Can Democrats keep Hillary margins with wealthy/college educated whites while...

[Virginiá]

Yes, up to a point. Erosion may occur as white Millennial college graduates get older - as in, maybe 50+. I think it will hinge largely on whether they believe Democrats are successful in whatever they are doing, and exactly what the tax/spending situation looks like then.

But if people think these voters are just going to dip out practically overnight, they will probably be disappointed. Future white college graduates will be dominated by Millennials and gen z voters, who are already liberal/looking to be liberal-leaning, so in order for them to move out of the Democratic camp, they'll need to break likely decades of partisan allegiance. That is hard to do.

[Virginiá]

No. The swing against Trump with college educated whites, especially women, was primarily due to his personal flaws (temperament, Access Hollywood, etc) as opposed to a fundamental rejection of his policy proposals or the GOP at large. That's part of why so few republican incumbents lost their House seats in normally lean R districts where Trump narrowly lost or ran even.

What about what happened in Virgina? Incumbency didn't save most of the Clinton college educated suburban districts.

2016 was supposed to be a Republican leaning year but Donald Trump nearly screwed it up. 2018 and 2020 won't be so favorable towards these republican incumbents.


Also reminder that a socialist unseated a republican in a wealthy educated district.

I think people really underestimate just how little policy can matter in some elections. Not to say it's completely meaningless, but America's electorate is not filled with people who sit down, carefully analyze their choices and make choices independent of partisan considerations. Absolutely not. It's more like, "I've chosen my team, and I'm going to say I'm open to all candidates but that's bs." Like Griff said - if these voters do end up sticking around in 2020, odds are a lot, imo most, will not just snap back in the future. Policy is not going to matter, just like it doesn't seem to matter for millions of Republicans who constantly puzzle liberals by seemingly voting against their self-interest for years and years. At best, it'll probably be a situation where certain demographics do end up trending the other way, but it's a generational movement and not people suddenly waking up and thinking, "hey, I'm going to vote Republican/Democrat."

I'd also note that this is why I don't really like the progressive argument of "we need WWC because upscale/college educated whites are going to screw us on policy." I just don't see it playing out like that.

[Virginiá]

But if policy matters so little, then why did these voters (who presumably voted for the Republicans in nearly all elections pre-2016) change their votes in 2016? I guess Trump's behaviour played a bigger role than his policies but if these voters weren't tribalistically Republican enough to vote Trump in 2016 I doubt they will become tribalistically Democratic to the point they're not even going to vote for a Pence/Cotton/Haley anymore even though they would have voted for such a candidate in 2016. The only way I see these people remaining Democratic is if they like some progressives fear "screw us on policy" (and at that point I'd probably also become a Democrat ).

It's quite possible a lot of the ongoing change is related to white Millennial grads continuing to displace older white college grads. Last I recall from an Atlantic piece, the education divide is strong among Millennials as well, so it makes perfect sense to think that as they grow up, it would shift white college graduates along with them. As for white college grads that were previously Republican-leaning, it's also not a stretch to think that their connection to the GOP was already on tenuous ground pre-Trump, kind of like Democrats and some WWCs. Obama being president and rather unpopular most of the time made it easy for them to maintain that connection. Now that that is no longer the case, and the spotlight is on a deeply unpopular and personally repulsive Republican president, it's allowed the separation between various white college grads and the party to solidify. It's similar to how in Virginia, many Republican delegates held Obama/Clinton districts - some even double digit Obama districts, and yet they kept winning because an unpopular Democratic president demoralized Democrats and made it hard for Virginia Democratic candidates win over other voters. Now that the script has flipped, a massive correction occurred and districts Republicans were destined to lose finally fell.

I actually posted an article with some polling data on Trump supporter's extensive malleability with policy preferences, depending on what they were told Trump supported. The gist was that if Trump supported more liberal policies, these voters would also support more liberal policies, and vice versa. This isn't a new concept, either. It's been shown that many voters will take cues from the political leaders they support. You may think of it along the lines as, "I support the Republican Party, and I'm not a policy expert. If they say this will help, I believe them." Of course, there are some exceptions. Immigration seems to be one for some voters, although I'm not sure to what extent. For instance it doesn't seem most Trump supporters care about his wall, and I think most even supported a pathway to citizenship.