Mass-Elite Divides in Aversion to Social Change and Support for Donald Trump

• In Event: Investigating the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

Abstract

Donald Trump won the American presidency by over-performing polls in upper Midwest states, surprising even those state’s Republican political elites (who had offered him only tepid support). Post-election explanations focused on the relative influence of racial and economic attitudes in driving Trump support, especially among white working class voters. We argue that attitudes toward social change were an underappreciated dividing line between supporters of Trump and Hillary Clinton as well as between Republicans at the mass and elite levels. We introduce a concept and a measure of aversion to (or acceptance of) social diversification and value change, assess the prevalence of these attitudes in the mass public and among elites, and demonstrate their independent effects on support for Trump in 2016.

Our research uses paired surveys of Michigan’s adult population and community of political elites in the Fall of 2016. Michigan was a major site of Trump’s unexpected strength, moving from a nine percentage point victory for Barack Obama in 2012 to a narrow victory for Trump in 2016. It is home to a sizeable population of white working class voters and has endured economic challenges alongside social diversification and change. Our landline and cellular telephone survey of 1,000 Michigan adults (including 796 likely voters) provides a representative sample of the state’s mass public. Our Michigan Policy Insiders Panel is an online survey with 402 respondents recruited from the state political community, including state legislative and administrative staff and policy advocates. Among Republican political elites, 85% expected a Clinton victory and only 41% had committed to vote for Trump. Among Republicans in the public, just 55% expected Clinton to win and 89% had committed to vote for Trump.

Our measure of attitudes toward social change relies on two (opposite direction) Likert scale items: (1) “Our country is changing too fast, undermining traditional American values.” and (2) “By accepting diverse cultures and lifestyles, our country is steadily improving.” Both items are strongly associated and predictive of support for Trump at the mass and elite levels. But attitudes are far more accepting of social change among elites than in the mass public, where white working class voters are particularly change-averse; the divide is especially stark between Republican elites and their base. Mass-elite divides were far less pronounced over economic perceptions as well as attitudes toward policing. We find that, if Republican elites were as averse to social change as their base in the mass public, they would have been just as supportive of Trump and just as likely to expect his victory. We also find that views of social change were not as strongly related to congressional voting choices, accounting for the closer match between elite and mass Republicans in down-ballot elections.

We argue that our concept of attitudes toward social change is related to but distinguishable from racial resentment (which usually invokes specific attitudes toward African-Americans), authoritarianism (usually measured as parenting attitudes), and ethnocentrism (including attitudes toward Latinos and Muslims). Similarly, it is theoretically and empirically related to both conservative ideology and religiosity but constitutes an independent set of ideas regarding the direction of society and its assumed high-pace movement from traditional values to more diverse ideas and groups. We find that aversion to social change predicts Trump support independently of any of these factors (as well as independently of party identification and economic attitudes). But it may also offer a broader category of attitudes that encapsulate but extend racial resentment beyond specific attitudes about African-Americans, even providing a mechanism for Trump support among whites with no ethnocentric views as well as racial minorities.

Attitudes toward social change also provide a key mechanism for understanding elite-mass divides within the Republican Party as well as the potential for Democratic voter losses among long-standing Democratic identifiers in the upper Midwest. Republican Party elites in Michigan do not share the attitudes of their base on social change; they are far better at representing conservative economic policy positions, which are not necessarily widely shared among their voters. Conservative ideological labels are often able to paper over these differences, providing a broader tent to hold together disparate views—but can leave elites blindsided by the virulent concerns of their base. Democrats, on the other hand, were caught off guard this year by defections from their white working class supporters. By priming attitudes toward social change, Clinton’s diversity-themed campaign and attacks on Trump for his offensive comments toward minorities may have even been a factor in moving traditional Democratic votes toward Trump.

Authors

• Matt Grossmann, Michigan State University

• Daniel Thaler, Michigan State University