"In 2016, Trump was able to fire up his white men without college degrees by focusing his campaign rhetoric on immigration and white grievance, or the idea that white people are the victims of discrimination, ideas that remain key among Republican voters, according to NPR.
But by 2020, it seemed that argument had already started to lose ground among white voters across the educational spectrum, who began to defect to Joe Biden's camp. While Trump still came out on top in securing white male voters, the difference between their turnout in 2016 and 2020 was the nail in the coffin of his reelection bid.
Things only got worse from there. According to NPR, between 2020 and 2024, Biden saw a 24-point bump among white men with college degrees, a group that has historically backed Republicans.
Trump has begun to experience a slip in swing states, as well. Polling from late 2023 and early 2024 in Wisconsin, a key battleground state, showed that Trump's net favorability rating among white men had dropped 22 points, from plus eight points to minus 14 points.
Trump saw major slips with self-identified Republicans, rural men, and white men who did not attend college, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. These groups have a sizable overlap and make up a crucial part of Trump's base.
In an effort to reclaim these voters, Trump tapped Vance to be his running mate, as someone who could theoretically appeal to both college-educated and non"college educated white men, touting his widely popularized white working-class roots alongside his degree from Yale Law School.
"You need a white guy to get the white guys we lost. The Hillbilly Elegy guy is the one to do it," MAGA political operative Vish Burra told The Bulwark.
"Trump needs Vance because he's good on camera and he sounds right. He's not one of these people you can dismiss as a MAGAloid or a barbarian."
So far, it's not totally clear that Vance is up for the task of white guy retrieval."
Lots more at the thread link.
But I'm not sure what made the Trump Gestapo think that a 'former gay guy' would attract a lot of underedumacated white men.... oh, wait. Never mind.
