In last year’s presidential election, white voters made up an estimated 71% of the national electorate. That’s a number that for decades has trended downward as the country’s population has diversified, but it’s still more than six times larger than the share of Black and Hispanic voters (11% each) and nearly 25 times that of Asian voters (3%).
In other words, as a group, white voters continue to hold enormous sway and that will persist for the foreseeable future. Typically, the white vote is understood as being Republican-friendly (President Donald Trump carried it by 15 points), with pronounced gender and education gaps. White men sided with Trump in 2024, while white women went with Kamala Harris; white voters who don’t have college degrees strongly backed Trump, while those with at least a bachelor’s degree backed Harris.
But there is a more useful — and revealing — way to understand the politics of white voters, something that is evident in the new NBC News poll. Call this the gap within the gap.
It represents a layering of the education gap (which has exploded during the Trump-era) on top of the more established gender gap. When these are combined, a gaping chasm emerges — and two specific groups come into focus.
On one end are white men without four-year college degrees. This is a generally blue-collar demographic that is now deeply aligned with Trump and opposed to progressive politics. On the other end are white women with at least a four-year college degree. This is a more affluent demographic that has been racing leftward, particularly on cultural issues, and is squarely opposed to Trump.
Both groups pack a formidable punch. Eighteen percent of all voters last year were noncollege white men and 17% were college-educated white women. And they have come to exist in polar opposite political and cultural universes, each one unrelatable and probably unrecognizable to the other.
This is captured vividly in the NBC News poll. Take a very basic question: Do voters have a positive or negative view of Trump? Among all voters — regardless of race, gender or class — 46% have a positive view and 49% a negative one. Among white voters only, Trump is a bit more popular: 52% have a positive opinion compared to 45% who have a negative opinion.
Meanwhile, 69% of white men without a degree view Trump positively and just 28% see him negatively — a 41-point net-positive rating. And among white women with a degree, it’s 29% positive and 67% negative — for a net-negative of 38 points. That adds up to a whopping 79-point net rating gap between these two groups when it comes to their perception of Trump.
When it comes to the various aspects of Trump’s job performance, the splits are just as massive.
This rift extends far beyond Trump himself. The NBC News poll asked voters about a variety of political figures and topics. In every case, the verdict from each end of the gender/education spectrum among white voters couldn’t have been more different.
Of course, there are plenty of white voters who don’t fall into either of these categories. As groups, college-educated white men and non-college white women lack similarly sharp political definition and cohesion. But bringing them into the mix adds another wrinkle. Here, for example, is the question of how Trump and other figures are viewed.
This underscores just how politically distinct non-college white men and college-educated white women are. But it also sets college-educated women apart — they are significantly to the left of all other white voters (and, for that matter, the broader electorate too). This is especially noticeable when it comes to progressive cultural politics, which women with degrees are alone in embracing among white voters.
Take an NBC poll question about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. Voters were read two different statements about DEI and asked which one came closer to their own opinion.
- Statement A: We should continue DEI programs because diverse perspectives reflect our country, create innovative ideas and solutions, encourage unity, and make our workplaces fair and inclusive.
- Statement B: We should eliminate DEI programs because they create divisions and inefficiencies in the workplace by putting too much emphasis on race and other social factors over merit, skills, and experience.
Three of the four groups selected Statement B — all by double-digit margins. But college-educated white women sided with Statement A by nearly 40 points.
What this all means is that white college-educated women have become not just a core Democratic constituency but also a force that has helped to propel the party to the left and magnify its emphasis on cultural issues.
Meanwhile, white men without college degrees have become just as much a core Republican constituency, pushing the party toward cultural positioning and political priorities (like Trump’s tariffs) it had previously shied away from embracing.
It also raises the question of whether these are mutually reinforcing trends — that a GOP fueled by blue-collar men will simply turn off more and more white-collar women, just as a Democratic Party fueled by white collar women will continue to lose more ground among blue-collar men.
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