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CHAPTER ONE

UNITED STATES OF

TRUMPAn inside look at the voters who took over the Republican Party

Words BENJY SARLIN Data editor SAM PETULLAPhotographs MARK PETERSON JUN 20, 2016

http://www.nbcnews.com/specials/donald-trump-republican-party?icid=ad_nbc_ros_1_062016_6 6/20/16, 4:59 PM of 33

JJ

A year after Donald Trump launched his presidential bid, and against all expectations, the

business mogul is the presumptive GOP nominee. Who supported him? How did he take over a

Republican Party whose leaders almost uniformly opposed him? And will the GOP ever be the

same? NBC News crunched polling and election data and conducted dozens of interviews with

supporters, critics and party leaders of all stripes for a series of stories explaining the

phenomenon that defined 2016. In chapter one, we look at Trump’s voters: Where they live, what

they want, and how their deep unease with a changing America fueled a political revolution.

oe Roberts and Matthew Douglas, auto mechanics from

Indianapolis, took o! early from their job to line up for a

Trump event in nearby Carmel. They came in their work

clothes: a black t-shirt and an Indianapolis Colts hat for

Roberts, 39; a powder-blue shirt with the sleeves cut o! for Douglas,

36; and dirty, ripped jeans for both. Douglas has a tattoo of a flaming

panther on his right arm and a Chevy logo on his left. Roberts’ hands

are rough, weathered by his auto work and two decades of landscaping

jobs.

Roberts laid out his reasons for backing Trump: As a billionaire, Roberts

said, Trump can’t be bought. He likes Trump’s plan to slap tari!s on

goods from American companies that outsource. He thinks abortion

should be legal, and doesn’t like the way candidates obsess over the

topic instead of the economy and national security. He thinks people in

his neighborhood are getting government benefits while drawing

income under the table.

“I dated a girl on disability who said she couldn’t sit for eight hours

straight,” he told NBC News. “She could sit on a barstool eight hours.”


Both Roberts and Douglas said they had registered to vote for the first

time in order to support Trump in their state’s primary.

“We’ve been waiting for someone worth a damn,” Douglas said.

In many ways, the pair embodied a type of Trump voter political

observers have learned to recognize: Blue collar, disconnected from

politics, indi!erent to the conservative doctrine that has defined the

Republican Party for the last several decades.

Trump fans recognize the type, as well. A picture of the two auto

Despite his controversial rhetoric, Trump has become the presumptive Republican nominee.


workers this reporter tweeted out instantly went viral among the

candidate’s vast network of supporters online. “Why we are winning,”

a fan commented under a post of the picture on Reddit, a popular

online message board with a large pro-Trump following.

The next day, Trump won 53 percent of the vote in Indiana’s primary,

including 46 percent of Hamilton County, the site of his Carmel rally.

With Trump’s path to the nomination all but assured, rival Ted Cruz

dropped out that night and John Kasich left the race shortly afterward.

Republicans since then have struggled to wrap their heads around their

new reality. Over the course of 10 months, Trump became the GOP’s

standard-bearer despite o!ending large swaths of voters, antagonizing

movement conservatives on a variety of issues and defeating well-

funded and experienced Republican rivals from every wing of the party.

Only two of the party’s five living presidential nominees – Bob Dole

and John McCain – are publicly supporting Trump in the general

election. And even as he routed his opponents in Indiana, a full 42

percent of Republican voters in the state said in an exit poll they were

“concerned” or “scared” about a Trump presidency.

Who voted for this guy?

The Trump takeover

To answer that question, NBC News interviewed Trump voters at rallies

across the country, consulted polling data and academic studies and

analyzed how counties voted in every state that held a competitive

contest.

What we found was a distinct movement of Americans alarmed by

economic trends, unsure of their place in a more diverse nation and

convinced that the major parties no longer have their interests in mind.

In telling their story, we tried not only to describe Trump’s support,


but to trace its evolution from a relatively small plurality of Republican

voters to a powerful majority that overcame a nationally organized

e!ort to stop their candidate.

Trump struggled in the middle of the country and in Utah. Big wins closer to the coastshelped drive his success.

Top 20 percentile of Trump supportth

Less More Trump vote

60 to 80 support percentileth

40 to 60 percentileth

20 to 40 percentileth


Today, a description of who supports Trump is simple enough:

Republicans.

