Donald Trump and the Democratic Shift among College-Educated Suburban White Voters

Abstract

Abstract Recent election cycles have seen Democrats perform increasingly well in America’s suburbs. This shift is significant given that a plurality of Americans live in suburban areas and the vast majority of competitive House districts are located in these areas. In this paper, we use the Cooperative Election Study to document the shift among suburban voters and explore the reasons for this shift. Specifically, we consider whether the suburban Democratic shift is due to (1) changes in the demographic composition of suburban communities or (2) changes in how particular subsets of voters in suburban communities are voting. We find that most of the suburban Democratic shift is attributable to the changing voting patterns of white college-educated suburban voters. We conclude by presenting evidence that this shift to the left among suburban college-educated white voters appears to largely be a reaction to Donald Trump’s influence on the Republican Party’s brand.