New Poll Shows Trump's Populism Is Reshaping the Electorate

President Donald Trump narrowly lost reelection last year — and questions about abuses of the process remain — but he did gain historic support from minorities, particularly black and Hispanic voters. A new NBC News poll suggests that the American electorate is shifting in ways that bode well for the Republican Party.

In the last decade, the percentage of blue-collar voters who call themselves Republicans has increased by 12 points, while the percent of blue-collar voters who call themselves Democrats dropped by 8 points. Meanwhile, Republicans lost 1 percent of white-collar workers while Democrats gained 1 percent of those voters.

In the past decade, white blue-collar workers have shifted heavily toward the GOP. In 2010, only 45 percent of blue-collar workers who identified themselves as white called themselves Republicans. In 2016, that number ticked up to 47 percent. Last year, 57 percent of white blue-collar workers called themselves Republicans.

Yet blue-collar workers among racial minorities are also flocking to the GOP. In 2010, only 23 percent of Hispanic blue-collar workers identified as Republican, but by 2020, that number had grown to 36 percent, a 13-point swing.

Republicans have also picked up black blue-collar workers. In 2010, only 5 percent of black blue-collar workers identified as Republican, but in 2020, 12 percent of them did so.

Even though Trump lost reelection, it would be a mistake for the GOP to reject his populist direction. The Trump presidency reshaped the electorate, as the president combatted the smug woke institutions that reject the common sense of hard-working Americans. Down-to-earth blue-collar workers know there’s something off about transgenderism, Marxist critical race theory, climate alarmism, illegal immigration, and more of the Left’s sacred-cow issues. Trump proved himself willing to combat the woke ideologies that harm working-class Americans of all races, and the GOP should build on his legacy on this.

Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.