And to add that the hemorrhage of “the white working class”, which had stunned during the billionaire’s first victory in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, spread in 2024 to “Latin American and black American workers”. An Edison Research exit poll reveals that the president-elect won over 56% of “non-college graduates,” compared to 42% for Kamala Harris. Or six points more for the Republican compared to 2020.
“Condescension”
The outgoing vice-president, on the contrary, received 55% of “university-educated” voters, compared to 42% for Donald Trump, one point less than four years ago for the tribune. In this vast electoral sociology survey, 57% of American voters declare themselves “without a university degree”, compared to 59% in 2020. Experts note that the New York magnate, heir to a real estate fortune, has achieved the feat to convince a good part of the white working classes and lower middle classes – but also Hispanics, Arabs and blacks – that he better understood their socio-economic and security concerns.
“Harris did not know how to respond” to “white and Hispanic women” having difficulty making ends meet, in an America with abysmal inequalities, deplores Sylvie Laurent, teacher at Sciences Po Paris. They “are in charge of the family budget, do the shopping and prepare meals. Food prices have increased by more than 30% since 2020. In a low-wage country, where healthcare and housing are more difficult than ten years ago, it is unbearable,” explains the researcher. Like others in the Democratic Party, which ranges from center right to left, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez calls for an examination of conscience.
Just re-elected to Congress, in a rural and traditionally conservative constituency in Washington State (northwest), this thirty-year-old denounces a form of “condescension” from her Democratic comrades towards the working classes. “Many elected officials are harsh and cynical, with forms of disrespect for people,” says Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, in an interview Friday with the New York Times. A director of a “county gynecological and childbirth center told me that 40% of babies have at least one parent suffering from fentanyl addiction,” the young parliamentarian told the newspaper.
“Against each other”
Fentanyl, a highly addictive synthetic opiate, has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States in recent years and is the subject of lucrative drug trafficking, particularly from Mexico. “How to show empathy? By telling them it's their problem or taking border security into account? », she asks. Immigration, security, inflation: so many subjects which have placed themselves at the top of the concerns of Trumpist voters.
In Michigan, a pivotal state in the industrial north that fell back into the hands of Donald Trump, the labor unions chose Kamala Harris. But young blue-collar workers were courted by the Republican. Isaiah Goddard, an employee of the Ford manufacturer, declared that he would vote for Trump, ignoring the instructions of the powerful auto workers union, the UAW.
