How I determined Trump support isn't about the economy
Here’s how I examined the 2016 ANES pilot survey, which includes a number of questions on economic attitudes as well as attitudes toward race, religion, and immigration.
I compared feeling thermometer evaluations for Donald Trump and those for Hillary Clinton. These evaluations run from 100 (most positive) to 0 (most negative). By looking at the difference in these evaluations, voters were ranked from 100 (most positive toward Clinton, most negative toward Trump) and -100 (most negative toward Clinton, most positive toward Trump). Those in the middle (a score of zero) were equally positive (or negative) toward the two candidates.
The first was a variable measuring how optimistic or pessimistic respondents were about economic opportunity in the US consisting of the combined results of these two questions:
- Do you think people’s ability to improve their financial well-being is now better, worse, or the same as it was 20 years ago?
- Compared with your parents, do you think it is easier, harder, or neither easier nor harder for you to move up the income ladder?
I also included a variable that asked whether respondents believed the nation's economy is now better, about the same, or worse than it was a year ago. Since Trump has made opposition to free trade agreements a key part of his campaign message, another variable measured whether respondents favor or oppose the US making free trade agreements with other countries.
To measure attitudes toward different races, religions, and immigrant groups, I included a variable measuring racial resentment, which combines the responses to the following statements:
- Over the past few years, black people have gotten less than they deserve.
- Irish, Italian, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Black people should do the same without any special favors.
- It's really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if black people would only try harder they could be just as well off as white people.
- Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for black people to work their way out of the lower class.
Other variables include whether respondents believe that President Obama is a Muslim, whether the number of legal immigrants should be increased or decreased, and how well respondents think the word "violent" describes Muslims.
Here's what I found
Next I ran a regression model to see how much impact the different variables had. The results of the model are shown in the graph below. The dots represent the impact that variable has on support for Clinton versus Trump.
Since all variables have been scaled from 0 to 1, the location of the dots shows the impact of going from the lowest to highest level of the variable. Dots on the negative or left side of the line indicate that respondents become more favorable toward Trump as they move from lower to higher levels for the variable. Dots on the right or positive side of the graph indicate that they become more favorable to Hillary Clinton.
For example, the result for the party identification variable is -57, indicating that Republicans (1) were, on average, 57 points more favorable to Trump than Clinton compared with strong Democrats (0). Similarly, the older the voter, the more likely he is to support Hillary Clinton. The lines intersecting the dots represent the 95 percent confidence intervals. When the lines touch zero, the result is not statistically significant.
Read that sentence to yourself, breh.
Bullshyt. I can tell you didn't even read the Vox piece because it went to lengths to factor in and weight the significance of attitudes toward the economy and the conclusion is that racial resentment, not economics is the prime driver of Trump's support.
I wish I made 6 figures.
