Power Bottoms were a notorious swing demographic starting in the 1950’s and were crucial to powering GOP victories in the 1960’s and 70’s. Starting in 1980 with the Reagan Revolution though this group felt alienated by the increasing overt power of the religious right but not in a fun way. Coupled with this was the fact that power bottoms became increasingly college educated, while collar, and urbanized. These were all demographics that the GOP have lost ground with and as a result they became more Democratic.
Up until 2016, power bottoms were a solid thrusting force for the Democratic Party to rely on. However Donald Trump was able to make some appeal to this group with his tougher rhetoric on Law and order/immigration and swayed some of them to his coalition. A lot of variables could make or break this group but the key will be in the House races this year. MN-1, NV-3, and NH-1 all have strong concentrations of power bottoms and could break their down-ballot Dem preference if they feel as though Donald Trump has delivered for them.
Long term however I expect this group to become a swing demographic. I believe that the macroeconomic trends will cause a realignment sometime in the 2020’s which will make white collar urbanized power bottoms a group negatively affected by increased tax rates from a Bernie Sanders style Democratic Party. With that you’ll see a slow R trend culminating in current trends we’re seeing right now with Trump’s law and order platform and later on they’ll be pushed even harder R from Bernie style democrats alienating a segment of them into the GOP coalition.
Beautiful.
