This archive report was first published on 11 December 2019.
President Barack Obama's success in winning over white voters in the 2008 and 2012 elections has been well-documented. However, a new analysis by Lynn Vavreck, a political scientist at U.C.L.A., and Michael Tesler, a political scientist at the University of California-Irvine, reveals that Obama's strategy was not without its challenges. In fact, a 2011 pre-election survey showed that a third of white voters who backed Obama believed 'illegal immigrants are mostly a drain on society,' while slightly higher percentages held unfavorable views of Muslims and endorsed making it harder to immigrate.
Fast forward to the 2016 election, and the same disparaging view of immigrants held by white voters proved to be a significant factor in Trump's victory. Whites who rated immigrants the most unfavorably voted for Trump over Clinton by 65 points, a stark contrast to the 25 percentage point margin by which they voted for John McCain over Obama in 2008.
Could Trump successfully win re-election by expanding on his divisive 2016 strategy? Two Democratic strategists at the Center for American Progress concede that he could. In their analysis, 'The Path to 270 in 2020,' Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin, senior fellows at the center, write that Trump continues to hold fiery rallies in traditionally white noncollege areas, stressing his message of cultural conflict over race and immigration, nationalist economics, and perceived excesses of the Democratic left.
At the same time, Teixeira and Halpin note that Trump has tried to reach out to more conservative-leaning African-American, Hispanic, and Asian voters, while also reassuring more traditional white college-educated Republicans that he is the only thing standing between them and the coming onslaught of what Republicans label the 'socialist' policies of Democrats.
Teixeira and Halpin ask whether this will work. Their answer: given the skew of the Electoral College, it's a distinct possibility. Although seemingly incongruous, the combined effect of these twin Trump strategies may be enough to increase his vote margins and turnout among base voters while also slicing Democratic margins or turnout just enough to eke out another electoral victory.
