump’s campaigning on the economy has been effective, even as the economy recovers and inflation falls. His warnings about immigrants taking “black jobs” have stoked racial resentment but have tapped into real financial concerns. While immigration ultimately boosts the economy (and mass deportations would be inflationary and present an economic shock in multiple ways), there are real and understandable tensions as immigrants assimilate.

Given the close nature of the race, this polling has resulted in a Democratic freakout. Democrats brought out the big guns last week as Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail to stump for Harris in Pennsylvania. The former president, who is still more popular than either Harris or Trump, has more rallies on his schedule and has already recorded more than 20 new ads for Harris as well as Democratic congressional candidates.

But even though Harris is down slightly with black men, she is not out. In fact, as I’ve pointed out over the past few weeks, Harris leads in national polling with the polling in swing states remaining too close to call.

As I’ve also pointed out in the past, Harris needs to win the national popular vote by about two to three points to overcome Donald Trump’s advantage in the Electoral College. Trump has an advantage here because several large, populous states such as California and New York typically go blue. This allows Democrats to run up the popular vote tally without gaining extra ground in the Electoral College.

There is good news for Harris, however. She is near this threshold with a 1.7-point lead in the Real Clear Politics average and 2.4 percent in the FiveThirtyEight average. That may be enough considering an additional piece of good news: The data shows that the Republican Electoral College advantage may be dissipating. FiveThirtyEight detailed in a recent podcast how the Electoral College gap can fluctuate in different years and seems to be contracting for 2024.

It may seem counterintuitive that Trump could be gaining support among minorities yet still losing the electoral advantage, but the reason is multifaceted. As NBC News points out, much of Trump’s gain among black voters comes from the Midwest and black conservatives. Both factors point to red states so Trump is essentially running up the score in states like Kansas without boosting his position in the Electoral College.

Another factor is that while Trump is undergoing a small-scale surge among minority voters, Kamala Harris is enjoying a boost among white voters. Some polls put her support among whites at around 40 percent. This is equivalent to Biden’s share of whites in 2020.

Actually, when you dig into the details, it isn’t so much a surge among white voters as among college-educated voters. Whites just make up a majority of that group.

The Economist points out that Harris will likely set a record for Democratic support among college-educated voters. Where Hillary had a five-point advantage with the group and Biden led by nine, Harris is polling a stunning 21 points ahead among college graduates. That includes an 18-point lead among white college graduates.

In contrast, Donald Trump leads by 13 points among non-college grads. This likely goes a long way in explaining The Former Guy’s success in spreading lies and conspiracy theories among his base. I’m sure that Trump still loves the “poorly educated.”

As a popular meme says, “Everything seems like a conspiracy theory if you don’t understand science.”

There are a great many other factors at play. Events have favored Republicans with inflation, which is falling but still perceived as a problem, and international crises, which are not a result of Biden’s policies yet still lend an air of chaos that works against the Democratic incumbent. The unprecedented-in-recent-times swap of Democratic candidates also favored Republicans.

A big factor in this election has been immigration. Even though Trump admitted to blocking immigration reform for personal gain last winter and illegal immigration levels are currently lower than when Trump left office, Harris is suffering from Biden’s slow movement on the issue. Much of the problem has been alleviated but that news, like good economic indicators, has not reached the public, particularly the non-college-educated public.

A big part of the electoral shift can be explained by Donald Trump’s strategic decision to target what Republicans used to call “low information voters.” Those voters now trend MAGA and many of them really believe that the government can steer hurricanes and that immigrants eat the murdered pets of US citizens.

Of course, this is not a new phenomenon. This is the same of tinfoil hattery that persuaded many Americans that Hillary Clinton was a murderous criminal mastermind and that Barack Obama was a closeted Muslim immigrant. While I was a Republican, I eschewed and debunked these conspiracy theories even as I voted for Republican candidates, most of whom distanced themselves from the conspiracy nuts in those days. These days, the conspiracy nuts own the GOP.

As I’ve stated recently, the election is currently a tossup in the Electoral College, but even if Kamala Harris ultimately triumphs, the problem won’t go away. Donald Trump’s cynical ploy of utilizing conspiracy theories to inspire terror and hate among the “poorly educated” has created rifts in American society that will be felt for decades. It’s a strategy that works. Or comes close enough to working that Republicans will keep trying to divide and conquer.

And I’m not going to say that Democrats are innocent here either. Whatever the outcome, they need to realize that their progressive culture war positions and liberal bias in the media and pop culture have alienated large numbers of blue-collar Democrats. I think those out-of-the-mainstream cultural positions may be as important among conservative blacks and Hispanics as economic concerns. I wrote recently that Democrats are shifting back towards the center but it may prove to be too little too late for this election.

In the end, Trump’s ceiling may not be high enough to carry him across the finish line despite his cavalcade of propaganda. For their part, Republicans should consider how far ahead they might be with a candidate without Trump’s baggage and propensity for self-destructive behavior.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing that American politics is becoming less racially polarized, but we may find that we’ve tapped into something worse. The polarization between reality and the delusional world of conspiracy theories may prove to be much more destructive and dangerous.