Why did college educated/wealthy non-whites shift so hard right?

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/SidKhurana3607/status/1866317528139710488

https://twitter.com/MassJumbo/status/1866957046127661336

We also see a lot of examples of this in places like NJ.

This is a notable deviation from 2020 where these communities swung left, and to the extent they swung right it wasn't by much. Also Democrats largely did ok in these communities in 2022 (FL being the exception).

What happened in 2024 that caused these places to swing so hard right in a way they didn't in 2020? I feel like a lot of people may try to tie it to "wokeness" and the "anti-success" perceptions of Democrats, but in 2020 you had things like Affirmative Action being bigger issues and yet Biden largely held up fine in these places.

Does Trump have some unique appeal to college educated non-whites? Were there circumstances that were different from 2020 than caused these places to swing so hard right?

[OSR stands with Israel]

For Indian-Americans:

- Culturally Indian-Americans are significantly more conservative than College Educated Whites.

- Indian-Americans in general are more distrustful of institutions and experts than College Educated Whites

- If you every heard Indian-Americans talk politics , you would see they are not PC at all while College Educated Whites tend to be pretty PC.

- Memories of the Clinton era fade and thats a huge reason they were dem to begin with

- Much of the reason why College Educated voters are democratic is because of how overwhelmingly democratic Liberal Arts Grads are and Indian-Americans generally tend not to major in those type of degrees.

[有爭議嘅領土 of The Figgis Agency]

The only group we have clear evidence of this happening with is Indian Americans, and even then it isn't yet clear if this was a nationwide phenomenon or mostly just a Texas + Acela corridor thing- and for Indians, how much of the changes in percentage topline margin are from D-leaners not turning out (or voting for Stein) as opposed to genuine persuasion.

I suspect this may have also happened with non-subordinate-class, suburban ethnic Chinese voters in Metro NYC like jaichind and compucomp, but I have neither the detailed precinct-level knowledge of Gothamland nor anecdotes from on-the-ground observers who aren't Reddit hacks to be able to confirm that. I haven't seen any post-election Gothamland precinct-level analysis Tweets being shared in the Leipverse that aren't about urban enclaves in NYC proper/Hudson County, or the Caribbean Latinos and Gujarati Indians of Northern NJ.

I feel like the trends most atlas posters and pundits seem to expect for 2024 are as follows:

-An increase in educational polarization
-A decrease in racial polarization, particularly amongst the younger cohorts
-A (modest?) decrease in age polarization
-Arab Americans swinging more R (in large part because of fewer showing up to vote for Biden)
-An increase in gender divide

-snip-

I'm most confident on 1/2 (with 2 being more driven by ideological polarization among POC than education polarization) and least confident on 4/5.

[TheReckoning]

For Indian-Americans:

- Culturally Indian-Americans are significantly more conservative than College Educated Whites.

- Indian-Americans in general are more distrustful of institutions and experts than College Educated Whites

- If you every heard Indian-Americans talk politics , you would see they are not PC at all while College Educated Whites tend to be pretty PC.

- Memories of the Clinton era fade and thats a huge reason they were dem to begin with

- Much of the reason why College Educated voters are democratic is because of how overwhelmingly democratic Liberal Arts Grads are and Indian-Americans generally tend not to major in those type of degrees.

Don’t Indians tend to be very pro-choice?

[OSR stands with Israel]

For Indian-Americans:

- Culturally Indian-Americans are significantly more conservative than College Educated Whites.

- Indian-Americans in general are more distrustful of institutions and experts than College Educated Whites

- If you every heard Indian-Americans talk politics , you would see they are not PC at all while College Educated Whites tend to be pretty PC.

- Memories of the Clinton era fade and thats a huge reason they were dem to begin with

- Much of the reason why College Educated voters are democratic is because of how overwhelmingly democratic Liberal Arts Grads are and Indian-Americans generally tend not to major in those type of degrees.

Don’t Indians tend to be very pro-choice?

Probably depends how you define pro choice . Hinduism is to the left of Christianity on the issue for example

According to an article on 1 September 1985, on the Hinduism Today website, "Several Hindu institutions have shared their positions on abortion recently. The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University does not take a formal unchanging political or religious stance on the issue of abortion. According to Vedic literature an eternal individual soul inhabits the body of every living creature...The soul enters the womb at the time of conception, and this makes the fetus a living, individual person."[6] The Bhagavad Gita states that the soul is neither born, nor does it die.[7] The Bhagavata Purana goes further to state that Jīva (soul) is eternal and as such is unrelated to his body, not subject to decay or change and thus dispassionate.[8] Some Hindu theologians believe personhood begins at 3 months and develops through to 5 months of gestation, possibly implying that abortion up to the third month does not harm a body with a soul, while considering any abortion past the third month to be destruction of the soul's current incarnate body.[9]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism_and_abortion


But frankly I think most voters regardless of race/ethnicity hold the postion of Clinton’s Democratic Party of Safe, Legal and Rare . This meaning they are pro choice but generally don’t view abortion as a good thing and democrats leaned too much into the latter this cycle .


