Donkeys with Diplomas: Consequences of the Growing Partisan Educational Divide

• In Event: Parties and Partisanship in the US

Abstract

With the strength of mass partisanship in the American public currently at historically exceptional levels by many key indicators (party loyalty in general elections, mass perceptions of party differences, increasingly negative attitudes towards partisan opponents, and so forth), it is tempting to emphasize continuity over change in the Democratic and Republican electoral coalitions. Yet there is an important trend that is producing a steady evolution in the composition of both parties: the increasing correlation of educational attainment with partisanship since the mid-1990s, especially among white Americans.

This development has received greater popular attention since the 2016 election dramatically exposed significant erosion in Democratic support among non-college whites (often inexactly described as the “white working class”), but it was already present prior to the rise of Donald Trump—whose nomination and election can be seen as an effect as well as a cause of this change. According to Pew data, college-educated whites preferred Hillary Clinton to Trump by a 55% to 38% margin in 2016 and voted similarly in 2018, while non-college whites opted for Trump over Clinton by a 64% to 28% margin. It is likely that no previous election in modern American history produced a comparable educational divide, at least in this particular partisan direction.

This paper examines the implications of the growing partisan dimension of educational attainment for American party politics more broadly. It primarily focuses on two specific subjects: (1) constituency/geographic consequences; and (2) policy consequences.

1. Constituency/Geographic. Because educational attainment varies, sometimes quite substantially, across geographic boundaries, these changes in the demographic composition of the parties have potentially pivotal consequences for their geographic coalitions. Congressional districts with well-educated populations have become measurably more Democratic in their collective partisan alignments since the 1990s, while districts dominated by non-college whites have shifted markedly to the Republicans.

2. Policy. Because level of education is positively correlated with social and cultural liberalism, the partisan divide in educational attainment is a natural byproduct of the larger “culture war” in American politics. But an especially important, and underappreciated, related development is a swiftly increasing partisan gap on attitudes towards the American educational system itself. Conservative elite and media figures’ repeated association of schools and universities—and of teachers, professors, and students—with political liberalism has contributed to this divide, and Republican officeholders have become more aggressive in targeting public education systems for budget cuts. Democratic politicians, in turn, have placed greater emphasis on college access and affordability and student debt reform.

The paper presents evidence drawn from survey data, census and demographic data, and electoral data, among other sources. It concludes that the common interpretation of the educational divide as reflecting “class” is misguided, as the relationship between education and measures of economic status is limited (especially in older generations). Instead, education should be analyzed as its own separate explanatory factor in contemporary partisan conflict.

This paper is part of a larger research project on the evolution of contemporary party coalitions, which has also produced a paper presented at last year’s APSA meetings and a recent op-ed (New York Times, November 19, 2019) on the subject of education policy and party competition.

Author

• David A. Hopkins, Boston College