In the final seven races before party leaders crowned Trump the

presumptive nominee, he took every county save for six, while winning

almost every demographic slice of GOP voters. His county victories

included places like the aforementioned Hamilton County in Indiana,

which many local politicos had assumed was too upscale and

traditionally conservative for Trump to win based on his performance

in similar counties earlier in the race.

There are guys like Joe Roberts and Matthew Douglas at every Trump

rally, but there are also voters like B.J. Cobb, 64, for whom it took time

to come around to supporting Trump.

“I thought he was crazy when he started talking about walls and border

security,” she said at a Trump rally in Charleston, South Carolina in

February.

Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

Bottom 20 percentile of Trump supportth


“I haven’t been asexcited about acandidate sinceReagan.”

Cobb is a lifelong Republican who

outwardly fits the definition of

establishment – she fondly recalls

working for the Republican

National Committee in the 1970s

and name-drops top Republican

strategists she has befriended over

the years. But when she saw the energy at Trump’s events, Cobb said

she became convinced he had tapped into something the party needed.

“He had the foresight to see what was coming,” she said. “He speaks to

the people. He’s able to stand up for the country. I haven’t been as

excited about a candidate since Reagan.”

One of the most dramatic predictors of Trump’s success early in the race was how much a county’s income had grown – or not – from 2004 to2014.


If national polls are to be believed, there are a lot of voters like Cobb

who warmed to Trump gradually. In a March 2015 NBC News/Wall

Street Journal survey, 74 percent of Republican voters said they could

not imagine supporting Trump. The number was only marginally

better, at 66 percent, when he launched his campaign that June. By

April of 2016, however, the number had plummeted to 38 percent.

By the time the primary race ended, Trump also drew close to 50

percent support from GOP primary voters in national polls. It wasn’t

always that way: For almost all of 2015, he polled in the mid-20s,

leading many Republicans to speculate that there was a ceiling to his

support.

Trump’s support was a modest plurality within a large Republican field

when voting began in February, as well. His first big win, in New

Hampshire, came with just 35 percent of the vote. By April, as his

popularity grew and the field of candidates shrank, Trump won states

like Pennsylvania with 56.7 percent of the vote and Delaware with 60.8

percent.

Trump’s Support in the Polls Grew Steadily Over TimeOther candidates jostled for position but couldn’t compete

Real Clear Politics Republican Presidential Nomination Average

60%

45 TRUMP

30

15

0June 2015 November 2015 May 2016


The story of Trump, then, is about a committed minority of Republican

voters, whose existence was routinely ignored, gradually taking over

the entire party. As you’ll see in our data, the people who backed Trump

early on – and the places they live – were markedly di!erent than the

unified GOP bloc he commands now.

The world of the Trump voter

One way to describe Trump’s support is by geography. Polls of voters

may send mixed messages depending on how questions are worded and

the sample size, but we know exactly which counties voted for Trump

and by what margins.

In examining Trump’s county-level support, we broke the election

down into two time periods.

The first period stretches from the Iowa caucus on February 1 to the

five primaries held on March 15, which were headlined by Ohio and

Florida and ended with Sen. Marco Rubio dropping out of the race. The

second period starts with the Arizona primary and Utah caucus on

March 22 and ends with the May 3 Indiana primary, which e!ectively

finished the Republican primary contest.

It’s important to make these distinctions, because the markers that

best distinguished Trump’s initial voters shifted as Trump’s support

expanded.

Period 2 starts

Feb. 1

Mar. 22

May 3

Iowa

Super Tuesday

Arizona

Wisconsin

Indiana

Period 1 Period 2


Trump seemed to grasp intuitively that his base lived in a di!erent

world than that of other candidates. He boasted in speeches that he did

well with “poorly educated” voters and cited economic frustrations

over trade and jobs, especially among blue collar workers, as essential

to his appeal.

“When people say, ‘It’s unbelievable what’s happening to Trump,’ it’s

really not,” he told a crowd in Pennsylvania in April. “You have people

who did better 18 years ago, you have people who have two jobs and

they did better 17 years ago and they’re working harder now.”

