Hot take: lower-income voters will never vote GOP until the GOP fundamentally changes its platform

[WalterWhite]

For the past few decades, lower-income voters have consistently voted for Democrats, and higher-income voters have consistently voted for Republicans.

It is in the economic interests for higher-income voters to vote for Republicans. Republicans support tax breaks for wealthy individuals. Additionally, Republicans generally support business deregulation, which allows businesses to increase profits further than they could if regulations were in place (especially in the energy industry).

It is in the economic interests for lower-income voters to vote for Democrats. Democrats generally support stronger social safety nets and higher minimum wages, which appeal to the interests of these voters. Additionally, Democrats are generally more pro-union, which appeals to union voters, who lean lower-income. Plus, Democratic viewpoints on economics and the criminal justice system (e.g. treating incidents of police brutality as part of a systemic issue rather than as isolated incidents, significantly more lenient sentencing for non-violent crimes) make them more appealing to minority voters, who are generally less affluent than white voters; it also helps that lower-income voters (regardless of race), because of lower socioeconomic status, end up resorting to crime (such as drug dealing and shoplifting), which further makes the Democratic Party appealing to these voters.

If the Republican Party wants to win lower-income voters, the parties have to switch their platform on economics and criminal justice. Currently, there are no indications this is taking place; the Democratic Party is moving left on economics, and neither party is changing its stance on the criminal justice system.

The only timeline where lower-income voters vote Republican is a timeline where the Republican Party adopts the economic and criminal justice viewpoints of the current Democratic Party and where the Democratic Party adopts the economic and criminal justice viewpoints of the current Republican Party. This is not happening any time soon.

[EastwoodS]

If the Republican party becomes an upper middle class, anti-billionaire party, they will do just fine with lower middle income people as well. I sincerely hope you mean "higher earner" as someone who makes like billions of dollars a year and not people making under a million dollars, yearly. Cause it's kinda sick to tax people to the point that they can't even climb the ladder, even a little bit.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

If trends continue, Republicans will start winning lower income voters, and then the parties will realize that it is better electorally to switch economically.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

A lot of GOP gains with lower-income voters and Dem gains with higher-income voters has to do with relative cost of living. At the national level, this means D’s winning the bottom and top of the household income distribution while R’s do better in the middle.

[MarkD]

Hot take: Party platforms are worthless. They are the phoniest kind of campaign promise there is. Nobody can ever force every candidate in the party to support every plank in the platform. Every candidate has a platform of their own. For example: in 2016, the DNC adopted a plank in their platform that said their party was against the death penalty. Then Hilary herself insisted to a reporter that she disagrees with that plank -- she supports the death penalty.

[pbrower2a]

Trump may be doing well with low-income white people. These are the low-information voters that he has said that he loves.. (He certainly isn't winning the votes of low-income non-white voters!) Know well that at the same level of vocational status, white people are generally lower in formal education. 

The GOP pitch from Reagan on has been that the most effective way in which to create jobs is to concentrate as much wealth in the hands of "job-creating" rich people through low taxes and lax regulations along with harsher terms of emplpyment. Then, supposedly the super-rich will invest more in job-creating activities... well, in low-paying jobs.

Even the lowest-paying jobs depend upon customers having solid income. Does anyone think that K-Mart, Radio Shack, and Sears are going to come back from the dead?

.....................

People may be desperate enough to take a job, any job, just to put food on the table and meet clothing and commuting costs; it doesn't take long for them to want better pay, medical coverage, and a vacation that is something more than twiddling one's thumbs or watching daytime TV because one lacks the means of going or doing anything interesting.




Even if the improvement in material life is that one eats tastier food, goes to a movie, or subscribes to a higher tier of cable TV service, such is significant. So is the cost. The crudest expressions of right-wing ideology and proponents of harsh discipline in the workplace trivialize the merits abetter life and suggrst that more fear of the boss motivates people more effectively. More effectively, but at the ruin of the worker. Bad employers typically have a high turnover of employees which ensures that workers there rarely develop lasting relationships while working for them, let alone a purpose nobler than day-to-day survival. Maybe one gets a sense of belonging from relations that one had before working there, but that can create some contradictions in life. Dignity? Respect? Achievement? Purpose? Recognition? If one works in a 'survival' job in a supremely-materialistic, yet economically-hierarchical social order in which people are most identified by what they can buy... then those areas out of reach as the stars in the sky.

The 1980's, the time in which the consensus among economic elites was that working people needed to sacrifice all but their literal lives on behalf of shareholders and executives for the enhancement of profit and executive compensation, are over. In the wake of COVID-19 we now have a labor shortage in which employers other than the usual low-end, high-turnover employers such as retailers and fast-food businesses, now admit that they need employees. It was possible in the 1980's to get college graduates to be salesclerks, cleaners, and servants, wasting the talents of such people. That is over.     

[WalterWhite]

If trends continue, Republicans will start winning lower income voters, and then the parties will realize that it is better electorally to switch economically.

