Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Every piece of evidence since the November election suggests Donald Trump made significant inroads among blocs of voters thought to be out of reach to the controversial now-former president.<\/p>\n
And he still lost the popular vote by roughly twice the margin he did in 2016 \u2014 enough for Joe Biden to flip five states Trump won and capture the Electoral College.<\/p>\n
A new analysis<\/a> from the Pew Research Center shows why: Even as Trump was narrowing Democrats\u2019 margins with white women and Hispanic voters, Biden was surging with other groups, like suburbanites, white men and voters who identified as independents, that propelled him to victory.<\/p>\n Pew\u2019s survey of \u201cvalidated voters\u201d \u2014 members of their survey panel whom they could match as people who cast ballots on state voter files \u2014 is among the deepest analyses of who voted in the last presidential election and how. And because Pew also conducted similar studies of the 2016 and 2018 electorates, it\u2019s possible to track how both parties\u2019 coalitions evolved across the Trump era \u2014 and where the battle lines for the 2022 midterm elections may fall.<\/p>\n According to the Pew analysis, Trump won white voters by 12 percentage points, 55 percent to 43 percent, down from 15 points in 2016. Biden narrowed Trump\u2019s margin among white men \u2014 from 30 points in 2016, to 17 points in 2020 \u2014 but Trump won white women by a larger spread (7 points) than he won them in 2016 (2 points). <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Biden held steady among Black voters, carrying them by an 84-point spread (92 percent to 8 percent), virtually identical to Hillary Clinton\u2019s 85-point lead four years ago.<\/p>\n But Biden only won Hispanic voters by 21 points, 59 percent to 38 percent, down significantly from Clinton\u2019s 38-point advantage, 66 percent to 28 percent. There was a slight gender gap \u2014 Biden won Hispanic men by 17 and Hispanic women by 24 \u2014 but Trump surged broadly among Hispanics, especially among Hispanic voters without a college degree.<\/p>\n Trump \u201chad about a 10-point gain from 2016 to 2020 in the share of Hispanic voters who supported him,\u201d said Ruth Igielnik, a senior researcher at Pew. \u201cOne thing that I thought was really striking was there was this pretty sizable college\/non-college divide within Hispanic voters. Hispanics without a college degree were about 10 points more supportive of Trump \u2026 than college-educated Hispanics.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump gains with Hispanic voters have some Republicans optimistic they can pick up congressional seats in Texas next year, along with holding the two South Florida House seats they flipped in 2020. But the Pew report suggests those gains could be fleeting: While Trump narrowed his loss among Hispanic voters between 2016 and 2020, Democrats won them in 2018 House races by their widest margin, 47 points.<\/p>\n