Also generally people can hold positions on issues and not prioritize it when voting for candidates, especially in races that are as individualized as presidential races .

[Tekken_Guy]

For Indian-Americans:

- Culturally Indian-Americans are significantly more conservative than College Educated Whites.

- Indian-Americans in general are more distrustful of institutions and experts than College Educated Whites

- If you every heard Indian-Americans talk politics , you would see they are not PC at all while College Educated Whites tend to be pretty PC.

- Memories of the Clinton era fade and thats a huge reason they were dem to begin with

- Much of the reason why College Educated voters are democratic is because of how overwhelmingly democratic Liberal Arts Grads are and Indian-Americans generally tend not to major in those type of degrees.

It’s also possible that Vivek being one of Trump’s most prominent surrogates helped him with the demographic.

[jaichind]

The perception that Harris is the DEI candidate clearly played a role.  Many of these voters now had 4+ years with dealing with DEI at their megacorp and now putting up a DEI candidate clearly will not get one good results with this group.

[jaichind]

Chinese version of the orginal post

https://twitter.com/SidKhurana3607/status/1867051947649327128

Does not surprise me.  In Chinese nationalist far right online circles I belong to, I was alone in 2016 and 2020 in my pro-Trump pro-PRC position.  In 2024 there were plenty of people in those circles that hold those positions.

[Wormless Gourd]

1. Ideological self-sorting among non-whites and immigrants occurred.
2. College-educated voters can more easily self-sort.

[Reactionary Libertarian]

I think the backlash to 2020 ended up in 2024 instead of 2022 for some reason. So probably backlash to crime, BLM, affirmative action, etc.

[ottermax]

I think the backlash to 2020 ended up in 2024 instead of 2022 for some reason. So probably backlash to crime, BLM, affirmative action, etc.

A lot of these Trump voters are low-turnout, low-information voters. They just didn't vote in 2022, then flipped to Trump because of the economy or other cultural issues (education / affirmative action for some, Gaza for others).

[有爭議嘅領土 of The Figgis Agency]

Chinese version of the orginal post

https://x.com/SidKhurana3607/status/1867051947649327128
Does not surprise me.  In Chinese nationalist far right online circles I belong to, I was alone in 2016 and 2020 in my pro-Trump pro-PRC position.  In 2024 there were plenty of people in those circles that hold those positions.

Flushing isn't a good example of bougie/college-educated nonwhite voters shifting towards the GOP. In my mind, the NYC Chinatowns are full of (if not outright filtered for) non-bougie adult Mainland Chinese immigrants who either never pursued higher education or maybe didn't even graduate from high school back in China.

I cited you and compucomp as examples of ChinAm college-educated suburbanites in my other post in this thread, because to my knowledge you're both based in the NYC suburbs and not the city itself.

[jaichind]

Chinese version of the orginal post

https://x.com/SidKhurana3607/status/1867051947649327128
Does not surprise me.  In Chinese nationalist far right online circles I belong to, I was alone in 2016 and 2020 in my pro-Trump pro-PRC position.  In 2024 there were plenty of people in those circles that hold those positions.

Flushing isn't a good example of bougie/college-educated nonwhite voters shifting towards the GOP. In my mind, the NYC Chinatowns are full of (if not outright filtered for) non-bougie adult Mainland Chinese immigrants who either never pursued higher education or maybe didn't even graduate from high school back in China.

I cited you and compucomp as examples of ChinAm college-educated suburbanites in my other post in this thread, because to my knowledge you're both based in the NYC suburbs and not the city itself.

That is fair comment on Flushing.  Places like Edgmont near where I live might be a good better proxy although the Whites that live there most likely swung Harris.   Still the Flushing data is useful to get a sense of how some Chinese might have swung.

[Progressive Pessimist]

They're more self-interested when it comes to money and impulse than we previously thought. Although we had an indication of this in 2021 which sort of affirmed that they were a softer part of the Democratic coalition than it seemed after 2018 and 2020. 2022 is the outlier that gave us hope that they would deluver Harris the margins she needed to make up for slippage with other demographics.

They'll come back around, like most, I think when Trump takes office again and royally f***s things up.