Switching economically would alienate your base, though.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

If trends continue, Republicans will start winning lower income voters, and then the parties will realize that it is better electorally to switch economically.

Switching economically would alienate your base, though.

It will be the logical thing to do if the Republican base becomes low income voters. Idk if trends will actually continue though.

[MarkD]

For the past few decades, lower-income voters have consistently voted for Democrats, and higher-income voters have consistently voted for Republicans.

You're only referring to tendencies, not rock-solid, absolute voting blocs. There are always varying percentages of how poor people vote for Republicans and very wealthy people voting for Democrats. Many people in various economic classes don't vote for "their interests," they vote for ideologies.
Furthermore, what do you mean by "the past few decades"? The tendency you're referring to has been around for many decades, not just a few.

[Skill and Chance]

If trends continue, Republicans will start winning lower income voters, and then the parties will realize that it is better electorally to switch economically.

Switching economically would alienate your base, though.

It will be the logical thing to do if the Republican base becomes low income voters. Idk if trends will actually continue though.

I think there will be some changes (e.g. persistent R support for higher tariffs, increasing D opposition, increasing R support for some child/maternity benefits, particularly at the state level), but they won't have to change nearly as much as most people here assume.  Just because more poor people are voting for them doesn't mean R's are suddenly going to endorse 70% taxes on 6 figure incomes anytime soon.

[WalterWhite]

If trends continue, Republicans will start winning lower income voters, and then the parties will realize that it is better electorally to switch economically.

Switching economically would alienate your base, though.

It will be the logical thing to do if the Republican base becomes low income voters. Idk if trends will actually continue though.

I think there will be some changes (e.g. persistent R support for higher tariffs, increasing D opposition, increasing R support for some child/maternity benefits, particularly at the state level), but they won't have to change nearly as much as most people here assume.  Just because more poor people are voting for them doesn't mean R's are suddenly going to endorse 70% taxes on 6 figure incomes anytime soon.

But the wealthy will never vote Democratic as long as the Democratic Party keeps supporting higher taxes for the wealthy

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

A lot of GOP gains with lower-income voters and Dem gains with higher-income voters has to do with relative cost of living. At the national level, this means D’s winning the bottom and top of the household income distribution while R’s do better in the middle.

Re: Dallas Mayor, Eric Johnson, Switches to GOP after winning reelection

Party switching seems like the new strategy for the GOP to hold some relevance.

It really isn't a new strategy; it's the only way the GOP has maintained relevance at all in the age of substantial demographic changes. (And it's been really successful: unless you want to really cherry-pick when you start counting, you have to confront that the GOP continues to win national elections more often than it loses.) It's going to continue to be a thing until the moment when Democratic messaging towards people drifting away from the party changes very radically, and I doubt that will be a thing until the party's internal culture changes, and I doubt that will be a thing until there's some very severe defeat (so plausibly not for many decades since the GOP is in various ways incentivized to seek knife-edge wins rather than landslides).

The more interesting thing about the 2023 wave of party-switchers is that so many of them come from the Safe D urban South. I don't really have a theory as to why; I think Xahar's written about this but his points are about Georgia specifically, whereas what's going on here is quite a bit broader.

I wonder what if any role relative regional cost of living plays in party switches

[Skill and Chance]

If trends continue, Republicans will start winning lower income voters, and then the parties will realize that it is better electorally to switch economically.

Switching economically would alienate your base, though.

It will be the logical thing to do if the Republican base becomes low income voters. Idk if trends will actually continue though.

I think there will be some changes (e.g. persistent R support for higher tariffs, increasing D opposition, increasing R support for some child/maternity benefits, particularly at the state level), but they won't have to change nearly as much as most people here assume.  Just because more poor people are voting for them doesn't mean R's are suddenly going to endorse 70% taxes on 6 figure incomes anytime soon.

But the wealthy will never vote Democratic as long as the Democratic Party keeps supporting higher taxes for the wealthy

Federal Democrats are doing just fine with the mass wealthy nowadays.  In practice, the Obama and Biden administrations barely raised taxes.  Now, if we are talking about still subject to federal estate tax after Trump level wealthy, then yes, I think Dems are going to continue running into a wall with people worth 10's of millions and/or with incomes >$1M/year unless they changed economic policy significantly.  But they are doing just fine with single digit millionaires and educated professional couples making like $250K.  Like the Republicans and the working class, Democrats could conceivably win these groups outright with only minor changes.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

A lot of GOP gains with lower-income voters and Dem gains with higher-income voters has to do with relative cost of living. At the national level, this means D’s winning the bottom and top of the household income distribution while R’s do better in the middle.

I think there will be some changes (e.g. persistent R support for higher tariffs, increasing D opposition, increasing R support for some child/maternity benefits, particularly at the state level), but they won't have to change nearly as much as most people here assume.  Just because more poor people are voting for them doesn't mean R's are suddenly going to endorse 70% taxes on 6 figure incomes anytime soon.