The data suggest Trump was onto something. According to our county

analysis, one of the most dramatic predictors of his success early in the

race was how much a county’s average pay had grown (or hadn’t

grown) from 2004 to 2014. Another major predictor was the percentage

of whites who participate in the labor force. Still another was whether

residents were more or less likely to hold at least a high school degree.

The below chart plots Trump’s county-level support in the first period

– up until the March 15 contests – against a composite metric of local

Period 1 Period 2

IowaNewHampshireSouth CarolinaNevedaAlabamaArkansasGeorgiaMassachusettsOklahomaTennesseeTexasVermontVirginiaKansas

KentuckyLouisianaMaineNebraskaHawaiiMichiganMississippiWyomingFloridaIllinoisMissouriNorth CarolinaOhio

ArizonaUtahNorth DakotaWisconsinNew YorkConnecticutDelawareMarylandPennsylvaniaRhode IslandIndiana


distress, particularly focused on whites, who made up close to 90

percent of self-identified Republicans in the previous presidential

election cycle. The larger the circle, the larger a county’s population.

See that medium sized circle on the far left of the chart? That’s Midland

County, Texas, the site of an oil boom that sent incomes through the

roof in the 2000s and kept unemployment well below the state average

during the Great Recession. Cruz won 47.9 percent of the vote there

versus Trump’s 20.9 percent, and did well in the small neighboring

Texas counties clustered around Midland on the chart. Look slightly to

the right and you’ll spot Alexandria, Virginia, the a"uent D.C. suburb

In counties with higher white distress, Trump tended to receive more of the vote

Distress metric is weighted among the five-year 2014 American Community Survey estimates for white poverty (non-Hispanic), white labor participation (non-Hispanic) and high school degree holders and the inflation-adjusted differencebetween the BLS 2004 and 2014 Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages survey.

Less distressful whiteexperience

Avg. white distressexperience

More distressful whiteexperience

0

20

40

60

80%Trump vote


where unemployment peaked at just 5.6 percent in 2010 and where

Rubio performed especially well.

Move to the upper right of the chart and you’ll notice a number of

counties in Appalachia where jobs are relatively scarce, poverty is high

and Trump enjoyed strong support. This includes coal-heavy Knox

County in Kentucky (Trump vote: 55 percent) and Buchanan County in

Virginia (Trump vote: 70 percent), where he secured his highest

winning margin in the period covered.

As time moved on, though, Trump started picking up votes in more

diverse places, including the kind of well-heeled counties that shunned

him earlier on in the race. It was this late shift that allowed Trump to

knock out his rivals in the final stretch.

In the simulations below, toggle between the two primary periods

to see how Trump’s appeal grew over time in counties with di!erent

distinguishing traits. To start, we’ll look at income growth.

Percent of counties won by Trump in Period 1 with..

Period 1 Period 2

46.0%

.. a strong increasein average annualpay in recent years

71.1%

.. a slight increasein average annualpay in recent years

79.1%

.. a slight decreasein average annualpay in recent years

78.1%

.. a strong decreasein average annualpay in recent years


In the February 1 to March 15 time frame that makes up Period 1 above,

Trump performed significantly better in counties that had below-

average growth in average annual pay from 2004 to 2014, but won just

46 percent of counties that had experienced the most improvement. Of

the 100 counties with the highest gains, he won just 23.

Click over to Period 2, though, which includes contests from March 22

to May 3, and Trump won 77.9 percent of these high-growth counties,

including 77 of the 100 where growth was strongest.

The same dynamic played out with education, as you can see below.

Data computed from inflation-adjusted difference between the BLS 2004 and 2014 Quarterly Census of Employmentand Wages survey.

Percent of counties won by Trump in Period 1 with..

Period 1 Period 2

42.5%

.. most likely tohave a high school

degree

55.9%

.. more likely tohave a high school

degree

70.2%

.. less likely to havea high school

degree

88.2%

.. least likely tohave a high school

degree


In Period 1, 88.2 percent of counties where residents were least likely to

hold a high school diploma went for Trump, while 42.5 percent of the

counties where high school graduates were the most common went for

one of his opponents. Trump won a dominant 91 of the 100 counties

with the lowest percentage of high school graduates during this stretch.

The relationship was similar for college as well: Trump took just 36 of

the 100 counties where residents were most likely to hold at least abachelor’s degree.

