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POLITICS

Trump Leans on Altered GOP for Support

The party’s demographics have shifted since 2016. Will those trends carry the president to a second term—and outlast him?

Some 62% of voters approve of President Trump’s job performance in the 450 counties in which he outperformed 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, below,

by 20 points or more, Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling this year finds. Some 84% of Republicans approve of Mr. Trump’s job performance.

FROM TOP: CHERYL SENTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG

A Changing GOP

White voters without bachelor's degrees have a growing

presence in the Republican Party, and GOP lawmakers now

represent more middle- and lower-income House districts

than a decade ago.

Party by demographics

Male

Female

White

Black

Hispanic

Urban

Suburban

Rural

Less than college

College degree

or higher

GOP by education and race House districts by income

Sources: WSJ/NBC News telephone polls (demographics, education); Brookings Institution (income)

’

’

’

’

’

’

’

’

40%60%

75 25

4654

4456

51 49

6535

2871

5050

Top Dem. GOP

Second

Third

Bottom

60

0

10

20

30

40

50

%

2010 ’12 ’14 ’16 ’

Non-white

Whites with a

college degree

Whites without

a college degree

0% 20 40 60 80 100

Republicans

Democrats

Trump, but he appears to

have amplified it with a pol-

icy agenda that broke from a

consensus that had lasted

roughly from Ronald Reagan

through former House

Speaker Paul Ryan.

While Mr. Trump has ad-

opted and even deepened the

Republican commitment to

business deregulation, tax

cuts and nominating conser-

vative judges, he has told

voters he would protect So-

cial Security and Medicare,

differing from some party

leaders who called for aus-

terity and reforming social

programs.

Where many party officials

as recently as 2012 said the

GOP needed a more open im-

migration policy to win na-

tional elections, Mr. Trump

has made an immigration

crackdown the centerpiece of

his domestic agenda. A party

that largely believed free

trade would lead to economic

growth and the greatest ben-

efit for the most Americans

has turned more skeptical un-

der Mr. Trump, focusing in-

stead on the job losses and

dislocations that can result

from trade.

Mr. Trump’s promise to re-

work trade agreements, in

particular, was central to his

political success, said Rep. Su-

san Brooks (R., Ind.). “Folks

that were not traditional Re-

publicans, whether the fac-

tory or the construction

worker, have been attracted

to the party” by Mr. Trump’s

recognition that “in many

ways, America’s been taken

advantage of,” she said.

Mr. Romney, now a Utah

senator, disagreed with the

idea that Mr. Trump had

changed the policy profile of

the party on most issues, but

he said the president excelled

at communicating why those

policies would help people

who had been hurt when U.S.

jobs went overseas and who

were “resentful and angry—

understandably.”

“In my campaign, when I

was talking about GDP or the

business-friendly environ-

ment—that may have sold

well in boardrooms and Wall

Street, but it didn’t connect

on Main Street,” he said.

Mr. Trump ran for office

at a time when the party

was changing—and his

agenda appears to have ac-

celerated the change. Work-

ing-class, white voters make

up 59% of the party, up from

50% in 2010, while working-

class voters of all races ac-

count for more than two-

thirds of all GOP voters,

Journal/NBC News polling

over the years shows.

In tandem with this

change, the Republican Party

now represents more middle-

and lower-income Americans

than it did a decade ago.

When all the U.S. House dis-

tricts are ranked by median

income, the GOP now repre-

sents 58% of the lower-in-

come half of that spectrum,

up from 39% of lower-income

districts a decade ago.

And it represents 34% of

the higher-income half, down

from 43% a decade ago.

Amid these changes, some

GOP leaders say the party has

divided, broadly speaking,

into two groups: those who

believe Mr. Trump has set the

party on an irreversible, pop-

ulist course—and a smaller

group who hope it will return

to its prior state once Mr.

Trump leaves office.

Polling finds a similar di-

vision among Republican

voters, one that highlights a

potential risk to Mr. Trump

as the House takes up im-

peachment.

This division shows up

among GOP voters when

they are asked how they de-

scribe themselves—as Re-

publicans who support Mr.

Trump more than the party

itself, or as those who sup-

port the party more than

they do Mr. Trump.

The most ardent Trump

supporters agree with Mr.

Trump’s restrictive positions

on immigration and his op-

position to efforts to address

climate change, among other

policies. The party-support-

ing Republicans believe im-

migration helps the nation

and that near-term action to

fight climate change is

needed.

If support for impeach-

ment grows among Republi-

cans, it will likely be among

the party-supporting group,

Journal/NBC News polling

suggests. Some 39% of that

cohort support Congress’s

impeachment inquiry or be-

lieve enough evidence al-

ready exists to merit im-

peachment, compared with

4% of the most ardent

Trump-supporting group.

GOP strategist Whit Ayres

says the party’s next leader

could redefine the Republi-

can image but would still

need to reckon with the

party’s changed makeup.

