JOIN USBiden is ahead, say the polls. But does that matter?
Election Day in America is November 3, but some 85 million people had already voted by Saturday, either by postal ballot or in early voting, and over 100 million people – or nearly two-thirds of the 153 million registered voters in the country -- are expected to have done so by Tuesday, raising the possibility of not just a record turnout of voters but that that might be an indication that people are coming out in droves to vote out President Donald Trump. But notwithstanding the fact that the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate Joe Biden is considered the favourite to win the election, there is a startling reality that still works in favour of Trump: the majority of White voters are still going to vote for Trump.
Pew Research indicates that Trump is ahead of Biden among White men by a 12-percentage-point margin — 53% to 41% whereas the figure is 49% to 46% for White women. In White households with income less than $30,000, Trump leads Biden by 50% to 42% whereas in White households with over $80,000 income, Biden leads Trump by 49% to 46%. In rural and suburban areas, where 221 million people live, Trump is preferred by 65% and 48%, respectively, among White voters. Biden is preferred by 62% of White voters in urban areas, where 98 million people live.
In the oldest democracy and a country that is becoming demographically multi-national and multi-ethnic, the White voter base is consistently declining. As per the Pew Research, it was 76% in the 2000 elections, and fell to 72% in 2010, 67% in 2018. In the four largest American states -- Texas, California, Florida and New York state -- the non-Hispanic White voter population is now 41%, 36%, 53% and 55% respectively. Of those, Texas and Florida are ‘battleground states’ that may swing either Trump’s way or Biden’s. Other ‘battleground states’ -- Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Michigan -- have also seen declines in the share of White voters between 2000 and 2018. Though the rates have fallen in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states, White voters still form significant chunks in Wisconsin (86%), Ohio (82%), Pennsylvania (81%) and Michigan (79%).
In all, of the approximately 153 million registered voters, nearly 102 million are White. With the exception of 2012, when the African American community voter turnout rate was the highest, mainly due to President Obama’s re-election bid, White voter turnout rates have historically been the highest among all groups. In the 2016 elections, 65% of White voters turned up to vote, and 60% of African American voters did. Overall, the American electorate is ageing: 52% of registered voters are 50 and older, up from 41% in 1996. Nearly two-thirds of registered voters in the US (65%) do not have a college degree. Pew Research estimated that 44% of the voters in 2016 were Whites without college degrees.
In other words, a Biden victory will only be possible by an overwhelming support from the nearly 33% minorities, the Democratic Party’s continued grip over urban and young voters from all groups, including White voters with a college degree, and an improvement in support from White women voters from all areas as compared to the 2016 elections. There are reports of additional support for Biden coming from White voters aged 65 and above. This indicates that Trump’s inept handling of the pandemic has triggered a change in voting preference of senior citizens.
Obviously, the analysis has to be more nuanced as many Hispanic voters identify themselves as White and some, like Cuban immigrants, are expected to vote for Trump. However, this doesn’t upend the big picture. Broadly, Trump’s re-election bid continues to be predicated on his ability to woo blue-collar White middle-aged men. Whether he wins or loses this segment of population may continue to influence the domestic and foreign policies of the new administration.
In the American context, the term White de facto denotes European origin, though some Middle Eastern-origin Americans, particularly in Michigan, also describe themselves as White. The US was founded by White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) immigrants by killing or displacing native American Indian tribes that lived on present US territory. A number of ethnicities are bracketed within the so-called White race. In each part of the US, one can find the ancestral roots of various ethnicities of the so-called White voter base. In Minnesota in the Mid-West, for instance, a number of residents trace their ancestral roots to Scandinavian countries. Many in the New England area, i.e. the North Eastern states like Massachusetts, have populations that trace their origins from various parts of Britain.
In the last 100 years or so, various strands of fresh European-origin immigrants, namely Irish Americans, Italian Americans or East European Americans, many of whom are Catholic, arrived on the shores of the US. Each one of these groups faced some form of discrimination from the dominant group. Actually, even immigrants from Germany, who are considered part of the Anglo-Saxon Protestants, had to face discrimination in the 20th century, particularly during the two World Wars, as they were suspected to be supporting Germany against the US. The election of Democrat John F Kennedy in 1960 was a watershed moment. He was the first Catholic to become President. If elected, Biden, who is from the Irish American ethnic stock, will be the second US President from the Catholic denomination. It needs to be emphasised here that the institutionalised discrimination and violence perpetuated on African Americans has no equivalence in the US.
Trump’s electoral pitch is informed by his personal upbringing and experiences in the demographically fast-changing Queensborough of New York City (NYC) of the 1950s and 1960s. That period witnessed a heightened sense of insecurity among the White Protestant population as new immigrants from across the world crowded out NYC boroughs. Queensborough became one of the most diverse parts of the world demographically. The same reality is now being replicated across the US, including the Republican Party bastions, the Southern states. That’s why Trump’s rhetoric resonates among some sections of the population.
The racial angst is coupled with the contemporary challenges that the blue-collar, middle-aged White cohort faces in the ongoing economic and social churn. Trump’s re-election campaign continues to exploit the wellspring of multi-dimensional anxiety. Due to globalisation, which the US elite championed, the blue-collar jobs in the Mid-West and the South have shipped to China and other South-East Asian countries due to the comparative advantage of cheap labour. The West and East coast communities have been the beneficiaries of globalisation due to the fact that their comparative advantage is in technology and finance respectively. Excluding the economic migration from Central America, the newly arrived immigrant communities have climbed up the social and economic ladder quicker. The reasons are obvious.
Those entering the workforce are highly educated and their children are born with the advantage of educated and financially stable pedigrees. This is because the present US immigration system is highly regulated, particularly for Asian immigrants. President Trump’s virulent dog whistle politics is taking place in the backdrop of the fact that a majority of the country is fast inclining towards a more progressive strand of politics. The reorientation of race and gender relations is at the centre of that debate. Bi-racial partnerships and marriages continue to rise.
At the other end of the spectrum, the middle-aged blue-collar White population still remains one of the largest groups demographically, though progressively declining, and the US electoral system gives them an outsized advantage. Therefore, the prevailing economic and social distress of this segment will be a factor for some time in shaping America’s domestic and external policies, including immigration. The retraining and retooling of this cohort in the new economy will take time. There will be continued pressure on policymakers to adopt protectionist measures, going against the grain of comparative economic advantage. In 2019, the federal government gave the highest level of farm subsidies in 14 years. Such decisions will continue to be made, and this will shape America’s bilateral as well as multilateral engagements in forums like the World Trade Organisation, irrespective of whether it is Trump or Biden in the White House over the next four years.
(The writer has worked with different multilateral institutions and is a political analyst)