Abandoned Working Class: How Low-Income Voters Ditched the Democratic Party for Trump

They really are the “coastal elites” they’re portrayed as. Data from the 2024 Presidential election shows that the Democratic Party is preferred by wealthier, college-educated individuals – a stark contrast to those the party claims to represent. Subsequently, poorer and less traditionally educated voters now trust the Republican Party for the first time since the 1960s.

This comes despite Democrats mindlessly portraying the GOP as the “party of the rich.”

According to the Financial Times voter survey, “Democrats received more support from Americans in the top third of the income bracket than from poorer groups” for the first time in decades.

The survey also found that most lower-income households earning less than $50,000 voted for Donald Trump, while high earners with over $100,000 in annual income preferred Kamala Harris.

Another NBC News exit poll found that nearly two-thirds of voters without a college degree preferred Trump. The loss of popularity among non-graduates cuts across racial lines. According to a CNN exit poll, Harris lost 16 points among non-college-educated people of color compared to Biden in 2020.

Since March, Biden has dished out $19 billion in debt forgiveness, boosting the party’s popularity among college graduates, but also infuriating the non-college-educated Americans paying off those loans.

The outgoing president promised that debt forgiveness would help working families build wealth by saving towards other goals such as downpayment for a house. But obviously, these redistributive policies are zero sum.

“The skyrocketing cumulative federal student loan debt—$1.6 trillion and rising for more than 45 million borrowers—is a significant burden on America’s middle class.”

However, college debt forgiveness also significantly contributed to inflation which disproportionately affects middle and lower-income households.

While Democrats won in big cities, support for the party dwindled drastically in urban areas, with double digit shifts to Trump in many major cities.

While the Harris campaign attempted to distance itself from Biden’s policies that hurt the middle class and low-income earners, voters failed to see the distinction. 

It is no surprise that moderates and Democrat-leaning leftists are now calling out the party for losing touch with the working Americans.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” wrote Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. “First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well.”

While Democrats focused on non-pressing issues such as the rights of transgender women to compete in girls’ sports and abortion rights, Trump focused on more pressing issues like the economy and border security. 

Trump also offered more practical solutions to economic problems affecting Americans, such as increasing America’s oil output to offset prices, while Democrats gave vague promises. 

Nonetheless, more Americans already doubted that the Democratic Party represented the interests of the middle class or poor Americans even before the 2024 presidential election.

According to an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) study, the proportion of Americans who believe the Democratic Party represents the middle class fell from 48% in 1990 to 31% in 2024. 

Similarly, the percentage of Americans believing the party represents the poor also fell from 66% to 42%. During the same period, the association of the Republican Party with the rich also fell from 73% to 51%.

“Americans increasingly do not believe Democrats represent poor and middle-class Americans, and fewer Americans associate the GOP with the wealthy’s interests,” said AEI’s researcher Daniel Cox.