“The challenge for Repub-

licans is that the groups

among whom the party has

grown stronger are declining

as a proportion of the elec-

torate,’’ Mr. Ayres said, “and

the groups among which the

party has grown weaker are

growing as a proportion of

the electorate.”

the nomination alongside

former Vice President Joe

Biden. In response, the

more-centrist candidates

who had been getting less

attention lately—South Bend,

Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg,

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former

Rep. Beto O’Rourke—all

found clearer voices as they

challenged Ms. Warren.

Collectively, they now

seem more willing to express

the broader concern that has

been running just beneath

the surface among party

leaders: that Sen. Warren is

pulling the Democratic

agenda too far left with her

expansive policy proposals.

Sen. Klobuchar may have put

the critique most succinctly

when, in arguing for less-

dramatic policy departures,

she declared: “The difference

between a plan and a pipe

dream is something you can

actually get done.”

Mr. Buttigieg, though, may

be the candidate who is best

positioned to take advantage

of this moment. President

Trump’s decision to pull

back U.S. forces in Syria and

allow Turkish troops to at-

tack the U.S.’s longtime

Kurdish allies opened the

way for Mr. Buttigieg to

speak out on national secu-

rity issues, where he has

both strong feelings and

standing because of his ex-

perience as a naval officer

who served in Afghanistan.

Mr. Buttigieg said he, like

the president, wants U.S.

troops in the region to come

home, but used his personal

experience to criticize the

way Mr. Trump is doing that:

“When I was deployed,” he

said, Afghan forces “put

their lives on the line just by

working with U.S. forces. I

would have a hard time to-

day looking an Afghan civil-

ian or soldier in the eye af-

ter what just happened over

there. And it is undermining

the honor of our soldiers.”

The rise of Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, now the leading
presidential candidate hail-
ing from the Democratic
Party’s pro-
gressive wing,
has had an in-
teresting
bank-shot ef-
fect: It seems
to have given
greater voice to those more
in the political center.
That effect became clear
at the Democrats’ debate in
Ohio this week, when Ms.
Warren appeared as the co-
front-runner in the race for

BYGERALDF.SEIB

Warren’s Rise Amplifies Voices of Candidates in the Center

Sen. Elizabeth Warren was challenged at Tuesday’s Democratic

debate in Ohio by the more-centrist candidates in the race.

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES



THIS

WEEK

WASHINGTON—Donald
Trump won the White House
in large part by changing the
mix of voters who make up
the Republican Party. Now, as
he faces the threat of im-
peachment, the party base he
helped to create is proving to
be his most important barrier
to removal from office.
Mr. Trump accelerated the
movement of working-class
voters into the Republican
Party, creating
a GOP that
now repre-
sents more
middle- and
lower-income Americans, a
Wall Street Journal analysis
shows. He has reframed
much of the Republican
agenda to appeal to these
voters, particularly on trade,
immigration and foreign af-
fairs, in many cases upend-
ing 40 years of GOP policy.
And Mr. Trump’s combat-
ive personal style and domi-
nating presence in the na-
tion’s political discourse have
created an unusually tight
bond with the new GOP base.
The result: Mr. Trump
heads into the impeachment
inquiry—the most dangerous
political waters of his presi-
dency—with support from
the vast majority of his
party. Some 84% of Republi-
cans approve of how Mr.
Trump is handling his job,
essentially unchanged from
86% just after he was sworn
in, Journal/NBC News polling
this month found. More than
three-quarters of Republi-
cans say Congress should
abandon the impeachment
investigation.
Compared with his first
year in office, Mr. Trump is
even stronger in the commu-
nities that swung most heav-
ily behind him during the
2016 election, the Journal
analysis finds—an important
signal to elected officials in
those communities of the
costs of abandoning the
president as Congress takes
up impeachment.
Some 62% of voters ap-
prove of Mr. Trump’s job
performance in the 450
counties in which Mr. Trump
outperformed 2012 GOP
presidential nominee Mitt
Romney by 20 points or
more, Journal/NBC News
polling this year finds. That
is up from a job approval
rating of 43% in those coun-
ties during Mr. Trump’s first
year in office.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Flor-
ida Republican who is one of
Mr. Trump’s most prominent
defenders, said the president
has succeeded by reshaping
the electorate around his
message.
“In pre-Trump Republican
politics, I think a lot of the
messaging and electioneer-
ing efforts were geared to-
ward winning the middle”
because candidates believed
the electorate was static, Mr.
Gaetz said. “The president’s
biggest impact on an elec-
tion is the way that he
shapes the electorate itself.”
Nearly three years into Mr.
Trump’s presidency, the Re-
publican Party is about the
same size as before, Journal/
NBC News polling finds. Some
36% of voters have called
themselves Republicans this
year, compared with a consis-
tent 37% last year, in 2016
and in 2012.
But the composition of
the party has changed, rely-
ing more heavily on voters
without a bachelor’s degree.
The shift predates Mr.

BYAARONZITNER
ANDALEXLEARY

ELECTION

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