Click on Period 2, though, and you can see how Trump maxed out his

support among low-education counties to 100 percent while expanding

his appeal to the most educated counties, 74.2 percent of which voted

for him.

Finally, the last simulation below looks at white labor participation. In

Period 1, Trump only won a majority of counties in the two slices with

below-average labor participation rates. Click over to Period 2, though,

and it’s a clean sweep, with moderately better labor participation

counties 41 points more likely to support him than they were in Period

1.

Data computed from five-year 2014 American Community Survey estimate for high school degree holders.

Percent of counties won by Trump in Period 1 where there was..

Period 1 Period 2


The county level data lend some context to one of the oddities of the

GOP race: Why voters rallied around a burn-it-all-down populist

message while unemployment dropped to 5 percent nationally and

Americans increasingly described themselves as happy with their own

economic situation. In many parts of the country, the income trajectory

wasn’t great even before the crash, the damage of the Great Recession

was more extensive and the benefits of recovery accrued unevenly.

Many of the gains nationally went to the top 1 percent of earners,

whose investment income bounced back more quickly than jobs and

wages for ordinary workers.

Health statistics also speak to pressure on the white working class

voters who have been most drawn to Trump’s candidacy from the start.

An analysis by two Princeton economists last November found a

Data computed from five-year 2014 American Community Survey estimate for white labor participation (non-Hispanic).

40.2%

.. a high whitelabor participation

rate

48.0%

.. a slightlyabove-average

white laborparticipation rate

56.3%

.. a slightlybelow-average

white laborparticipation rate

75.8%

.. a low white laborparticipation rate


frightening deterioration among middle-aged white Americans,

especially those without a college education. Death rates rose

dramatically from 1999 to 2013, even as they fell for other ethnic

groups, and the leading drivers of the shift were suicide and substance

abuse. A follow-up analysis by the Washington Post found the death

rate had risen particularly sharply for middle-aged white women in

rural communities.

The degree to which Trump supporters are struggling with these issues

themselves isn’t entirely clear. Solid data on individual voter income,

wealth and health is hard to come by.

What our county data does show, however, is that Trump’s most

enthusiastic primary voters were more likely to live in places where

they were exposed to rougher economic conditions. For them, these

issues were not something they read about in a newspaper.

What Trump’s supporters want

If you go to a Trump rally and ask people why they support him, what’s

the most common answer? You might be surprised.

It isn’t the border wall or his plan to ban Muslims from entering the

country or his position on trade, although those come up regularly. It

isn’t that he defies “political correctness” or “says what we’re all

thinking, but afraid to say,” two phrases that come up often, as well.

Instead, it’s an issue that’s been

almost entirely ignored by the

Republican Party in recent years:

Money in politics.

“He can’t be bought,” Eleanor

Crume, 72, said at a South Carolina

rally. “He’s not going to be bought In interviews with NBC News, Trump supporters discussedwhy they support Donald Trump.

!


by the lobbyists.”

“He can speak his mind because he’s not backed by these donors who

say what he can and can’t say,” Travis Klinefelter, a 39-year old Iowa

nurse, said.

“He’s not bought and paid for by special interests,” Dominic La Rocca

of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida said. “Insurance companies, the banks, they

get the law that they want.”

Unease with the corrosive influence of campaign donations and super

PACs probably wasn’t something GOP leaders expected to influence

their primary. Until now, the loosening of campaign finance restrictions

after Citizens United and a subsequent flood of hundreds of millions of

dollars into conservative causes was widely assumed to be an

unmitigated good for the right.

Trump, however, seized on a number of issues that challenged

expectations about how much sway the right’s governing agenda held

over its base. It turns out that Republican voters were much less

concerned with conservative orthodoxy (as defined by the party’s big

donors, activists and elected o#cials) than party elites had thought.

It turns out Republican voters were much less concerned with conservative orthodoxy than the party’s elites had thought.


Surveys taken just before Trump joined the race in June 2015 showed

Trump was intensely disliked by Republican voters. But he rocketed to

first place in the crowded GOP field immediately after his

announcement speech, where he attacked illegal immigration and

accused the Mexican government – against all evidence – of

deliberately pushing “crime” and “rapists” into America.

Early polls found few distinguishing traits to Trump’s supporters,

leading some skeptics to dismiss his strength as the product of low-

information voters responding to whatever was on TV.

