Despite low favorability ratings, Trump could have an even bigger electoral college advantage than he did in 2016
- President Donald Trump has troublingly low nationwide and state-level approval ratings for an incumbent president presiding over a good economy, but his advantage in the electoral college might be expanding.
- Trump's net approval rating has plunged by 18 percentage points in Pennsylvania and 17 percentage points in both Michigan and Wisconsin.
- The New York Times Upshot and Siena College recently-released head-to-head polls of Trump and three of the leading Democratic candidates - and they show extremely tight margins in six key swing states.
- None of the three Democrats made a dent in Trump's infallible lead among white, non-college educated voters, which Trump carried by 26 percentage points in 2016 and were key to his victory in swing states.
- Election analyst Dave Wasserman estimated that based on US Census data, there are 35 million more eligible non-college white voters who didn't vote in 2016 than college-educated whites.
- This means Trump has plenty of room to grow his electoral college advantage.
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President Donald Trump has troublingly low nationwide and state-level approval ratings for an incumbent president presiding over a good economy, but his advantage in the electoral college might be expanding.
In 2016, Trump carried the electoral college by 74 votes while losing the national popular vote by three million votes. Since Trump's election, his net approval ratings have precipitously fallen in of the swing states he narrowly carried in 2016.
According to Morning Consult's state-level tracker of Trump's approval rating, his net approval has plunged by 18 percentage points in Pennsylvania and 17 percentage points in both Michigan and Wisconsin.
But 2018 midterm elections and the major electoral contests that have taken place so far in 2019 have revealed one striking electoral trend that could help Trump maintain and solidify his electoral college advantage from 2016.
Suburban areas with high concentrations of college-educated voters that were once Republican strongholds, like Orange County in California and the suburbs of major cities in Texas, are rapidly shifting Democratic, while once ancestrally Democratic rural areas where more of the population is white and non-college-educated are swinging to the GOP.
The New York Times Upshot and Siena College recently released head-to-head match-up polls of Trump and three of the leading Democratic candidates, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in the six competitive battleground states of Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Overall, the polling found extremely tight margins in all head-to-head matchups among a likely voter sample of 3,766 registered voters between the six states, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points in each state, showing troubling signs for both Trump and the three Democratic contenders.
Biden performed the best against Trump, but still only narrowly led him by margins of one to two percentage points in every state but North Carolina, where Trump beat Biden by two percentage points, all falling within the poll's margin of error.
Meanwhile, Sanders led Trump by three points in Michigan, tied him in Wisconsin, and narrowly trailed him by one to four percentage points in the rest of the states.
Warren and Trump were tied in Arizona, but Trump beat her by margins of two to four percentage points in the other five states.
Trump's stronghold on white, non-college-educated voters solidifies his electoral college advantage
The New York Times further combined their polling with other battleground state head-to-head matchups polls of the aforementioned Democrats and Trump, with a collective sample size of 7,802 voters. They found that the three leading Democrats either matched or slightly outperformed Clinton's margin among white, college-educated voters, which she carried by six percentage points in 2016.
But none of the three leading Democrats made a dent in Trump's lead among white, non-college educated voters, which Trump carried by 26 percentage points in 2016. In the poll compilation, Trump trounced the Democrats by margins of 24 to 26 percentage points among a sample of almost 1,500 white working-class voters.
Furthermore, the three Democrats are currently underperforming Clinton's margin against Trump among smaller samples of black and Hispanic voters, too.
While the suburban leftward shift is making states like Arizona and North Carolina competitive for Democrats, Trump's impenetrable lock on white, non-college voters could help him maintain and expand upon his lead in key electoral college states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania which he carried by narrow margins in 2016.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman Ben Wikler said, "Trump has some profound cracks in his base, but he's also flooding the state with resources to find his voters. We know this is going to be an enormous battle."
Election analyst and Cook Political Report US House editor Dave Wasserman estimated on Monday that based on US Census data, there are 44.4 million eligible non-college educated white voters who didn't vote in 2016 compared to just 9.3 million college-educated whites, meaning Trump could have more room to grow than Democrats.
He also noted that while Democrats could improve their margins among the estimated 32.9 million non-white voters who didn't vote in 2016 - including black voters in important Midwestern cities like Milwaukee and Detroit - those voters are primarily concentrated in states like California, New York, and Texas that are far less competitive than the Upper Midwest states feeding into Trump's electoral college advantage.
As Wasserman pointed out in June, Trump could very plausibly lose the popular vote by five million votes while carrying the electoral college by just one vote. This could happen if Trump replicates his 2016 victories in Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Maine's second congressional district, even if Democrats flipped Michigan and Pennsylvania and expanded their electoral margins in states like California and Texas.
Beyond those six battlegrounds, a state that could potentially be competitive is Iowa, where Trump's net approval in Morning Consult has fallen by 25 percentage points since January 2017. Other states Trump could win by closer margins than in 2016 are Texas, where his approval has dropped by 19 percentage points, and Georgia, where Trump's net approval has dropped by 17 percentage points.
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