ABSTRACT
Democrats used to be the party of the working class. That was a long-standing image of the party going back to the 1930s. However, many stories about the 2016 presidential election stressed Donald Trump’s appeal to white working-class voters. But even before 2016, there were signs that the white working-class was becoming more Republican. This development in American electoral politics was not fully appreciated or thoroughly explained. This study aims at advancing our understanding of this phenomenon by more accurately describing the changes that have taken place during the 21st century in the relationship between social class and voting and by analyzing the various factors that have produced this change in voting patterns.
