Analysts are now digging through the 2016 American National Election Study released last week and political science professor Thomas Wood reached the perhaps not so surprising conclusion that racial bias was a prime motivator for white Trump voters, while white Clinton voters were conversely much less influenced by it.
First, Wood used the answers from about 1,200 respondents nationwide to show how the incomes of 2016 voters corresponded to their candidate. In his research, Wood only analyzed white voters in order to isolate competing motivational factors.
2016 was plainly an anomaly. While the wealthy are usually most likely to vote for the Republican, they didn’t this time; and while the poor are usually less likely to vote for the Republican, they were unusually supportive of Trump. And the degree to which the wealthy disdained the 2016 Republican candidate was without recent historical precedent.
Just to give you a taste, the dashed line in the charts below represents the average likelihood of voting Republican in an election cycle. The plots from left to right correspond to increasing income and, in 2016, the more you made the less likely you were to vote Trump/GOP—really for the first time since 1948 (though only 1988 to 2016 are depicted below).
Wood also charted out how white voters' attitudes toward race corresponded to their choice of candidate.
Rather than asking overtly prejudiced questions — “do you believe blacks are lazy” — we ask whether racial inequalities today are a result of social bias or personal lack of effort and irresponsibility. [...]
Since 1988, we’ve never seen such a clear correspondence between vote choice and racial perceptions. The biggest movement was among those who voted for the Democrat, who were far less likely to agree with attitudes coded as more racially biased. (emphasis added)
Below is a sample of one question, with red/blue data points representing white Republican/Democratic voters’ level of agreement with the statement on a 0–5 point scale. The first response at left starts in 1988 and the final response at right reflects the 2016 response.
Wood also examined how attitudes toward authoritarianism impacted voter choice and found that racism was far more influential this cycle.
The statistical tool of regression can tease apart which had more influence on the 2016 vote: authoritarianism or symbolic racism, after controlling for education, race, ideology, and age. Moving from the 50th to the 75th percentile in the authoritarian scale made someone about 3 percent more likely to vote for Trump. The same jump on the SRS scale made someone 20 percent more likely to vote for Trump.
Racial attitudes made a bigger difference in electing Trump than authoritarianism.