“If you would give some other candidates time from eight in the

morning ‘til eight at night – all day long, every day for three weeks –

I’m guessing some other candidates might rise as well,” Sen. Rand

Paul, then a candidate, complained on CNN in July.

As time went on, though, it became clear that while Trump’s support

included many corners of the party, his most committed backers had an

ideological profile all their own.

In national polls leading up to the first contests and in exit polls after

they began, Trump regularly performed best with voters who

considered themselves “moderate,” a descriptor that had become

almost a slur in the tea party era. He did worst with voters who

considered themselves “very conservative.” They leaned more toward

Cruz and his campaign’s focus on ideological purity.

Trump dominated among moderates but struggled to win over very conservative voters.


“He’s extreme onsome things, but onothers he’s amoderate. I like thatmix.”

“Moderate,” in this case, meant a specific kind of profile recognizable

to political scientists. Rather than simple middle-of-the-road voters,

“moderates” tend to combine hardline, even fringe, views from

opposite ends of the political spectrum, leaving them without a clear

home in either party or any specific political movement.

Trump’s brand of nativism and

populism is a classic example: He is

ultra-conservative on deportations

and border security, leans left

within the GOP on social spending

and trade, and o!ers a mix of

isolationist and militarist views on

foreign policy. It turns out these

NBC News exit polls

Trump’s success.... among moderate voters .. among very conservative voters

IN NYCTMS

MAPANV MD

TN NHMO ALMA PA

VTFLVAMD

GA NVAL OHNC FL

GAWIMISC

TNILINAK

IA SCMSOK

NH ILNY OK

MI AKMOCT

VT NCVA IA

OH WI-40 -20 0 20 40%-40 -20 0 20 40%

Margin behind leader Margin over next best candidate Margin behind leader Margin over next best candidate


positions are popular among many GOP voters, but not among the

intellectual leaders who have shaped the party’s platform.

“I like that he gets heat from Republicans,” 46-year old Pennsylvania

Trump supporter John Bishop said. “He’s extreme on some things, but

on others he’s a moderate. I like that mix.”

One of the most detailed analyses of this e!ect was the RAND

Corporation’s Presidential Election Panel Survey (PEPS), which tracked

3,000 voters at di!erent points in the election. NBC News reviewed

their data with assistance from political scientists Michael Tesler, Lynn

Vavreck and John Sides, who helped oversee the study.

To assess voters’ outlook on economic policy, respondents were asked

questions like whether they support labor unions, higher taxes on the

wealthy, a higher minimum wage and government-funded health care.

The further left their answers were, the more likely they were to

support Trump.

As time went on and Trump’s overall support increased, the connection

between a voter’s economic views and their a#nity toward Trump

faded. Trump’s base included more traditional economic

conservatives in RAND’s March poll than it did in its December/January

poll.

RAND wasn’t the only one to pick

up on this trend. An October 2015

study by political scientists Doug

Ahler and David Broockman found

that voters who leaned left on

taxing the rich and leaned right on

immigration were far more likely

to back Trump.

Cutting federal spending to achieve

a smaller government has long

More of Trump’s early supporters wereeconomically liberal. Later in the primaries,his support coalesced to include moreeconomically conservative voters.


been an essential part of

Republican orthodoxy. In

interviews, Trump supporters

expressed concern about rising

national debt, but they were often

more upset by a perception that

government spending went to the

wrong places, such as

undocumented immigrants, foreign

governments, foreign wars and

undeserving welfare recipients.

“We have friends with disabled children who need help, veterans who

need help, but we’re spread too thin trying to help everyone,” said

Krista Adams of Madison, Wisconsin, who attended a Trump event with

her husband and young children.

Trump’s support also challenged assumptions about Republican views

on social issues. Research by the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute

for the Study of Citizens and Politics suggests Trump’s voters tended

to be more supportive of abortion rights than other Republicans at a

time when many Republican politicians have moved further to the right

on that issue. An NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll of 1,007 registered

voters who support Trump in late February found that 45 percent of

respondents identified as “pro-choice.”

