How the 'diploma divide' helped steer Trump back to the White House

(This story was updated to correct a typo.)

Among voters without college degrees, Kamala Harris fared worse than Joe Biden four years ago.

That’s a big problem for Democrats. And it has become more of a liability for the party as it struggles to grasp the working class appeal it once enjoyed.

The GOP won big last week thanks in part to white women unswayed by Donald Trump's link to the end of Roe v. Wade, a realignment of Latino voters and some Black men in swing states. But the wins also resulted from the expanding political differences between voters with college degrees and those without them.

That chasm, nicknamed the “diploma divide,” has long been an issue for Democrats. It appears to have worsened last week: CNN exit polls (which are only a snapshot of the electorate and aren’t always accurate) showed Harris outperformed Biden’s 2020 numbers among white voters with college degrees. Meanwhile, exit polling from NBC News gave Republicans a 9-point gain with voters who never attended college. Exit polling from The Associated Press and The Washington Post provided similar evidence.

"The diploma divide continued and extended a bit from previous elections," said Matt Grossmann, a political scientist at Michigan State University who has studied the trend.

Going to college is a privilege. Not everyone can go, and perhaps more importantly, not everyone wants to go. Yet, in recent decades, a degree has arguably become more of an economic necessity than ever.

As having a college education became a standard expectation among many employers around the turn of the century, the cost of college rose. Student loan debt ballooned. Students accused some schools of knowingly ripping them off. Then came student loan forgiveness, which has been highly politicized and criticized by Americans who don’t want to be left unfairly footing the bill for other people’s financial risks.

All those circumstances have clashed with the two major American political parties, shaping the public's choices about whom to support.

For years, Democrats have accepted the fact that they can’t win over voters who aren't college educated, said Joan Williams, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, and author of the forthcoming book “Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back.”

“The assumption has been that Democrats would make up for that by winning overwhelmingly among voters of color. But that didn’t work,” she said. “This strategy, of resigning yourself to losing among white noncollege voters, is gone with the wind.”

Two-thirds of white men without a college degree supported Trump this election, according to exit polling data from The Washington Post. So did 60% of white women who didn't go to college.

College-educated voters haven’t always been Democrats

For decades, Republicans have accused colleges of “liberal indoctrination.” But experts say college-educated voters weren't always a left-leaning majority.

Throughout the 20th century, Americans with bachelor’s degrees were more likely to align with the GOP. Historically, higher education was disproportionately available to young people from richer families, and those families were often Republicans, according to Grossmann, who co-authored the book “Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics.”

The presidency of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s started to lure white voters without college degrees away from the Democrats. A reversal seemed underway, according to the writings of the historian Thomas Frank. More traditional blue-collar Democrats were seeing less of themselves reflected in a party that favored a more connected world and began to be perceived as more "elite."

Working class voters started to feel looked down upon, Frank says in his 2004 book, "What's the Matter With Kansas." GOP leaders learned how to "align themselves with the common people, rising up righteously against the puffed-up know-it-all," he writes.

By the 2008 election, something had fundamentally changed. That year, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama defeated Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (whose populist appeal, some think, paved the way for Trump’s rise).

Research shows it also marked the first time holding a bachelor’s degree became a significant predictor that people would vote for a Democrat.

By 2016, white voters without college degrees flocked to the Republican Party. Roughly two-thirds identified or leaned toward the GOP, according to Grossmann and Hopkins. Trump successfully tapped into the populist appeal quickly becoming the GOP's brand. His disregard for political correctness and disinterest in the nitty-gritty of policy resonated with voters who felt a cultural connection with him.

The diploma divide persisted into 2020, and last week the gap seemed to widen even more.

Put simply, Democrats “do not have an image as a party of the working class anymore," Grossmann said.

Democrats shift messaging on the value of college

Since 2016, the left's vulnerabilities among voters who didn't go to college have likely played a role in broadening Democrats' messaging about the value of a college degree.

Barack Obama set a goal at the beginning of his first term for the U.S. to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. But that “college for all” rhetoric has since been de-emphasized, particularly as efforts to make community college free fizzled out. Expanding other educational pathways, such as vocational programs and apprenticeships, has become a more comfortable talking point for Democrats in recent years.

Just before Election Day, Kamala Harris promised that on her first day in office, she would get rid of degree requirements for some positions in the federal government. It's unclear how many caught on to that pledge, but days later, many who could've benefited from it opposed her at the ballot box.

Without the kind of visibility the Oval Office affords, Democrats will have a lot more work to do to win back the kinds of voters they’ve lost, said Williams, the San Francisco professor.

“Noncollege voters feel like they’ve really gotten screwed economically," she said. “They’re not that interested in preserving a system that, as they see it, ate up the American Dream and spat it out in their face.”

Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How did Trump win the election? The 'diploma divide' helped.