But the wealthy will never vote Democratic as long as the Democratic Party keeps supporting higher taxes for the wealthy

Federal Democrats are doing just fine with the mass wealthy nowadays.  In practice, the Obama and Biden administrations barely raised taxes.  Now, if we are talking about still subject to federal estate tax after Trump level wealthy, then yes, I think Dems are going to continue running into a wall with people worth 10's of millions and/or with incomes >$1M/year unless they changed economic policy significantly.  But they are doing just fine with single digit millionaires and educated professional couples making like $250K.  Like the Republicans and the working class, Democrats could conceivably win these groups outright with only minor changes.

Related: https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/class-conflict-and-the-democratic

The biggest divide in American politics at present is not along the lines of socioeconomic status (SES), nor educational attainment, nor area type (urban, suburban, small town, rural), nor sex and gender—although these factors all serve as important proxies for the distinction that matters most. The key schism that lies at the heart of dysfunction within the Democratic Party and the U.S. political system more broadly is between professionals associated with “knowledge economy” industries and those who feel themselves to be the “losers” in the knowledge economy—including growing numbers of working-class and non-white voters.

The increasing dominance of knowledge economy professionals over the Democratic Party has had a range of profound impacts on the contemporary U.S. political landscape. First and foremost, it has contributed to a growing disconnect between the economic priorities of the party relative to most others in the U.S., especially working-class Americans. As sociologist Shamus Khan has shown, the economics of elites tend to operate “counter-cyclically” to the rest of society, meaning that developments that tend to be good for elites are often bad for everyone else and vice versa.

For instance, professionals tend to be far more supportive of immigration, globalization, automation, and artificial intelligence than most Americans because they make professionals’ lives more convenient and significantly lower the costs of the premium goods and services they are inclined towards. Those in knowledge professions primarily see upsides with respect to these issues because their lifestyles and livelihoods are much less at risk—indeed, they instead capture a disproportionate share of any resultant GDP increases—and their culture and values are largely affirmed rather than threatened by these phenomena. Others may and often do experience these developments quite differently.

Likewise, most Americans skew “operationally” left, favoring robust social safety nets, government benefits, and infrastructure investment via progressive taxation, but trend more conservative on cultural and symbolic issues. For instance, they tend to support patriotism, religiosity, national security, and public order. Although they are sympathetic to many left-aligned policies, they tend to prefer policies and messages that are universal and appeal to superordinate identities over ones oriented around specific identity groups (e.g., LGBTQ people, women, Hispanics, and so on). They tend to be alienated by political correctness and prefer candidates and messages that are direct, concise, and plainspoken. Knowledge economy professionals tend to have preferences on these fronts that are diametrically opposed to those of most other Americans, especially working-class voters.

With respect to values, knowledge professionals skew culturally and symbolically “left” but favor free markets. As statistician Andrew Gelman showed, elites in the Republican Party tend to be significantly more liberal culturally and symbolically than the rest of the GOP yet more dogmatic about free markets. Meanwhile, Democratic-aligned elites tend to be significantly more “left” on cultural and symbolic issues than most Democrats but tend to be much warmer on markets. The primary difference between Democratic and Republican elites seems to lie in how they rank free markets relative to cultural liberalism: those who prioritize the former have tended to align with the Republicans, while those who prioritize the latter have consistently aligned with the Democrats. To the extent that highly-educated people support left-aligned economic policies, they tend to prioritize redistribution in the form of taxes and transfers whereas most other voters prefer predistribution—higher pay, better benefits, and more robust job protections so less needs to be reallocated in the first place (typically at the expense of some market freedom).

Critically, although knowledge economy professionals tend to skew more “operationally right” than most Americans, they often have inaccurate understandings of their own preferences. Perhaps counterintuitively, highly-educated Americans tend to be less aware of their own socio-political preferences than most others in society. Typically, we describe ourselves as more left-wing than we actually seem to be. Studies consistently find that relatively affluent, highly-educated, and cognitively sophisticated voters tend to gravitate towards a marriage of cultural liberalism and economic conservatism. However, they regularly understand themselves as down-the-line leftists. As the economist James Rockey put it:

How does education affect ideology? It would seem that the better educated, if anything, are less accurate in how they perceive their ideology. Higher levels of education are associated with being less likely to believe oneself to be right-wing, whilst simultaneously associated with being in favour of increased inequality.

Many knowledge economy professionals support ostensibly “radical” socioeconomic policies, but in a way that prevents even modest reforms. For instance, they tend to be much more critical of capitalism in principle than many other Americans. They tend to support “the revolution” (however defined) in the abstract, but because revolution does not appear to be in the offing anytime soon (certainly not a leftist revolution) they largely carry on day-to-day in much the same fashion as their liberal peers. If anything, under the auspices of slogans like “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” leftist professionals may show even less willingness to make practical changes in their own lives, institutions, and communities to advance their espoused social justice goals. Individual sacrifices or changes, it is commonly argued, are futile; nothing shy of systemic change is worth aspiring towards.