Trump nonetheless performed well with evangelical voters, although

church attendance (or lack thereof) also proved to be an important

predictor of support. In Indiana, for example, exit polls found Cruz won

61 percent of voters who attended church more than once a week, even

as Trump won self-described evangelicals. By contrast, Trump won 69

percent of voters who attend church only a few times a year and 66

percent of voters who never go to church.

National polling pointed in the same direction. An analysis of an

American National Election Studies survey of Republican voters in

RAND Corp’s Presidential Election Panel Survey

Economic ideology50%

Inte

nd to

Vot

e fo

r Tru

mp

40

30

20

10

0

More liberal viewsLess liberal views

Dec./Jan. Survey March Survey


January 2016 found that 36 percent of evangelicals who attended

church weekly supported Trump, versus 52 percent of evangelicals who

seldom or never attended church.

That doesn’t mean Trump and his voters are always in sync. He often

tries to have it both ways on taxes, for example, boasting about his

willingness to make the rich pay more while running on a tax plan that

would reduce the top 1 percent’s tax bill by an estimated average of

$1.3 million. While he’s downplayed social issues, he still favors

appointing pro-life judges, banning abortion with limited

exceptions and defunding Planned Parenthood. Whether it’s accurate

Trump hasn’t relied on traditional TV advertising to spread his message. Instead, he draws huge crowds to his rallies and takes advantage ofthe media coverage that follows.


It’s common to runinto Trump voterswho say they used tovote for Democrats orhad supported other‘outsider’ candidates

or not, though, he’s left an impression among his supporters that he’s

closer to them on issues.

An important aspect of Trump’s appeal isn’t about individual issues at

all, but rather a sense that his unusual background will allow him to

bypass partisan gridlock and run things more e!ectively than

conventional politicians.

“Trump will take measures that

may seem drastic, but we’re going

in a circle,” Jacob Elias, a 22-year

old supporter from Racine,

Wisconsin, said. “I think he can

break out of that.”

Given the heterodox views of

Trump’s supporters, it’s not

surprising that many feel less

beholden to political parties. A New York Times analysis of research

from Civis Analytics in December that included more than 11,000

Republican-leaning respondents over several months found Trump did

especially well with voters only weakly connected to the party,

including registered Democrats who tended to vote Republican in

national elections.

At rallies, it’s common to run into Trump voters who say they used to

vote for Democrats or had supported other “outsider” candidates like

Ron Paul or Ross Perot in the past. Some even say they admire Bernie

Sanders for challenging the usual two-party system.

Dan Powers, a 51-year old Trump supporter from Wisconsin who runs a

business installing electronic systems, described himself as “more

Democratic than Republican,” but complained that the Democrats he

supports “never make it to the front of the line.”

Powers did not vote for Obama, whom he considers hostile to gun


rights, and he doesn’t like Hillary Clinton either. Republicans usually

left him cold, as well. When the tea party movement took o!, Powers

said he had little interest.

When Trump came to Janesville for a rally, however, Powers donned an

oversized paper mask of the candidate’s face to cheer him on.

“We need to lock the borders down,” Powers said.

The resentment factor

One interpretation of Trump’s early support was that his voters felt

economically abandoned and were lashing out. The less charitable

interpretation, espoused by Trump’s critics on the right and left, is that

Trump finally gave a voice to their hostility toward immigrants and

minorities.

Trump’s own appeals to prejudice are well-documented: During the

campaign, he argued a federal judge was biased due to his “Mexican

heritage,” spread false rumors about American Muslims celebrating

9/11, proposed an indefinite ban on Muslim travel and retweeted fake

statistics from white supremacist circles claiming black criminals

preyed on whites.

A study by political scientists found that voters who leaned left on taxing the rich and leaned right on immigration were more likely to supportTrump.


Whether Trump’s racially inflammatory remarks and positions are the

primary driver behind his support is harder to answer. There is strong

evidence, however, that Trump’s supporters are characterized by

intolerance more than other voters.

The RAND PEPS surveys in December/January and in March that found

Trump supporters to be more economically liberal than other

Republicans also found that they were more likely to show signs of

resentment toward minorities and immigrants based on questions

designed to measure these qualities. Trump also did better with voters

who showed stronger signs of white ethnocentrism, a trait based on

how favorably respondents rated whites relative to other racial and

ethnic groups.

