It's common for people to say there's no way Trump could win given that he's said something offensive about nearly everyracialgroup. "I think the American people are never going to elect a president who insults Mexicans, who insults Muslims, who insults women," Bernie Sanders said at a Democratic debate. After all, based on 2012 exit polls, 28 percent of voters in the 2012 election were people of color, according to the New York Times.
But according to a new analysis of voter registration files, the census, and polls by NYT, that was actually an overestimate. Catalist, a research firm The Times pulled data from, estimates that this number was actually only 24 percent, and there were millions more older, white, working-class Americans at the ballots than previously counted. While exit polls showed 23 percent of voters were white, over 45, and not college-educated, Catalist puts that number at 29 percent, and the census puts it at 30 percent.
This could help explain why Donald Trump's popularity seems surprisingly high: Donald Trump is most popular among white voters without a college degree. 58 percent of this population votes for him, compared to 31 percent voting for Clinton. A recent Quinnipiac University survey found that in swing states Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, Clinton and Trump are virtually tied.
However, Trump is still behind overall, according to The Wall Street Journal. As of Tuesday, Clinton had 15.6 million votes in the primaries, compared to Trump's 13.3. But when pitted against each other, Clinton only leads Trump by two percentage points. A Trump presidency may be a more serious possibility than many of us realize. Stay woke.
