THE PUBLIC EYE:Who are Trump voters?
The latest Huffington Post Poll of Polls shows Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump 47.1 percent to 39.7 percent. Many political observers feel that Trump’s voter “ceiling” is 40 percent of the electorate. Who are these voters?
Two years ago, Pew Research Center released a typology of American politics. The typology distinguished between three classes of voters: the general public, registered voters, and the “politically engaged.” In the category “politically engaged” there were three categories of Republicans: “Steadfast Conservatives: socially conservative populists” at 19 percent; “Business Conservatives: Pro-Wall street, pro-immigrant” at 17 percent; “Young Outsiders: conservative views on government, not on social issues” at 11 percent.
In addition, there is a swing group of Democrats, “Hard Pressed Skeptics: Financially stressed and pessimistic” at 9 percent. These are “Reagan Democrats.”
Given the Pew data, the hard-core Trump base is probably composed of “Steadfast Conservatives” and “Young Outsiders” for 30 percent. (This is roughly the size of the Tea Party movement.) It’s safe to assume that some Business Conservatives and some Hard-Pressed Skeptics also support Trump. Thus, the core Trump vote is likely to be 30-40 percent of the portion of the electorate that are probable voters.
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