The charts below show the percentage of Republican voters in each

survey who said they intended to vote for Trump divided into four

quartiles, measuring their views on immigration, race and

ethnocentrism. It’s a stark gap and one that grew as Trump

consolidated support in March even as the divide over economic issues

shrank.

A March Washington Post/ABC

News poll found that Republicans

who saw themselves as “struggling

economically” were more likely to

support Trump. Even more drawn

to his candidacy, however, were

Republicans who felt whites were

“losing out” compared to other

racial groups. Economically-

minded supporters, the Post found,

backed Trump no matter their

views on race, while racially-

minded supporters backed Trump

regardless of their views on the

A national poll found that GOP voters whofeel more resentment toward immigrantsmore often intended to support Trump.


economy.

Pew Research conducted an online

survey in April and May that

produced similar results.

Republican respondents who

believed immigrants threaten

American values rather than

strengthen society, that Islam was

more likely to encourage violence

than other religions, and that

America’s trend toward majority-

minority status was bad for the

country, were much more likely to

have warm feelings for Trump in

comparison to other Republican

voters. By contrast, questions that

tested their economic views – like

whether poor people deserved more

benefits or whether the country is

tilted too far in favor of the

economically powerful – produced

much smaller splits in Republicans’

feelings toward Trump.

Trump’s hard-line immigration

policies loom large over the

discussion, but the issue’s centrality to his campaign is nuanced. Exit

polls indicate that Trump performed better with Republican voters who

want to remove all undocumented immigrants versus those who want

to o!er them a path to legal status. But he often won a substantial

share of the latter group, too, which made up a majority of Republican

voters in almost every state contest where the question was included.

Fifty-five percent of respondents in February’s NBC

News|SurveyMonkey poll of Trump supporters said they favored

RAND Corp’s Presidential Election Panel Survey

Dec./Jan. Survey March Survey

Racial Resentment60%

50

Inte

nd to

Vot

e fo

r Tru

mp

40

30

20

100

More resentfulLess resentful

Immigrant Resentment60%

50

40

30

20

100

More resentfulLess resentful

White Ethnocentrism60%

50

40

30

20

100

Less ethnocentric More ethnocentric


deportations versus just 29 percent of all voters, but a significant 44

percent of Trump supporters favored legalization.

One explanation is that immigration symbolizes di!erent things to

di!erent people. In interviews, a number of Trump’s supporters

stressed that they believe in or even encourage legal immigration.

Others described legal immigrants — not just undocumented workers

— as competition for jobs and wages. Some looked at the issue through

the lens of national security, imagining scary scenarios of ISIS

infiltration.

“I want to control immigration,” said Marge Sta!ord, a 51-year old

nurse in Media, Pennsylvania. “I’m all about legal immigration, which

is fine.”

Exit polls found that Trump did much better among voters who wanted to deportillegal immigrants.

NBC News exit polls

Trump’s success among voters who believe illegal immigrants should.... be deported to the country they came from.. be offered a chance at legal status

NY NYPA PA

MS ALIN FLTN NH

NH OHFL MIAL INMI IL

GA GAIL OK

NC SCAK VA

SC TNMO MO

VA NCOK MS

WI AKOH WI

-60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60% -20 0 20 40 60 80%

Margin over next best candidateMargin behind leaderMargin over next best candidateMargin behind leader


“Illegal aliens getfree health care andwe pay for theinterpreter”

The more hostile talking points

came from voters who viewed

migrants as a sponge on resources.

“They come here, they have babies,

then they have the right to stay

illegally,” Sandy Murray, a 50-

year-old Trump voter from Dubuque, Iowa, complained. “We need the

money from their handouts for education and veterans.”

“Illegal aliens get free health care and we pay for the interpreter,”

Lynette Phillips, a 48-year old real estate agent from Elkhorn,

Wisconsin, said. “Our voters don’t get free health care.”

Social Security and Medicare, the largest and most popular entitlement

programs for senior citizens, are the primary drivers of the long-term

budget deficit. Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for both, along

with almost all other federal benefits. Still, for many Trump supporters,

it feels like the government’s attention is going to every group except

the ones they believe need it most.

This belief isn’t inherently linked to race or immigration status, but at

times it can resemble an ethnic competition.

“They’ve had their candidate for eight years,” as one tattooed trucker

put it outside a Cincinnati-area Trump event. Asked what he meant by

“their candidate,” he clarified that he meant black voters.

