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As US voters are polarized, the central question of Tuesday's election is which party will do the best to publicize its main supporters. Democrats are trying to mobilize Hispanic voters, for example, while Republicans are using it to energize whites of the working class. These groups rely heavily on one party or the other.
But important alternative groups still exist in the electorate – blocks of voters with fluid political allegiances. For them, the question is not only to know if they vote, but which side of the political gap they are facing.
A swing group to watch this week: graduate men, especially white men.
White men with university degrees were once among the most trusted supporters of Republican candidates. Now they form a swing group, available for both parties. And they account for nearly one in five constituents in the competitive districts of the House, Wall Street Journal / NBC News polls, enough to offer a profit margin Tuesday.
Politically, this group has traveled long distances in recent decades. In 1994, 62% of white-collar men wanted Republicans to control Congress, while 29% preferred Democrats, according to a Newspaper / NBC News survey that year.
Today, all of this group leans slightly in favor of Democrats in their preference for the party that should control the Congress.
This is a substantial change, especially compared to white men who do not have four years of university education. This group, often called white men of the working class, remains the main support of the Republican party and supports mainly President Trump.
But in 1994, when the Journal / NBC News polls began to follow the trend, it was the white men who graduated from higher education who supported the GOP the most, as they did for years.
The most recent survey published by Journal / NBC News, released Sunday, confirms this trend.
White men without diplomas are in favor of congressional control by the GOP, from 64% to 30%, according to the new survey. White men with diplomas are in favor of democratic control, between 48% and 43%.
"It's a problem if you're Republican," said Micah Roberts, a survey expert at GOP with Public Opinion Strategies, who works for the Journal / NBC News polls. "One of the reasons they may not be doing well this year," he said, referring to the GOP candidates, "is that they lose those very reliable voters. "
The reorientation of these groups offers another example of how the level of education has become a powerful predictor of political opinion among white Americans.
At the mid-point in 1994, white voters – regardless of gender or education – propelled the GOP to its first majority in the House after 40 years of democratic control.
Then, under the Obama administration, education divided the white voter group, which still accounts for more than 70 percent of voters. As the Journal has recently documented, this has had a particularly important effect in white women graduating from higher education, who have radically turned to the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, white men without diplomas were increasingly supporting Republicans.
Today, the group of white voters has a very different political alignment from that of 1994. It has split up according to gender, and even more depending on the level of education.
This change is evident among white voters, but not among minority groups. In fact, non-white voters with and without diplomas have become more aligned recently, according to a Newspaper / NBC News poll, even as educational attainment has divided the white electorate.
For Republicans, the story of white men educated at school warns: they seem more open to the GOP this year in many places that will decide which party will control the House.
In House ridings already represented by Democrats, white men with lean diplomas are strongly Democrats – by 27 percentage points, according to the merged Journal / NBC News polls from this year to October.
But in the districts that count for control of the House – those with the most competitive runs – white men with degrees bias Republican by a 6-point net.
This provides an important context for the conclusion that this group leans democratically from a net of 4 points or 5 points to the national scale.
The Educated White Women movement helps explain why so many competitive House races are taking place this year in the suburbs, where the proportion of residents with a bachelor's degree is often higher than that of the nation. But the fact that white university graduates have not followed with the same strength partly explains why many of these races remain competitive so close to election day.
Write to Aaron Zitner at [email protected]
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