There are other stray data points that point toward the resentment

factor. In Illinois, a state Trump won by a large margin, voters were

required to select individual delegates on their ballot with the names of

the candidate they supported next to them. Two delegates submitted by

the Trump campaign, Nabi Fakroddin and Raja Sadiq, received several

thousand fewer votes than the other Trump delegates in their districts

for no apparent reason other than their names.

Online, a dedicated fan base – one that Trump sometimes encourages


with retweets – engages in more overt expressions of racism and anti-

semitism, often bombarding his critics with slurs and o!ensive images.

It’s hard to tell how much Trump’s internet following is representative

of the average Trump voter, however.

In interviews, supporters frequently bristled at accusations of racism,

and Trump himself has made a show of highlighting black, Latino and

Asian supporters at his events. A February NBC

News|SurveyMonkey poll of Trump voters found that only 21 percent

believed “racial prejudice” drove support for their candidate either

“somewhat” or “a lot,” while 79 percent said they believed “anti-

Donald Trump signs copies of his TIME magazine cover. For the magazine’s photoshoot, Trump posed in his office with an eagle one arm whilegiving a thumbs-up with the other.


immigrant sentiment” was a motivating factor.

Still, a tension hangs over Trump events. Edgar Green, an African-

American Trump supporter who works as a dishwasher and

convenience store clerk in Maryland, o!ered an illustration of the

complicated relationship between Trump voters and race.

While waiting in line for a Trump rally in West Chester, Pennsylvania,

Green, who voted for Obama previously, insisted that “Trump is not

racist, he’s America first.” He complained that Trump’s critics had

distorted the candidate’s message. His plans to ban Muslims and build

a wall were rooted in national security, not bigotry, Green said.

“It’s high time we stop having business outsource to other countries,”

Green said. “We got a high unemployment in this country and we need

to do something about it. … All these people in line feel Donald Trump

is the answer.”

Just then, a car drove by waving a large Confederate flag, which

prompted a round of whoops and hollers from the long procession of

Trump supporters waiting to get into the rally.

Green was among those cheering.

“Hey, rocking the Confederate Flag, all right!” he said.

The Trump surge

Trump’s support has challenged so many conventions about the

Republican Party and politics more broadly that right up until the last

minute, observers were unsure whether it was real. The Trump

campaign’s weak ground game fueled hopes among his opponents that

his supporters wouldn’t bother to show up and vote.

They were wrong. In key states throughout the race, turnout soared. By

the time Trump became the presumptive nominee, about 7 million


more votes had been cast than in the entire 2012 Republican primary,

even before big states like California and New Jersey had a chance to

weigh in. In Florida, a state that had been a critical battleground for

Mitt Romney in the 2012 GOP race, close to 700,000 more voters

swamped the polls and helped power Trump past the state’s native son,

Marco Rubio. Research by Politico suggested the national surge of

voters came primarily from general election voters who normally

skipped primaries rather than habitual non-voters, but their presence

nonetheless reshaped the primaries.

To Trump’s opponents, these voters were falling for an act. Rubio

famously labeled Trump a “con artist.” Other rivals complained that he

was ignorant of foreign policy, that his trade wars would cause a

recession, and that he frequently made false statements.

Voters heard plenty of criticism of Trump, mostly late in the race. But

they had their pick among a wide range of Republican hopefuls from

every corner of the party. Whatever alternative message these

candidates had to o!er didn’t resonate.

“I’m tired of people promising the moon and not giving us anything,”

Je! Marshaus, 53, of Shreve, Ohio, said. “I’m a lifelong Republican and

I got tired of the same old, same old.”


Share

Credits

WORDS Benjy Sarlin

DATA EDITOR Sam Petulla

PHOTOGRAPHS Mark Peterson/Redux

ADDITIONAL REPORTING Dante Chinni

SENIOR EDITOR Beth Fouhy

COPY EDITOR Liz Johnstone

PHOTO EDITOR Rachelle Klapheke

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Amy Pereira

DESIGNER & DEVELOPER Ian Rose

Republican voters had their pick of more than a dozen candidates, but no one resonated more clearly than Trump.


PROJECT MANAGER David Taintor

VIDEO Robert Adashev, Annie Cruickshank, Michael Sperling

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